Ranma13

Every time someone posts one of these, there's inevitably someone else who will say "you can't feel g's with it" while forgetting the fact that in order to feel constant g's, you also need a constant acceleration. Unless you're in the actual aircraft or in a centrifuge, there's no way to recreate g's except in very short bursts while staying in one place.

There are two ways of wiring up this switch to the Arduino Mega: 1. Wire up GROUND to the common terminal (the terminal that connects to every arm), then connect each arm of the switch into its own input pin on the Arduino Mega. This is the simple way, since you can read each input pin directly. You will need to set each input pin as INPUT_PULLUP so that when it's not connected to anything, it will be HIGH. When the switch is turned so that it makes a connection from GROUND to the input pin, it will be LOW, and that's how the Arduino knows that the switch is 'pressed'. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/DigitalPins 2. Wire up each arm of the switch so that it acts as a voltage divider and treat the switch as if it was an analog axis. Each switch will then occupy a 'band' on the axis, and using software you can determine which position the switch is in depending on the analog axis value. The advantage of doing it this way is that you only need one analog input, but the downside is that it's more difficult to set up and requires software support. Right now you're trying to do #2, but it sounds like you don't have a good grasp of what you're trying to do, so I recommend that you switch to #1 instead. It requires a lot more pins, but it's also a lot easier to understand, and unless you plan to implement a ton more controls, the Mega has enough pins to spare. As for DCS BIOS, I find that unless you know what you're doing, it's not a good place to start. DCS BIOS interfaces directly with the sim and gives you access to more controls than you would normally have access to, but it also needs to support the aircraft and you really need a solid understanding of how it works to use it effectively. For most people, what they really want is just a button box that looks like a joystick device and can be bound through the DCS controls configuration. In this case, I recommend looking into MMJoy2. You will have to pick up a new board because only certain ones are supported: https://github.com/MMjoy/mmjoy_en/wiki/Controllers-(compatible-base-boards But it gives you a lot of flexibility in how you want to configure each control. The downside is that MMJoy2 is not exactly user-friendly and it takes a while to figure out, even if you know what you're doing (the docs are ok, but not great). Another viable option is to pick up a Teensy 3 and use its USB joystick library: https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_joystick.html It's a little easier to use, especially if you have programming experience, but you lose out on being able to define axis curves, deadzones, hysteresis, etc. that MMJoy2 gives you. If you want to stick with the Arduino Mega though, you'll either have to use DCS BIOS, or find a way to get it to act as a USB joystick, though this is definitely very involved: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/61260/how-do-i-get-my-arduino-mega-2560-registered-as-a-game-controller

Can you elaborate on what makes the FFB2 feel better than the G940? I have the FFB2, but stopped using it due to the lack of mounting holes, the rather large size of the base, the lack of buttons, and the 'force deadzone' issue which I explain here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=185028 But lately I've been thinking about either picking up a G940 or modding the FFB2 into a new base, doing the resistor mod to double its power, and putting a T-50 stick on it.

This is a result of the new deferred rendering engine. In DCS 1.5, the exported panels match the primary screen, but in DCS 2.2+, they use a new rendering system that takes gamma into account for the primary screen, but not for the exported screens. There's also a color tint that's applied to the final image, which will also tint the MFD displays. As a result, you'll notice 2 things for all aircraft that can export a display: 1. Colors will be different across the primary and exported screens. Green text on the exported display is your typical green, but looks more blueish-green on the primary display. Red and yellow text will appear more orange and light-yellow on the primary screen. 2. The primary display will always be significantly brighter than the exported displays. The color tint can be disabled by editing DCS World\Bazar\shaders\deferred\Tonemap.fx and commenting out everything from line 105 to line 110: /* disable color grading if(flags & TONEMAP_FLAG_COLOR_GRADING) { float gradingFactor = 1.0; screenColor = lerp(screenColor, ColorGrade(screenColor, uv/pixelSize), gradingFactor); } */ Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix the difference in brightness.

This is correct. With a TV where you usually sit 3+ feet away from it, the curve does nothing. But for a monitor where you're usually 1.5 feet away from it or even closer, the curve makes a big difference. On a flat ultrawide, you feel that the corners are further away from you and that you're looking at it from an angle instead of head-on. On the curved ultrawide, this effect is significantly reduced, and the corners appear to be the same distance away from you as the center, and the corners appear only slightly angled or not at all.

This is a very involved question as there are multiple ways to accomplish this, but to start you off, you can look into MMJoy2, which allows you to set up an Arduino or Arduino-like device as a USB HID joystick.

I think he's saying that he was flying the M2000 and shot down a friendly Ka-50 because it didn't IFF as friendly.

Brunner only supports force feedback through their plugin, which only supports FSX, Prepar3D, and X-Plane. DCS uses DirectInput FFB, which Brunner does not support.

For the price, there's going to be very few people who are going to purchase it. Brunner makes devices for the general aviation sim market, which is much larger market. As much as we would love for them to support DCS, the reality is that it's just not worth their time to write a plugin for DCS for the few dozen orders that they'd get.

Altitude will also have an effect. You can be really rough with the helicopter near ground level, but if you're 3,000m up, you have to handle the helicopter very gingerly.

I designed and 3D printed a right angle backplate for the UFC that allows it to be mounted to a horizontal surface: It needs M3x25mm screws to mount the UFC to the backplate and M4 screws to mount the backplate to a horizontal surface. You can find the CAD file here: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/70b54d9a223fdd1bdb34a510/w/d2c7520c7143ce8ecba0a370/e/fa184f568e4594546b9cd449 You need an Onshape account to view it, but it has the full edit history and you can modify any part of it. There are some revisions I need to make though for version 2: 1. I forgot to add a hole for the middle screw and had to drill my own. 2. The extrusion and inset for the M3 nut on the back side is too small and the nut doesn't fit inside the groove. As a result, I had to file mine down in order to get the screw to reach the nut. In retrospect, this is an unnecessary feature and I'll be removing it. 3. The backplate is 3mm thick all around, but this is still a bit too thin and causes the 3D print to flex a bit when the UFC is not mounted to it. It's quite sturdy when the UFC is mounted, but a little thicker wouldn't hurt. 4. The edge fillet is unnecessary. I was concerned that the edge might be too sharp without it, but it turns out that the 3D print can't make that sharp of an edge to begin with. 5. The M4 channel can be a bit larger. I set it to a diameter of 4.5mm, but it can easily be 5mm, allowing for more tolerance. 6. I will add a second M4 channel on the inner side of the 2 legs, which not only adds another mounting option, but also adds more support for the legs. One thing I'm considering for version 2 is whether I should add a flange to the top and bottom edges, like how a rack mount plate has. This will increase its rigidity by a lot, but because the 3D print is not perfectly flat for something this large, I'm concerned that it will be too rigid and the UFC won't sit flat against it when mounted. In any case, if version 2 works out, I'll post up a Shapeways link for anyone who wants their own copy.

The vertical height of the viewable area on a 7" 16:9 monitor is too small for the MFD. Ideally you'd want a 7" 4:3 monitor, but since those are rather hard to find, an 8" 4:3 monitor works just as well.

Train controller? Are you referring to the RailDriver?

The auto-pilot channels only hold your attitude and altitude; you need to engage auto-hover (LAlt+T) in order for the heli to actually hover without getting the perfect trim. Altitude hold will hold your altitude above the ground and the collective brake overrides it, allowing you to set a new hold altitude when the brake is released. In the real helicopter, the collective brake prevents the collective from being moved unless it's squeezed (it's an actual brake), but in the sim you can move the collective without having to press the collective brake first. You can just move the collective to where you want it to go, then tap the collective brake key to set the new altitude. You're probably bobbing up and down because you're lowering the collective to change your altitude, then using the brake to set the altitude hold, but you're not raising the collective afterwards. As a result, if you're descending at 5 m/s, then hit the collective brake, the altitude hold can only override 20% of that, so without raising the collective, you're still descending at 4 m/s. An easy way to tell if this is the case is to look at the vertical velocity indicator. If you're descending at a steady rate and turn on altitude hold, you should see the needle jump in the opposite direction. If that amount of jump can bring it to 0, then you will hold your altitude; otherwise, it can only slow, but not completely stop the descent. As for descent mode, it only works with the radar altimeter (below 300m) because it will only descend you down to about 3 meters, and it will only work in auto-hover mode. It has the same 20% control authority limitation as the altitude hold, so you'll want to be in a stable altitude hold before using it. Note that there are two sources of altitude hold, barometric pressure and radar altimeter. Barometric pressure will hold you at a set altitude above sea level regardless of the terrain below you, whereas radar altimeter attempts to hold you at a set level above the terrain and will follow the terrain as it rises and dips. The radar altimeter only works below 300m, and the barometric pressure will work at any altitude. You can set which mode it uses using the RALT/BARO mode switch to the right of the altitude hold button. There's also a middle position, but you should avoid it; it's kinda hard to describe what it does, but it's not an auto-source switch (BARO above 300m, RALT below 300m) as some people may believe. Also note that the helicopter won't automatically switch between the two sources or warn you it's not working, so if you engage altitude hold above 300m with the switch on RALT, altitude hold won't work even though the light is on.

And what exact problem did you have? When did you buy the TM HOTAS, and how long and how often did you use it for? Are you aware that it was released in 2010, when the build quality was on par or better than the other products at the time? For that matter, I've also used CH gear and found it outdated and inferior when compared to today's standards, so maybe you should NEVER buy anything from CH again because I said so.

You'll also want to verify that your BARO/RALT altitude hold mode switch is set correctly. In BARO mode, it uses barometric pressure (altitude above sea level), and in RALT mode, it uses the radar altimeter (altitude above the ground) and only works up to 300m. If you find that the heli is rising back up after you release the collective brake, either the helicopter is still trying to stabilize its altitude, or you're using RALT mode and the terrain is rising.

You'll find that a lot of compressed files either use WinRAR or 7zip, but if you really don't want to download a program, do a search for "online 7zip extractor" and you'll find a number of sites that will do it for you.

Yes, you need a D shaft knob, also known as a flatted shaft. Most likely you'll need a knob for a 6mm shaft, but you can tell for sure by measuring the diameter of the knob across the non-flatted part. You can also use a standard knob not intended for a D shaft if it has a set screw because the screw will bite down into the shaft to hold it in place.

You need to provide more information on what the error is.

What about using something like the Teensy 3.5 or 3.6? https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy35.html https://www.pjrc.com/store/teensy36.html The processor runs at 120/180 MHz and supports floating point. 512K flash and 192K RAM means that a LUT should easily fit. It also has a Joystick library to run it as a HID: https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_joystick.html Though it won't support force feedback out of the box.

Use InputSimulatorPlus instead: https://github.com/TChatzigiannakis/InputSimulatorPlus I tried it with the original InputSimulator and confirmed that it doesn't work with DCS, but InputSimulatorPlus works:

This will depend on how well you can acclimate yourself to the new angle. A quick test you can do is to put the Warthog stick in between your legs and rotate it to the 5 o'clock position, then moving it around and see how you like it that way. For me, I couldn't get used to how I have to push 'forward' at 11 o'clock; the stick felt more comfortable in the hand, but I still wanted to move it to 12 o'clock. Virpil's MongoosT-50 stick allows you to rotate it independent of the base, and you can use it with either the Thrustmaster base or the MongoosT-50 base. VKB's MCG stick and Gunfighter base also allows independent stick rotation. As far as I'm aware though, aside from the FSSB R3 (which is out of the price range for most people), there's no hardware out there that allows the TM stick to be rotated because the rotation feature has to be part of the stick, not the base.

I don't have the throttle, but according to ralfidude's review, the mode switch changes between 5 profiles that you can set in Virpil's software. They're not exposed as buttons on the throttle, so you can't bind them directly within the sim, but it's unknown if you can use Virpil's configuration software to change them to bindable buttons. If you're referring to the T-50 stick, it doesn't have an analog slew either, it's a digital 4-way hat. The only sticks currently available that have analog slew sticks are the Saitek X56 and VKB MCG Pro. It's loosely based on a Russian PAK-FA throttle, where the slew is on the stick, not the throttle. Many of us are waiting for Virpil to announce an analog slew version of the throttle before picking one up.

I don't have the monitor stand, so I can't give you the length. If you haven't bought the stand yet, it's probably going to be easier to ask MonsterTech to include them, since they'll fit nicely into the shipping box and the price isn't that much more than what you can get at the retail level. Otherwise, you'll want to look at 40mm extrusions. 8020.net is not the only supplier, but in their catalog the 40 series parts is what you want to be looking at. That will depend on the VESA mount you plan to use. The M8 bolts can't be too long or too short. I used 12mm for my VESA mount. To attach the VESA mount, you'll need M8 bolts/screws and roll-in T-nuts. You'll get some spares with the MT sim rig, but otherwise you can either purchase them from MT or on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=roll-in+t+nut&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_odkw=roll+in+t+nut&_osacat=0 As for the VESA mounting plates, the ones I use are the VideoSecu ML302B, which can be mounted horizontally while allowing the monitor to be vertical: https://i.imgur.com/xzIfw4d.jpg https://www.amazon.com/VideoSecu-Plasma-monitor-bracket-ML302B/dp/B001ME9ZUO But they were discontinued recently and I can't find any in stock. Since this is just an OEM VESA mount, there are other companies that sell basically the same mount: https://www.homedepot.com/p/TygerClaw-Tilting-Wall-Mount-for-13-in-30-in-Flat-Panel-TV-LCD201BLK/206426859 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Inland-Tilt-and-Swivel-Arm-TV-Wall-Mount-for-13-in-30-in-Flat-Panel-TV-s-with-30-Degree-Tilt-50-lb-Load-Capacity-05315/206659971 It's pretty hard to find similar VESA mounts though due to the variety of different mounts out there, and very few of them will tell you how large their mounting holes are. You're in luck, I have the same seat. You will need additional mounting hardware. Sparco only gives you the seat, and MT gives you the bolts you need to mount the seat, but not the rails. In my case, I picked up the Sparco slider set because not only does it allow the seat to slide, but also adds the least amount of height: https://www.amazon.com/Sparco-Slider-Seat-Track-Set/dp/B000G0V21U MT gets their extruded aluminum through wholesale channels and cuts it in-house, so it's gonna be a lot cheaper than going through the retail level where each piece needs to be cut through a service. Lead time is usually 3 weeks, though they may have pushed that back due to the recent demand for their table mounts. I like the rig, but that's more because of how customizable it is rather than the product itself; in the end, it's just extruded aluminum and you can buy extra parts and customize it as you would any extruded aluminum rig. I recommend watching the 8020.net video series on the parts that they have, there's quite a few and gives you a good idea of just what you can do with your rig: And their eBay store is where I would pick up any parts that don't need customization. They only offer UPS on their official website, but on eBay they'll use USPS, which is significantly cheaper: https://www.ebay.com/sch/8020inc/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from= I would treat the MT sim rig as a nice base that you can start adding your own customization on top of. If you've never used extruded aluminum before, it will also give you a good idea on how the parts connect together and what placement options are possible. One thing to be aware of: if you're using the Warthog base with the MT mounting plate, you can rotate the base, but it will also rotate your axis in-game, and will feel weird because every time you move the stick 'forward', you'll be fighting against the springs for both axes instead of just one. If you plan to center mount, it's best to use a base that allows the stick to rotate independently of the base. Also, I used to use the VKB MCG Pro with the curved extension on the center mount, but in order to clear the seat while pulling all the way back, I had to raise the stick higher than what I consider comfortable. I also had issues with it hitting my second monitor while moving it forward all the way, especially with the trigger flipped up. In the end, I went with no extension. I recommend that you go with whatever makes you more effective, regardless if it's 'realistic' or not. A center-mounted stick will make it harder to get in and out of the cockpit, and may also block whatever is behind it, like a keyboard or a MFD. A side-mounted stick can't be used with an extension, but it frees up the center area for any controls you may want to have there.

I also have a MonsterTech sim rig. The monitor stand looks like the same one that they sell on their site (note that the site shows a newer version of the stand): https://www.monstertech.de/en/product/tv-mount-expansion/ With 2 additional horizontal aluminum extrusions for a 2nd VESA mount. The tilt is done by the VESA mount itself: https://www.amazon.com/s?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=vesa+tilt+mount You'll need one with M8 mounting holes so that you can mount it to the 40mm extrusion.