Gameports, pedals, toe brakes and stuff...

[Roger Over 0]

Hi all,In a moment of madness *:-* last weekend I decided to build myself a set of pedals. So.. armed with an old Saitek two axis joystick, some pieces of timber, tools, a cool drink, and my wife looking on and shaking her head slowly from side to side as they do at times, I set to work and ended up with a construction which is IMHO not too bad. Pedals pivot, not slide, but that's OK. I figured the extra effort to make them slide was just not worth it.I connected my contraption up to a second game port and got FU to recognise it OK after a bit of research.Then, being on a bit of a roll (in a manner of speaking) I said to myself, "Myself, why don't you add some toe brakes?" So I set about thinking about toe brakes. Now I think I have the mechanics of it all worked out. But.. when it came to working out how I was going to connect them in to my gameport I hit a bit of a blank.I notice that the official FU read suggests that toe brakes might be connected to device 2 rotate X and Y axis. But how does this map to the pinouts on a gameport connector? Can I use the Joystick B X and Y axis via a Y cable? Do I need to install a driver perhaps?Has anyone done this with a gameport device? I know, I should step into the 21st century and get USB but then we gotta go with what we've got here.Any help greatly appreciated. In the meantime, at least I can manage cross wind landings a bit better. Sometimes I can even get one wheel on the bitumen. So it's all good. :-jumpy Cheers Bruce H

[Guest fu3]

Bruce,I don't believe that FU3 allows for proportional braking, just differential on/off.For my touchdown :-lolRegards,Jon Point

[Roger Over 0]

Hi Jon,Thanks for the feedback. I can live with on/off brakes.I would have thought that the CH setup would use proportional braking tho, and what about the FU suggestion that the toe brakes might be connected to the rotate X/Y axis. That would make them proportional surely?As long as it stops before I hit the wall, that's all that matters. :7 CheersBruce H

[Hans_Petter 1]

You get proportional but not differential. That is, you can't apply more brake pressure to one wheel / one side. Differential braking is neat since it enables you to steer the plane with the brakes (or, keep it going straight) and you can use it for sharp turns in connection with differential thrust. In the latter case you'd revv up the "outer" engine of a twin engine prop (typically a tail dragger as the DC3) and apply brake pressure to the "inner" wheel. This will make it turn 180 degrees on a dime.However, differential brakes are hardly essential for flying and landing modern aircraft. We definitely need proportional brakes though.

[Roger Over 0]

Thanks folks,I must confess to be a little confused :-roll by the proportional/differential thing.Would I be best to use a switch (differential?) or a potentiometer/axis (proportional?) for my toe brakes?And how would I map switches on joy 2 to act as brakes? I can't see any way in the documentation to do this. But I guess it must be possible because Jon has done it.CheersBruce H

[Guest fu3]

I just remapped the keyboard functions for and with "joykeys.cfg" (doesn't anyone read the support docos?) :-hahI use an old CH FS Pro (analog) with the homemade pedals. I WAS using the innards from an old MS Sidewinder 'stick but I threw that and went back to sumfin simple 'coz I couldn't map the CH's buttons with the USB 'stick plugged in !!?!The CH's cable is cut off and rejiggered to get the extra pot and switches cabled into the DB15. One day I'll make it pretty :-roll(from joykeys.cfg);; joybutton bindings;joy_1 Communicatejoy_2 Inflight_Mapjoy_3 left_brake_on 1joy_3_up left_brake_offjoy_4 right_brake_on 1joy_4_up right_brake_off;;BTW, there IS a trick to making it work - you have to modify the flight model to reduce the lateral drag of the tailwheel (for a taildragger), or you'll just slow down when you hit one brake. Pity we can't unlock the steering :-lolRegards,Jon Point

[Hans_Petter 1]

I'm a bit confused now, You list joybutton bindings from joystick.cfgAll I've got there are button assignments for the stick -- there's no pedal-related lines as far as I can see. I've got flaps and trim assigned to joystick buttons.These lines in my flt3.cfg seem to be what makes my rudder pedals and toe brakes work:; joystick setupjoy_device 2throttle_device 2 3rudder_device 1 3toe_brakes_device 1 1 2Is it possible to get differential braking with your commands?Regarding the semantic confusion:"Differential" is a term used to describe the ability to run each one of a pair of controls separately (brakes or power). Differential thrust means different power settings for different engines rather than synchronous performance. Hans Petter

[Guest Allan_D]

Hi FU3 Gang.Bruce, I have a set of the real ones for sale on E-bay if your interested.http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...:MESE:IT&ih=017I still Play with FU3 also, I've never found another flight game that was so much fun. Some of my fun stuff, Wow this runway looks to short for this bird.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/170198.jpgI'm not sure that Boat should be able to flyhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/170199.jpgI've flew some important folks in my planehttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/170200.jpgFU3 is still lots of fun for meHave Fun :-vuurAllan BFU Job Manager and Co-Moderatorand PuppyBush Flying Unlimitedhttp://avsim.com/hangar/air/bfu/logo70.gif

[Roger Over 0]

Hi all!Hands up everyone who is confused at this point. :-yellow1 Gentlemen, I wonder if I am correct in assuming from the above that:-Even though Jon purports to use "Joystick #2 buttons A and B" for toe brakes, the reality is that they are buttons 3 and 4 of joystick #1. There doesn't seem to be a way in the joykey settings to specify joystick #2 that I can see. My "understanding" of the docs is that"joy_3 left_brake_on 1"refers to the 3rd button on joy #1. This would give on/off braking which is not "proportional" to the input? i.e. that brakes can never be soft or hard on, they are just on or off.Hans on the other hand has his brakes wired to:- toe_brakes_device 1 1 2which is axis 1 and 2 on joystick device #1. Because these are "axis'es" (plural axis) they are therefore variable by means of a knob or lever e.g. and are proportional in the sense that brakes may be soft or hard depending on the turn of the lever.Hans is using joystick #2 for pitch and roll input.Or am I totally barking up the rong tree?Have a great weekend everyone.CheersBruce HPS Thanks for the offer Allan, I must admit to having eyed off the CH products, but you don't often see used ones on ebay.PPS from my old analog computing daze (remember analog?) I think that:-"Differential" implies that you can do something to one input/device without affecting the other (I think) e.g. you can brake the left wheel without necessarily braking the right;"Proportional" implies that you can apply a variable amount of input and get a proportionate amount of output (I think)

[Guest fu3]

H-P's method IS the correct one, although shouldn't there be 2 commands (you need to axes for 2 brakes??) ? ;)Mine's just a quick fix in a sly, cheatery (!?) way. It's not proportional because it just uses old microswitches. I never bothered with pots for my brakes - that's a whole lot more pain :-rollAs to the joystick button mapping, you're probably correct - the CH only used 2 buttons, and as I said before, I cut the plug and wired in another, together with the wires for the pedals.Pretty dumb really - but it's better than nothing :-lolPS When you work it out, I'd like to know ;)PPS Does the (do the?) CH pedals have proportional (and differential) brakes?Regards,Jon Point

[Roger Over 0]

Hi again,Yes, there are two axi (is that the plural form?) mapped:-toe_brakes_device 1 1 2 maps joystick #1 axis 1 to the left and axis 2 to the right.The way I understand things (which may be quite rong of course) is that a car has proportional braking because the more pressure you apply, the quicker the car stops. Unless you have ABS which introduces a differential component and imposes some (involuntary) left/right control.Maybe we have both on FU?I'm orf to Glen Innes for the weekend, but will do a bit more checking when I get back.Cheers all,Bruce H

[Hans_Petter 1]

Bruce, it's one axis, two axes (same pronunciation)Jon, are you saying that each toe brake could work independently in FU3? Have you got another set of argument lines to suggest?I use CH predals. They work fine with FS as well as FU3. FS supports differential (independent) toe brakes.Hans Petter

[Lars Peter 0]

Hello.I also use the "CH USB yoke and CH-pedals" for FU3, and this is for me perfect, brakes in FU3 works fine, and for other games also very good.No need for me to build, or do anything mechanik to do it.Read the original supported files from "looking Glass Studios".And from the CH product's web.sites.Lars Peter.:-wave