rocketeer

I'm not sure if you guys have this experience. Pots seem to be rather inconsistent. Sometimes they don't work at all. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong. They used to work, but now each time I launch DCS, they'd turn just once and stop responding. I tried assigning to different dials in different panels. I tried different physical pots. All of them, physical pots, different analog pins, different assigned pots in the panels, just stop responding after the first turn.

the interactive control reference still doesn't work for me, or I don't know how to use it properly, but now with the latest download, the two switches, ie. the pot and the push button work like a charm! :thumbup: Four panels done and counting!

wow thanks for your quick response. Let me try it out. thanks as usual!

Hello guys. I've been away for a long time. Survived two family bad events. Now finally into continuing my A10C project. After evaluating interface cards from Leo's boards, Brydling, Groovy gear, Hagstrom, OC, etc. I decided to go for Brydling's. It has the most number of pins for the buck. But after a long time finally heard from him and he said he said he no longer sells those cards. I still wasn't keen on the other cards, and definitely not keen on learning SOIC for OC cards. I recently read about DCS BIOS, but was reluctant to try as I was a bit intimidated by arduino. Its totally foreign to me. And the coding in arduino its like you have to be a java programmer or something. But after watching Ian's youtube videos demoing about easy it is to copy and paste the code and get things working, I decided to take the plunge and bought the mega. Here's the thing. Mega is sold at radio shack at $64. Heard they are slashing prices due to closing down, but not on the price on the mega! At Fry's it sells for $57. Amazon goes for about $42 or $48. I bought the clone at around $17+! One third the price of that at radio shack. In fact I bought three and qualified for free shipping! Since receiving the cards, and after some roadblocks, once I figured out what I was doing wrong, it was smooth sailing. Now I've gotten the fourth panel working (mostly, with some questions about two switches). For those of you still on the fence about arduino and dcs bios, I'd share my lessons learned and you decide for yourself. I'm glad I did. Now every night after work it's wiring and testing the panels. Feels better than beer and ice cream!

Thanks for the info about the pins. Do you know how the following switches are supposed to behave in the HARS panel? 1. the push to sync seems to be a push button to me. but the code says switch2pos. then in the game, when i press the push button, I see it goes down and up quickly. But it works only once. After that when i press the physical push button, it does not respond in the game. Using the mouse click does make it go down and up. I tested it with two other push buttons. Same thing. Once works the first time. 2. The HARS heading is a pot. but when I turn it, I expect it to rotate the dial in the game. Instead, I noticed that it goes down slowly, and up slowly when I rotate the pot! Either I have a totally wrong expectation or it's acting weird. Using the mouse scroll wheel makes it rotate. DCS BIOS is great. I'm now testing fourth panel. More time is spent doing the physical wiring and soldering, joining the common ground etc. and then testing the respond on the COM port DOS prompt window. The code is straightforward copy and paste most of the time without much confusion. I think this is much easier than using those interface cards and then figuring out the lua script for them. Much appreciated Ian for your work!

Ian, thanks for all your help so far. Which pins cannot be used? I see 0 and 1 TX and RX, likewise 14 to 19. Then 20 and 21 says SDA, SCL. Do I avoid all these pins? Then for the Analog pins, can they be used as digital as well?

Ian, In the environment Control Panel, the temp/press switch seems to be a three pos toggle. But I see your code as: const byte envcpTempPressPins[21] = {PIN_0, PIN_1, PIN_2, PIN_3, PIN_4, PIN_5, PIN_6, PIN_7, PIN_8, PIN_9, PIN_10, PIN_11, PIN_12, PIN_13, PIN_14, PIN_15, PIN_16, PIN_17, PIN_18, PIN_19, PIN_20}; DcsBios::SwitchMultiPos envcpTempPress("ENVCP_TEMP_PRESS", envcpTempPressPins, 21); Not using a variable and so many pins. What should I do here?

ok, so I commented out the TCPServer line, and ... IT WORKS! HOLY COW! :shocking: :thumbup: :cheer3nc: Thank you Ian!!! I tried two toggles together, AAP CDU power and EGI power. Both works. But I noticed the first time I flick both of them nothing happens. From second flick onwards then they respond. Or maybe it takes a few seconds to sync. Anyhow, they work, that's good enough for me. :smilewink:

the last line is already BIOS.protocol_io.UDPListener:create({ port = 7778 }) leaving it alone or commenting it out made no difference.

I did not have an export.lua file in scripts folder. When I set up dcs bios, I copied th export.lua file from the zip file, and copied the line 'dofile(lfs.writedir()..[[scripts\DCS-BIOS\BIOS.lua]])'. So the file only has this line of code. As for error dcs.log, please see attached. dcs.zip

i downloaded the latest cygwin. didn't help. Rebooted. The warning still exists. I turned off firewall AND antivirus. DCS is unpaused Tried ArturDCS's ComHandler program Tried the interactive control reference documentation Tried different pins. Tried different toggles. Nothing worked so far.

I wired a 2 pos toggle switch. As I flicked it, I can see on the serial port dos window it says AAP_CDUPWR 1, then AAP_CDUPWR 0 etc. So it senses the toggle switch and its change of state. But when I start A10C game nothing happens. I don't see any switch moving in the game. What am I doing wrong? Anything to do with the FAST_CWD warning?

I finally received my mega. Installed IDE and dcs bios etc. complied code in the sketch and it ran fine. Ran the serial port exe and it says warning: couldn't compute FAST_CWD pointer. I suppose I can ignore this warning?

I noticed a mega clone is about $22. It has 54 pins vs mini pro's 14. So it'd cut down the number of usb cables by 4 times. If I have to go the usb route instead of i2c then i'd get a bunch of mega clones. Having one board per panel is ideal, but if i2c chaining too many board is not good and using one usb per board is too many cables, then using mega is a compromise to reduce cable count and using mega clone to reduce cost instead of arduino brand.

Also, would there be a limit to how many usbs can be connected to a PC, via hubs?

Ian, I noticed your double clicked on some command executable for each board in your youtube when each is linked to PC via USB, to make the boards talk to DCS. Gadroc counted 58 arduinos is needed to power all switches in the A10C cockpit. Does that mean one has to manually double click the exe for each board 58 times?

I appreciate everyone's input so far, but now I'm kinda lost with the discussions. For someone new to Arduino, the discussion about the various techniques is getting too complex for me. I guess no one has yet to wire all panels using Arduino to tell us what works and what doesn't. If we have two I2C buses for for each console, one for the inner and one for outer console, for the left and right consoles, and also two buses for front dash given many instruments, so total six I2C buses, 6 USB to PC. Is this good enough in terms of performance and is it doable?

Given that there are 30+ panels on the A10C, is it really possible to daisy all 30+ panels via I2C without lag for just one USB to PC? Any external power supply required? More importantly is the I2C chaining 30+ panels fast enough?

Thanks Felm for the info about buying from aliexpress. I've bought clothes from there to US. I thought that's all they sell! lol I'm aware it's chinese new year and everything comes to a standstill in china. Anyway I'm still doing research. Given the number of total inputs needed for all panel exceed 300, even with Megas we'd need like 7 of those! So Ian's right, get a mini for each panel will be much cheaper given so many panels and inputs needed.

Assuming most of the time the pro mini has enough pins to cover all the switches in each panel, can you explain again how to daisy chain the boards to create this I2C bus? I saw your youtube video on multiple boards together but lots of wires going in different directions. And additional code is required to make the boards talk? I saw in google this chainduino, daisy chaining boards with cat5 cables. what do you think of that?

Thanks Codetoad and Ian for your replies. Ian, it's a good suggestion to have one Arduino per panel. Never thought of that. But I think some panels require many pins, and the pro mini does not seem to have enough inputs. In those cases I'd have to use a bigger board. When you say pro mini clones, can you give a specific name as example, just in case I buy the wrong one.

After years of absence, I'm ready to resume my a10 cockpit. Then tried to buy Brydling's card but he doesn't sell anymore. Not keen on leo's card or open cockpits. then I saw Ian's DCS BIOS. Read his user guide so now less intimidated by arduino. It shows how we can copy and paste the code and it'd talk to all kinds of switches, encoders, LED, push buttons, pots etc. Blew my mind especially watching the youtubes! Question: for those of us who will be wiring many panels and switches, is the mega the board with the most number of pins? Then there are variants: Mega, MegaADK, Due, Ethermega, Etherdue. Not sure what's the diff. I see most of the time when people say mega it seems to be the mega 2560 R3? Can't wait to get one and try out dcs bios!

Nice setup! It's interesting the way you arranged the monitors. I noticed the horizon doesn't look aligned across the monitors.

Like metalnwood said, you are describing a rotary switch. And the one needed for that panel is either a 30 or 36 deg switch. I've shown in my thread how to adjust the number of stops. In the states I can get the 30 or 45 degrees ones in fry's. Online I buy from digikey or mouser or Newark. Not sure in Europe. Most rotary switches required in the A10C are 45 deg switches. 2 or 3 of the required roatary switches are 30 deg ones.

At the minimum you need one larger hole for the 1/8" or 1/4" thick pot or encoder. For the smaller hole you need to use set screw. If your pot or encoder is flatted on one side it'd hold against the set screw better. Sometimes the knob may jiggle a bit esp if the larger hole is too big. For both holes it's best to drill the appropriate size and enlarge them slowly if too tight. Once it's too big then it'd not hold well. The most secure way is to drill two small holes with two set screws. With two set screws pushing against the pot or encoder shaft it should be very tight and secure, unless the small or larger hole is too big. I've been able to secure many knobs securely this way without any jiggles.