BluFinBima

1.4.2019.0616 Released For those on Helios before 1.4.2019.0317 (ie no automatic notification), there is a new level of Helios 1.4 available on from the DCS User Files site. (Link below).

Helios & Phidget I have to confess to being rather ignorant of all things Phidget. My gut feel is that anything that works for the A-10 and Ka-50 interfaces should work other interfaces but I could be wrong. The release of Helios which is close to shipping includes an update to increase the level of Phidget to 2.1.9 Build date Feb 15 2018. Regards,

Hi Flyco, take a backup of your %userprofile%\Documents\Helios\ directory and sub directories and you have an insurance policy. The goal has always been to retain backwards compatibility with profiles from earlier releases, although there are no guarantees. I can't think of anything in 1.4 that might catch you out for DCS. I can't make many claims for the non-DCS aspects of Helios. You can always install Helios 1.4 in a non-default directory without uninstalling 1.3 if you want to go down that route. Hope this helps.

Hi Franx, It is not reset monitors that puts the export.lua into the scripts directory, it is "Add Interface" from the interface panel in the Helios Profile Editor (see ) . If you're using the export.lua from other sources - eg Capt Zeen - then you need to follow their instructions. Cheers

Hi Franx, hope this might move you forward Let me know how you get on.

Hi Franx, ignore the mods folder for the time being - it is only going to influence the exporting of viewports. If nothing in the profile is responding to DCS, then there are more fundamental problems - and we should address those first. IRIS is only for a second computer. Do you have multiple versions of DCS installed - eg Beta, Alpha, production?

Hi Franx, Take 3:15 to chill-out and watch . I won't guarantee that it will answer all your questions, but hopefully it will explain why all the pieces exist. It is probably useful to understand that Capt Zeen's profiles, by necessity, have had to take a different approach to the exports.lua than native Helios, however I notice that in his latest Exports (2nd May 2019) it does claim to be compatible with the AV-8B. I've never used Capt Zeen's exports, but I have no reason to think it won't work. If no data is flowing to the Helios Control Center at all, then it is almost certainly related to the export.lua either crashing (look in DCS.log to see if this is happening), or the export.lua is not being invoked (typically can happen when someone has multiple installations of DCS and the exports.lua is in the wrong location for the DCS version being executed). If I get a few moments, I'll try to put up a video on YouTube about viewing the data flowing to/from DCS because this might be of general interest to people struggling to get Helios working. Stick with it...

Hi Horus-DCS, Probably Capt Zeen is in a better position to assist, but try commenting out the -- debug_output_file = io.open("./ExportDebug.log", "wa") at line 7660 in HeriosCore.lua and then see what is in ExportDebug.log after a re-test.

Not an expert in this area, and I have not tested this (and the positions will not be precise) but I think this should get you started. In your game options, I would expect that your DCS options should have a resolution of 5520x2160. _ = function(p) return p; end; name = _('AV-8B FX'); Description = 'AV-8B MFCD, ODU, UFC etc. GUI Config' Center = { x = 0; y = 0; width = 3840; height = 2160; aspect = 1.77777778; viewDx = 0; viewDy = 0; } GUI= { x = 0; y = 0; width = 3840; height = 2160; } LEFT_MFCD = { x = Center.width + 20; y = 680; width = 334; height = 312; } RIGHT_MFCD = { x = Center.width + 1326; y = 680; width = 334; height = 312; } UFC_base = { x = Center.width + 610; y = 320; width = 453; height = 385; } ODU_base = { x = Center.width + 20; y = 40; width = 283; height = 140; } UVHF_base = { x = Center.width + 460; y = 320; width = 210; height = 210; } UIMainView = Center Viewports = {Center} Hope this gets you going.

Hi Horus-DCS, Certainly do what Capt Zeen suggests, however if all that you're doing is changing the Helios Control Center - ie same profile, same aircraft, same export.lua - then there should be no difference in operation because both 1.4 and 1.3 use the same port and host. The only thing that I think would result in what you're seeing is that the 1.3 Control Center is holding the port open and the 1.4 Control Center cannot listen on it. Please make sure that the 1.3 control center is not running before starting the 1.4 Control Center. Regards

Hi Horus-DCS, Can you be more explicit about what is not working with 1.4? Are you able to start a profile in Helios Control Center? Regards

Hi Franx, I see a few problems with your lua, but it would help me to know what the dimensions of the two displays are before I comment further. Cheers, Neil

Hi Mike, your pit is looking pretty good already. Well done. Looking forward to seeing how you get on with your build. The RWR does not have threat rings as exported by DCS. Think of them as being a feature of the glass that sits over the top of the display. If you take a look at the RWR on Capt Zeen's Hornet profile, you'll see that while mostly transparent, the RWR does have faint rings on the image (panel_main_16_10.png). Cheers, Blue

Sorry Ice, I find the monitor setup inconsistent and confusing myself. I've not had much luck with negative viewport placement, however I'm sure that it can be beaten into submission if you're determined enough. I always start with the DCS monitor starting at 0,0, and then I place secondary displays to the right (irrespective of where they are physically located. Have you taken a look at https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=60815 ?

Hi Joe, While it is not intuitive, Capt Zeen's Hornet profile does not use Helios's DCS F/A-18C interface. That interface did not exist when he wrote his profile. The problem you see is a result of Helios attempting to open the same UDP port twice for the two different aircraft profiles and then falling over. I suggest that you get Capt Zeen's profile working first by following his instructions only. Do not install the DCS F/A-18C interface. Currently Helios does not support installing two Aircraft interfaces. The "invisible" failure is not graceful, and I will raise an issue to make the failure more explicit. https://github.com/BlueFinBima/Helios/issues/140 Regards, BlueFInBima

Hi Joe, the only reason I know of for the Control Center to crash at startup is due to an image that was missed out of the distribution. I'm pretty sure that Helios 1.4.2019.0317 shipped the missing file. What precise release of Helios did you install? (this was an image related to Aero). If there is no longer an option to add the F/A-18C interface, then it probably means that it is either already installed in the profile you've opened, or you're using an older version of Helios. If you still see the problem with Helios 1.4.2019.0317, then start control center from the command line with options "-l debug" and attach the ControlCenter.log file created (in the %userprofile%\Documents\Helios directory). Cheers, BlueFinBima

I use eight DLG2416 for the UFC although I mask a single digit of the scratchpad so only 11 characters are seen.

Comms channel displays are https://uk.farnell.com/kingbright/psc05-11cgkwa/display-alphanumeric-12-7mm-green/dp/2373489?st=16-segment and the other displays are DLG2416's from e-bay. Keys are standard Cherry MX / Gateron, and Encoders are ALPS EC11E18244A5 (for the switched) and the non-switched version from the EC11 range. There are a few wiring adjustments needed for the comms channel encoders and at least one other minor fix if you've made exactly the same board that I fabricated.

Hi Rightstuff, I thought it was going to be a problem before I started out, but it never has been. They sit very happily on the touchscreen, and don't interfere. My Dell monitor has a capacitive sensor. The MFDs are already pretty thick, so Adding more height would not be great if you view at an angle.

Hi RglsPhoto, what locale are you in? I'm wondering if there is some conversion being done on the font on your machine. I'm not an expert in this area... maybe given your forum role description, you might be in a better position than me to work out what might be going on. As an example, the option cues should be ascii 200 and get mapped to È. Attached is the font mapping that I'm expecting. Hornet UFC Mapping.PDF

Hi RglsPhoto, The attachment you added is Capt Zeen's exports. This does not support the Helios FA-18C interface. It does support the Helios A-10C interface. To get the Helios Hornet UFC working you need to install Helios's exports.lua from the "DCS F/A-18C" interface tab in the Helios profile editor. Pressing the button "Setup DCS F/A-18C" button at the bottom right side of the screen will write the correct export.lua file into the saved games scripts directory. If this works correctly, you will see a pop-up box saying "DCS F/A-18C has been configured". It is important to note that even though it is called "HeliosCore.zip", it is NOT part of Helios. The process I describe above will not touch your existing HeliosCore.lua, however the code in that file will no longer be executed. Captain Zeen's export.lua file will be overwritten by this process. Please note that currently Helios gets a little confused by multiple installations of DCS, and might not write the export.lua to the scripts directory for the DCS installation that you wanted. If you have multiple versions of DCS installed, then have a look in the scripts directories for each DCS installation. If you have done all of this correctly, then the most probable reason for it not working is a problem with the export.lua script. Have a look in the dcs.log file and see if it is reporting an error with the export.lua script. If there is an error reported in the dcs.log, please let me know what it is, and I can send you a fix for it. Please let me know how you get on.

The auto binding does not work with Captain Zeen's Hornet profile because that profile does not use the dedicated FA-18C interface. To the best of my knowledge, the nozzle position is not available from DCS. I used an approximation based on fuel flow and a very strange response curve. It seems to be more or less right most of the time.

I'm sure many people will find this very useful. Great job.

I've put the STL's that I used for my UFC onto GitHub. Hornet UFC Back.stl Hornet UFC Facia.stl Hornet UFC Frame.stl

This is being discussed in https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3858012&postcount=84