MarkDH

On 10/3/2021 at 9:35 AM, kotzejohan said:

Can a Leo Bodnar card mange a motorized autothrottle?

Since you just said 'Leo Bodnar card' I presume you mean a USB interface such as the BBI-32, BBI-64 or BU0836X. These are HIDs that provide 32 or 64 digital (ON/OFF) inputs and (for the BU0836X) an 8-way hat switch and eight 12-bit analogue axes. I think the digital inputs can also be wired up to provide LEDs to show the state of the inputs. The digital inputs can optionally be configured in pairs to manage rotary encoders.

I guess this could help you interface to a motorized autothrottle, depending on what its input and outputs are. I have no experience with any such thing but if the autothrottle was a device that could take UP/DOWN commands as digital inputs and this caused it to operate a potentiometer, then it seems likely you could wire it up with a Bodnar board.

7 hours ago, yellowjack said:

I currently have my Trackir controls (on/off & center) bound to keyboard buttons. I would very much like to bind these controls to my Warthog Throttle or Stick buttons in MSFS. Is this possible and if so how can this be accomplished?

Using FSUIPC to send keystrokes seems like a long way round! The most obvious way to do this is in the TrackIR control panel's Profile page, where there is an area to set the hotkeys. I don't have the Warthog, but the only problem I can envisage is if it has more than 32 buttons and the TrackIR driver uses the legacy Direct Input API, in which case it wouldn't see some of them.

4 hours ago, Ray56 said:

Maybe I should assume that the yoke is faulty and get a replacement?
Any other comments would be appreciated.

A hardware fault always seems the least likely explanation to me, but in this case it seems your have something wrong. I am pretty convinced that the yoke should show up in Windows whether or not it needs a driver. Generally, when you plug a device in Windows will detect it, then try to install it using whatever drivers it has available, and then complain if it can't find a suitable driver. This is why the Logitech instructions don't want you to plug it in unil they're ready, because they want to subvert the standard driver installation. In your case it looks like the device is simply not being detected by Windows. Can we assume you have tried different USB ports? I would think it's more likely that you have a faulty USB port or connection than a faulty yoke, particularly as you said it worked before, so that's worth ruling out. I would also follow some of the suggestions in this thread in case you have some kind of phantom device driver issue.

23 hours ago, Alleusai said:

I think you've pointed right... so how to disable controller in P3D?

There is a check box labelled 'enable controllers'. You just need to make sure it's unchecked 😉

54 minutes ago, Ray56 said:

My PC is not recognising it as it is not appearing in hardware or my game device manager HID or USB lists. From my research on the internet it would seem that a number of people have this problem and some suggest that the problem is related to a windows 10 update.

I can't contradict that as I have little experience with Windows 10 and don't have the Saitek yoke any more. But it seems very unlikely that the Saitek yoke would work driverless in Windows vista, XP and 7 but then suddenly need a driver in Windows 10. I still can't tell which sim you're using, but perhaps you mean MSFS?

1 hour ago, Ray56 said:

Can anyone help please? 

Do you really want to use the Logitech programming software? It's not necessary, although from memory it will allow you to make use of the 'mode' switch, which can be otherwise quite fiddly. The yoke doesn't need a driver, it's a standard HID. Also you don't seem to say which sim you are using, which will be relevant to how you can program the yoke. I am assuming you have checked that the yoke actually works - i.e. by looking a tthe Windows game controller screen (or whatever it's called in Windows 10).

7 hours ago, somiller said:

Maybe attention to detail isn't your thing

That's my favourite part 😃

Oh well, it's your £2K, so you'll get what you deserve.

1 hour ago, somiller said:

I've been curious since I first heard of them, but was NOT impressed with most reviews as it seemed the reviewers didn't really understand the software and setup.

Well, you can't know if they didn't understand the software or if the software just wasn't that good! I'm still not sufficiently convinced to spend £2K on one of these until I could read or hear something very detailed about the software. Specifically, how the yoke can be programmed to interact with the simulator at the required level of detail. Someone here or in another thread has said it can respond to gusts and wind shear, turbulence, etc., which is encouraging but also that that requires X-Plane. For me it would need to be able to do this in MSFS (or to be fair, MSFS needs to have the capability). My only experiments with FFB in FSX required FS Force, which was a very crude program that only simulated two 'real' effects, the moving centre position for setting elevator trim and increasing firmness with speed (which had the consequence of drooping the elevators at low speed, as someone mentioned here). it also added a few special effects, such as ground rumble and yanking the yoke to denote turns on the ground. These features don't add up to £2K in my estimation.

1 hour ago, CLE_AA-5B_GrummanTiger said:

Why would it be a game changer? To track without moving my head and just using my eyes? Isn't that enough of a sell? 🙂 

No, it isn't. How are you expecting the view to be controlled by tracking your gaze? In the FSX version it worked like using the hat switch - in other words, you stared at the left hand side of the screen and it started to pan the view left until you looked at the centre, at which point it stopped panning. This is a completely unnatural way of moving the view and in practice it was pretty useless.

3 hours ago, CLE_AA-5B_GrummanTiger said:

I'm *very* intrigued by the idea of it using eye gaze to track instead of head movements. That would be such a game changer

You need to think through why you believe it would be a game changer. For now, gaze tracking currently isn't supported in MSFS anyway so it's just a more expensive head tracker. But even if they choose to support gaze tracking, there is no clear model of what it would do. I tried the Tobii v1 in FSX and to the extent that the gaze tracking worked at all, using it to move the view was clunky and illogical. Id get a TrackIR :)

3 hours ago, jackdleach said:

When I come in for a gusty crosswind, the yoke absolutely will jerk in my hand.  It's not just some vibration feedback... the yoke actually moves, varying amounts, with force, as it would in a real plane.

Yes, if it really does that it's probably a lot more useful than generic FFB software.

5 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Even a fairly generic Force Feedback is vastly better than none at all. 
The fact that you can customise the feedback to exactly match your actual real life plane is a bonus not a downside.

Customisation is all very well, but it depends what's available to customise. I would question whether 'generic' FFB adds very much, in my experience it really doesn't. FS Force was the state of the art when I tried out the Iris Dragonfly yoke a couple of years back and that really didn't add anything meaningful beyond trim and firming up the controls with speed. These added a little bit but neither was worth the extraordinary price of admission and it's a stretch to see how either of these could be considered 'vastly' better than non-FFB. It's worth reminding people that the 'affordable' Brunner yoke costs 20% more than the Yoko+ but has about the same pitch travel as a Saitek or Honeycomb yoke.

To me, what would add genuine value is an opportunity to really feel what's going on in the atmosphere (i.e. feedback). This would be simulating such things as gusts, turbulence and wind shear - and I mean really simulating them, not just rumbling the yoke like an XBox controller. Perhaps Brunner's CLS2Sim allows such things but I doubt it because such feedback needs to be intimately entwined with the simulator. It's really hard to get any concrete information on CLS2Sim and posts like the one I was commenting on, from actual users, are not encouraging.

25 minutes ago, jackdleach said:

"when it comes to software config for your specific sim/plane, you're more or less on your own" approach

Hearing that, it's hard to see this as anything other than a very expensive brick 😐

4 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Yoko looks excellent but only has 45 degree on the aileron axis

Yoko has 60 degrees (actually more like 65 if you measure it).

This ('side-by-side') is a common feature (as a PiP option). For example, it is included on my new monitor (Acer EB321HQUC) but I also have a little dongle that will combine two HDMI signals onto any monitor. On most monitors this obviously can't show two 16:9 sources into a full-screen picture, but presumably an ultrawide would work better.

Just noticed the damper kits are back in stock 😃

1 hour ago, flyinpilot212121 said:

Any recommendations for something basic that won’t break the bank

The hat clip

22 minutes ago, Bartolet7 said:

I have TM pedals and can't imagine sim flying without them. But I'm also a pilot IRL so it might just be inherent to my using the real things. No way could I get used to twisting a joystick grip to replicate what my feet are trained to do.

In my experience (Logitech 3D stick) the problem with a twist grip is it’s very hard to keep rudder control independent of ailerons and elevators. Better than nothing, though, and obviously much better than the keyboard, which is near-useless for rudder control.

54 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I can't imagine flying an aircraft without rudder pedals. How can you make a crosswind landing for one thing? 

Yes, this is really the argument and it's why a good set of rudder pedals is absolutely worthi investing in. Flying coordinated turns in the sim isn't such a big deal, although maybe it depends on which sim you have. Mostly though, it's really hard to do because you have to rely on visual cues, which generally means fixating on the turn coordinator on the panel.

When A2A released AccuFeel I made some attempt to suggest they add sound cues for being out of balance. They ignored me but I've tried such experiments myself since, with various degrees of enthusiasm. You can do it with something like Air Manager and I think FSUIPC's sound library functions from a Lua program. For my most entertaining experiement, see below 

I asked Milan about availability and he said it should be available 'in 10-15 days'. He didn't say why it went unavailable! I did notice the website description has changed to recommend the V1/V2 kit over the V3 one, as the V3 will always be slightly asymmetrical. Otherwise we can only speculate on why there has been a delay.

34 minutes ago, micstatic said:

I noticed the same thing as @fppilot.  is there anywhere else to buy this damper kit from?

You can buy the 'Combat' upgrade kit from Replika Gear. This gives you the adapter plate and also new footbeds. You then have to buy the damper itself from Amazon or elsewhere. It'll be more expensive, but you will end up with what you need. (This is the guy who designed the mod, by the way.) If you have the V3 pedals you can go ahead and buy the damper anyway as you don't need the adapter plate, although it looks like you will also need to source two bolts and bushings (stand-offs) elsewhere.

35 minutes ago, Kilo60 said:

Surprised nobody is using this?

Well it costs over twice as much and has a 33% narrower FoV. The eye tracking capability is irrelevant for MSFS because it isn't supported (and there is no good model of what it would do if it was supported). I had the Tobii EyeX v1 and it wasn't much use with FSX or anything else. It also had restrictions on how close you needed to be and the maximum size of screen it supported, although I see those restrictions only apply to gaze tracking. The original didn't do head tracking, so maybe that works well and would indeed be an asset if it works robustly without a wearable target. I presume it can distinguish facial features (probably eyes and mouth), the question is whether it can do so accurately enough.

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

I agree the hatclip works fine, and you don't have to wear headphones, which to me are a real PIA

Right. And it's wireless. 

7 hours ago, Nyxx said:

It make the TrackIR so much more precise and useable in any light.

Not more precise. If you get the lighitng right, the hat clip's exactly the same (just less hassle).

On 6/27/2021 at 12:53 PM, killthespam said:

1) yes, I was referring to the footrests, at the end there is that bump/stopper that keeps your feet in place from sliding off from the pedals.  On my unit for some reason, I can't find any way of removing that line at the end.

You could try flipping them over and mounting them face-down. You might need longer bolts, as the holes are only recessed on one side. (And you would probably want dome-headed bolts, as they won't be recessed )