Saitek/Logitech Panels and P3D - anyone using them?

[pegruder 65]

So I stumbled upon "SimCaptain" on you tube and noticed he uses alot of the saitek/logitech panels to build out his home cockpit.  Looks like he put together a really nice kit with everything but was wondering how compatible these panels were.  I mainly fly PMDG stuff and the FSL bus so if they didn't work with that it would be a waste of investment for me.  Haven't really found any reviews for them to base anything on.  Even searching avsim I only found a few posts of people having issues and not much else.  Anyone think its worth it?  They seem pretty cool, at least from the little I've seen.  For reference, these are what I'm referring to:  https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/flight/flight-simulator-instrument-panel.html

 

Happy new year and happy landings!

[lennie 48]

I have 9 FIPS, 2 radio panels, multipanel and switch panel, controlled and modified by SPAD.Next. Wouldn't fly without them!

[pegruder 65]

1 hour ago, lennie said:

I have 9 FIPS, 2 radio panels, multipanel and switch panel, controlled and modified by SPAD.Next. Wouldn't fly without them!

Good to know!  Are there any incompatibilities?  Which AC do you fly?

[YoYo 374]

I have all panels , 5 FIPs also plus Spad next and FiPgauges. Check his website.

https://www.spadnext.com/home.html

http://www.fipgauges.com/

for me Must to have software if You use Saitek panels.

Edited December 31, 2018 by YoYo

[lennie 48]

Mooneys, Seminole, F27, Saab 340; Phenom 300, Beech Bonanza, Beech Baron, King Air, Grand Caravan, Cheyenne, and Arnold Palmer's Aero Commander, one of my favorites. Not into the heavies and long flights; prefer to stay at 10000 and below to enjoy the Orbx scenery!! Using SPAD.next all FIPS and panels work with all of the above just fine.

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

I've use Satitek Panels for years... the latest P3DV4 drivers work great.  I also have SpadNext, but I don't use it... took too much time to figure it out and I'd rather fly than tweak. Thankfully for those who want or need to use SpadNext, many people upload their aircraft profiles and via SpadNext you can run and/or modify them if needs be.

But for PMDG aircraft, Aerosoft Aircraft, MaddogX, Captain Slim (Shady) and many other aircraft the Logitech/Saitek P3Dv4 drivers work fine.  The Majestic Dash 8 Q400 (one of the two best aircraft ever developed for desktop flight sim - and I don't make that statement lightly) has a unique radio stack thus you'll need SpadNext for full function in the Dash 8.

I hope this is helpful to you.

 

Best wishes!

[pegruder 65]

Thanks for all the replies and info!  It sounds like itll pretty much work with everything I have except the FSL bus - which kinda sucks as I've had the airbus bug for awhile.  Adding these panels may make me go back to the PMDG NGX again however.  Sounds like a winning combo of these panels and a bunch of my goflight stuff.  Only part of this that kinda sucks is my middle monitor is bigger and a different resolution - I don't know if I'll be able to get the views right with the mismatch in parts, but that may be a separate post altogether...

 

Happy new year all!

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

Hello Chris!

I used to use three 23-inch monitors with my sim across all three.  I did this for several years, but then went back to using 1 monitor for the sim and other monitors for things like Vpilot, Avilasoft EFB, Navigraph Charts, Aerosoft's NavDataPro Charts, Stream Software, Stream Chat software, VATSPY, etc. etc. etc..  I then added a 55-inch 4K TV and, well, I just love it!  Note please that I found the 55 inch 4K was too big, and if I had to do it over again (and well many sometime in 2019) go to something between 40 and 43 inches... just better for flight sim.

Though I've run with 2 different graphics cards at times, I have usually run all those monitors on a single NVIDIA card without any issues whatsoever. Today I'm using a single and vanilla GTX1080.

A photo on my system is below.

My very best wishes!

Edited December 31, 2018 by DaveCT2003

[kama2004 74]

I use the switch panel and the autopilot panel with the Airbus using LINDA and the library that was made for the airbus by Linda creators. 

I assigned to the switch panel the following functions: Baro HPA/HG switch, BARO STD, Park Brake, Transponder (3 buttons for TA/RA, ALT and ON), Packs ON/OFF, Dome light, Beacon, Strobe, Taxi and Landing light.

For the AP panel, I assigned one of my yoke button as a SHIFT key to Linda which allow me to simulate the Push or Pull functions of the Autopilot. I assigned to the various buttons the following functions : AP ON (shifted OFF), HDH push (shifted PULL), HDG/TRK & VS/FPA, SPD push (shifted pull), Alt push (shifted pull), A/THR on (shifted OFF), Spoiler ARM (shifted disarm).

The radio panel is working partly but I don't bother trying to improve it. I can put a frequency in the standby portion of the radio panel (but it doesn't change in the VC standby radio display). If I push the Xfer button, the frequency will become active correctly both on the Saitek panel and in the VC. It is faster to use the pop-up radio in the VC.

  

[pegruder 65]

I ordered one for now.  Ill mess around with it and see how ill set it up and put it to use.  If it works well Ill add more.  What powered USB hub does everyone run for these?

[pegruder 65]

Ok folks, just got the FIP!  If im going to use spad - do I still need the stock logitech driver and plugin package for P3d v4?  I dont want to load up anything extra that might mess things up...

 

EDIT: Seems stock drivers are required.

 

I cant seem to get rid of the Saitek "advertisment" slideshow thats on the displays...  Any ideas what Im doing wrong?

Edited January 5, 2019 by pegruder

[ejy1 0]

Dave, where did you obtain the P3DV4 drivers from? I have looked on the Logitech website and they only have 32 bit drivers. If you can help me out it would be most appreciated!

Cheers, 

John

[micstatic 4,319]

isn't this what you are looking for?

https://download01.logi.com/web/ftp/pub/techsupport/simulation/Prepar3Dv4_Plugin_x64_Software_8.0.150.0.exe

[rob0203 689]

This is my setup with PMDG NGXu 

Overhead and FMC touchscreen via https://www.flightsimapps.com/

MCP Combo VR insight

The PFD and ND Undocked to second screen

Standby instruments and EICAS via FSxpand on third screen

So basically the whole 737 cockpit but not really expensive! 😉

Gr.

Robert