Warhog

Thanks jG14. That's what I did. I'm just unsure of where the actual number for the brightness goes and if it's static, trigger or script.

As the post says, how do I adjust the brightness of LEDs in Helios. I see there is a brightness setting but where do I insert the value or number to set brightness? Is it a static value or part of a script. Thanks.

Just make sure that it will work for you on your system. Mine sits gathering dust as the Displaylink Driver is not very good in Win7 64bit. It caused all sorts of problems and had to uninstall it. Do some research about Displaylink drivers first. You might not want to buy it after that.

Thanks X-ray Specs. I Was quite pleased myself with how it turned out. I just have have a CDU to build and I'm done. :)

Yes I realise that. In fact I have 7 POTS for Lighting and volume control already wired and working. The problem is there is no binding that I can find in Helios that lets me use a POT with NVG to adjust the GAIN. It requires a push button to both increase and decrease gain. I'm hoping I either missed something or someone has a work around to make this happen. Or else it just can't be done with a POT.

Hi Guys Need a little help with Helios again. When building my panels I alocated room for a toggle switch to control my night visions goggles. I also put in a pot to control the gain but to my surprise there doesn't appear to be a control in Helios that allows you to use a pot for gain. Its a push button situation. See top left panel on pic below. IMG_0044.jpg Question: Is there still a way to use a pot to increase/decrease gain on the NVG's without having to revert to push button switches? Second question is related to flaps control or more specifically flap position. I will put in a gauge at some point in time but for the present I would like to use a series of LEDS to indicate what position the flaps are in. And since I have bought another Phidgets 64 board I have an abundance of LED's I could use to do this. Is there any way to make Helios set an LED to on when the flaps are at up, at 7 degrees down or all the way down? One final question... I always have to reset my switches at the beginning of of a cold start so that everything is off before the A-10 completely loads up and is ready to start. I'm not sure how I would handle starting a mission if its an in air beginning of mission or a runway start. Because of this, would it be better to allow Helios complete control over all my switches. Right now they are pre-programmed on the I/O board I use and then I use the options page in DCS to assign the button numbers and key assignments from the I/O board. Thanks for your help.

Thank you JG14. That's what I wanted to hear. I only have 72 switches, 12 pots and 63 LEDS so I have a way to go yet. I just wanted to make sure I didn't outpace what my PC or Helios could handle. Thanks for the backup tips. I do a daily backup automatically and I never save anything in Helios unless all is attached. I didn't realize that bindings would be lost if your device is not attached. Can I ask what interface boards have you been using? These UHID boards by Ultimarc were really easy to program but I have had two out of two fail on me and although they were replaced at no cost to me, Its still a pain to have to deal with it. I wouldn't mind trying another type of board for my next 50 or 100 switches :music_whistling: but something that is easy to program and not necessarily programmed in Helios. The UHID boards allowed me to do some very precise actions when it came to switches and I really liked that.

Are there any limits to how many interface boards you can use on a Win 7 64bit OS. I have one Phidgets board and two U-HID boards by Ultimarc and I want to add another 2 U-HID boards and at least another Phidhgets 64 board for additional LED control. The Ultimarc U-HID boards have their own config software so they're programmed on their own although the pots they drive and the Phidgets boards all run through Helios. Maybe Helios has a limitation as well, I don't know. It seems as though I have a switch fetish as I just can't have enough switches and buttons :smilewink:. Thanks.

I fixed it. The problem was when I entered the module manager it could not connect with the DCS server to verify my serial numbers. The reason it could not connect was the login box has my login name and password in it. The password is ***** so I can't see it and apparently it got screwed up from the crash and was incorrect. When I put in my correct password it verified me and inserted my serial numbers so all is OK. I had no reason to suspect my password got messed up and since you can't see anything but ********, you assume that it is correct. Thanks people for helping me.

The crash happened when I was configuring my UHID board as I have a number of panels that I built for my cockpit. I had Helios open and the DCS options page open and the UHID config utility running. At one point everything locked up and I had to shut down by hitting reset. Apparently that left a huge chunk of messed up files that CHDSK had to fix. AFter that I had issues getting DCS to run. I rebooted twice and after that DCS ran but thats when the serial numbers were no longer there. All I have is the event logged in Windows but I have no log files to post.

Yes I can log into the site and my serial numbers are all there. When I logged into the module manager this afternoon I saw there were no longer any serial numbers showing. They were there a few days ago before my crash. I checked out the module manager shortly after downloading 1.2.4 and the Huey. Everything was there and in all was in order.

Yes, everything was fine until I had a crash a few days ago. This is my first ever problem and I'm not sure what to do to get me up and running again.

Yes they are all there.

I had a crash last week and didn't noticed anything strange about DCS until I tried to log on to multiplayer. I got a big NOOOOOOOOOOO (not authorized). :( When I checked the module manager none of my serial numbers were in those boxes. :huh: How do I go about adding my serial numbers back in. :helpsmilie: I have four modules I need to do this for, A10, CA, P-51 and the Huey. I tried doing a copy/paste but those boxes that hold the serial numbers won't accept the paste.

I've been building Panels for my A10 and the most recent one was a caution panel using a Phidgets board and Helios. C Panel by JFWall, on Flickr I had just finished adding an AOA indexer for the side of my screen and I had it configured in Helios and tested it in Helios and it worked fine. All of my other lighting such as my nav panel, Master caution light, fire indicators all had been working great in my A10. But when I went to try out the AOA indexer in the sim nothing worked. It was as if I had not started the Helios profile at all. I started right from scratch and went into the profiler and it shows DCS is the interface, I loaded the Phidgets software, then TrackIR, then the Helios profile and then started the A10 for a ramp start. Turned on the battery and nothing... usually the caution panel lights up instantly but everything was dead. Please help me fix this. I have been racking my brain as to why this has happened. BTW, one other thing happened between the last time it worked and now was I installed the Huey and the 1.2.4 upgrade. Could the upgrade be the cause? I really don't understand Helios that well in terms of how it works inside of DCS and my programming skills are zero so as much as I can build panels and make them work I have no idea what is happening in the background. John BTW I included some pics of my what I have built so far. Panel 2 by JFWall, on Flickr IMG_0053.jpg by JFWall, on Flickr IMG_0051.jpg by JFWall, on Flickr My Pit by JFWall, on Flickr

Thanks JG14. I was please with how it came out. I have a second one finished as well. Maybe I will post these in a new thread so others can see whats possible. I think you talked me into it. I'll buy another board. You can never have enough lights:thumbup:

I have been using a Phidgets 64 board to setup my LED's in my Caution Panel. It works really well and is super easy to setup. Here's a shot of my Caution Panel. Almost finished wiring it. Panel 2 by JFWall, on Flickr Here's where I need some help. I ran out of connections!!!:( I need to control 6 more LED's and I sure don't want to spend $120 for another Phidgets board just to do 6 more LED's. I could find a few more LED's to add to the new controller board but its still not worth spending that kind of money for 6 to 8 LED's. Could someone receommend a good, easy to use (idiot proof) board to handle maybe 8 to 10 LED's without breaking the bank in the process? I've seen whats out there but I don't know how good they are or how easy to use so I'm looking for some personal experience as well. Thanks guys. John

I just wanted to let you know that it wasn't a Win 8 issue with your Phidgets problem. I'm running Win 7 and had exactly the same problem until I replaced the Helios/Phidgets.dll files with the same but newer files from the Phidgets directory. That made it all work perfectly. After reading your thead I assumed that your fix was necessary only because you were running it in Win 8 so I spent several hours trying to figure out why mine didn't work when everyone else had theirs functioning just fine in Win 7. As a last resort I copied those same files as you did and now it runs just fine. So whatever version of Windows, its seems to be just good practice to do this file swap regardless of what you are running. And BTW, I'm like a kid with a new toy.:D I am so excited to have my U-HID board and my Phidgets board working. My cockpit is getting closer each day.:pilotfly:

Sabre-TLA I could not get your link to work and the screen shot came up blank. Any chance you could try it again or email me the attachement to me. And yes I do believe you are correct. I've just started some researching into the caution panel and I see how it can work with Helios. The exact specifics are yet unknown to me so any help you and others can supply would be a great help.

First I want to say thanks for the comments on my panels. I was very please with how they came out and once I have the whole thing together I'll post some pics. Secondly thanks to all for the support on Helios. I was rather discouraged with it at first. Problem was the long threads about how someone fixed a problem and then someone else tried it and that didn;'t work for him so he eventually posted a different solution and this kept gpoing on and on until you didn't know what or who was correct. When you don`t have in depth knowledge of a piece of software you don`t want to experiment for fear of cause major issues with the sim and then I would have to start all over. Not appealing at all. Well now I have my pots working perfectly in Helios and that of course translated into working pots in my A-10. Excellent.:) I couldn`t be more pleased. Thanks mr_mojo97. Your tip made it all happen. But at the same time thats what is scary about Helios. How would I have ever found that out if not for this forum. So now its back to the shop to continue the work developing my panels. I can`t wait to get it all wired up and take my A-10 out for a spin.;) There is one little bit that I`m unsure about. Can I get Helios to send info to my board to light up my caution panel. Is that possible. Thanks again everyone for all your input.:)

Well I finally got Helios to see my board. :thumbup: So now I really need help!!:helpsmilie: Well maybe not yet. But I do have a few questions. As I'm using physical switches and have no intention of using another screen for Helios instruments can I just bind my switches to A10 functions and then run the profile. There won't be any graphics involved at all because I don't want to take a hit in my fps. And, believe me I do... even with a GTX670 and an i-3770. All I would like to do is to use Helios as a means of making my switches communicate with the sim. Or, do I have to actually create switches on the screen as well. One other quick question. I want to control light in the cockpit and volume for the radios by using pots on my UHID board. If you drag from the actions side a decrease light command and an increase light command over to the bindings side and drop them both onto a slider or lets say the x-axis will it know that when you turn your pot one way it increases the light and turning it the other way decreases the light? Or is there another setting I need to apply? The reason I ask is with toggle switches it appears you have to choose commands for both press and not press and then assign values to each side of the switch to tell it what to do. There is no such detailed configuration for sliders or axis. Looks like I may start using Helios after all.:thumbup:

I may be off base here but its my understanding that Helios doesn't work yet with the new upgrade of A10 and requires some tweaking that is yet to happen??? Anyway, Iif you are right then I need to overcome my first problem in that Helios does not see my U-HID board as an interface. Why would that happen. I've tried all sorts of things to make it see the board but to no avail. If that doesn't work then I'm dead in the water before I even get started. Sorry if I sound a bit frustrated but I would like it to work without spending hours trouble shooting. :( Second, if I can resolve that issue, can I just choose to operate just my pots through Helios and everything else through the A10 options/control page. That would reduce the load Helios places on my machine...I think?? ANy help would be welcome.:helpsmilie:

Is there any other way. I have not had good experiences with Helios so far. Just a few minutes ago I started up the profile editor and when I went to select an interface my board did not show up in the list. I had it on and a profile loaded so it should have been recognized. There is so little docuementation on Helios that I'm not sure I can successufully use it to run the pots. I am assuming that Helios changes certain lua files to make it work. Thats what I want to do and bypass using Helios if thats possible. But regardless I am going to need some help. I'm good at building stuff but when it comes for working with certain software packages I am at a loss. I actually had the LOZ profile working for me at one time but the fps drop was huge and I even had Aero running at the time. Go figure. See my specs below. Not to shabby but I still took a huge hit so I have stayed away from Helios.

Well I just jumped in with both feet and started a cockpit. I have the panels underway and have a U_HID card for I/O. I did a quick check of the switching and all of my toggles are working so I'm pretty happy about that. Everything will be back lit and I intend to also have a working CDU and Caution Panel as well as larger MFDs than the Cougar ones I presently use. I have a small TAIG CNC mill that I use for the engraving and cutting. The panels were done in AutoCAD 2013 and DXF`d to CAMBAM for the g-code development. Here is a couple of picks of my panels in various states of completion: These panels are not exact replicas as I don't have room for a full cockpit so I am building for what will fit in my limited space. This means doing some creative alterations to some of the panels as you have probably already noticed. The U-HID card I just purchased is quite veristile in that I can select pulsed switching for my toggles and an On-off switch only uses one input. I have wired up some 10K pots and they work great. There is a alot of adjustments in the U-HID cfg software for calibrating the pots to act in many different ways. Here is the problem that I need your help with. The pots show up as an axis in the A-10 options/control page which is a real problem for me. I want to use them to control things like volume on the UHF and VHF radios, adjust the interior lighting and formation lighting from the lighting panel on the right side of the cockpit, etc. All of these functions show in the options/control page as button presses and there is no opportunity to use a slider or potentiometer to adjust the level of whatever function I need. I have seen numerous cockpit builds with pots so there must be a way to use them in this fashion. Please help me solve this issue. The other problem I have is with the caution panel. The U-HID board will control numerous leds from the game software but I don't know how to make DCS A10 talk to the board to turn the leds on when required. I also want to have the landing gear down lights activated. These problems have stopped me cold in the further development of my cockpit so any help with solving these problems would most appreciated. BTW, I have spent a whole day going through numerous threads on this board searchinjg for answers but all I found were solutions that are no longer relevant as they were discussed two years ago and things have changed alot since then.

Yes I had Aero on as per the readme file that described how to set things up. Actually tried it both ways but I didn't see any major difference. I used the LOZ package without making any changes except o the monitor sizes. I also used EMC to set up my exports and that worked out just fine after some fiddling as the latest download of DCS World changed a few things. It sure would be nice to have a short consise brief as to how Exactly Helios, support files and DCS are setup to work together. It took a lot of time reading through threads on who had what problem and how it was fixed etc,etc etc. Trying to piece it altogether to make Helios run properly was a major effort and even after all that it ran so slow, or I should say A10 ran so slow as to make it no longer worth the effort. If someone could walk us newbies through it I would give it another go. I'm sure Thick8 would appreciate it as well.