DeadMeat

Thanks for the write-up! I was running out of ports and things to tinker with

Sorry if this is derailing a bit. Hopefully this will be relevant for the Hornet grip as well :) P1-1 refers to a specific button type and style. The rest of the part number (P1-1xxxx) specifies terminal style, switch circuitry, actuation force and cap color. You can use whatever you prefer, but the button should have normally open (N.O.) circuitry (single or as part of 2-circuit) to directly replace the TM button. My warthog buttons are: P1-11118 (2.5 lbs, gray) for pinkie and side/index finger switches, P1-11121 (4 lbs, red) for thumb/pickle switch and P1-11122 (4 lbs, black) for paddle lever switch. You can maybe find them cheap used on ebay. If you're in the US Peerless is a cheap source, otherwise they'll set you back like €80/$90 total before tax on e.g. Mouser.com. Puts the price discussion on the Hornet grip into perspective :smilewink: Yes that explains the procedure pretty well I think! Please note that Debolestis used what appears to be P8-1 buttons (text says P1-1, but pictures suggest P8-1) that are smaller and easier to fit. I was not able source them in the specific versions that I wanted so I went with the P1-1 type instead which will still fit pretty well. Also note that If you do change the paddle switch button, you will have to file a bit of material off the paddle lever to make it fit. It will not be visible when assembled again:

Yup they're great. We'll see if they fit in what 6 weeks? :huh: oh the waiting time To elaborate a bit for the other folks about what we're discussing here. It is a relatively affordable and easy way to massively upgrade the Warthog by simply swapping out the original buttons at around €20 a pop (before tax) for OTTO P1-1 buttons. Of course you void your warranty and if you mess up you'll have an expensive paper weight on your hands. I still appreciate the engineering that TM put in the Warthog buttons to make a simple, low-cost, mass producible proprietary design that mimics the real deal pretty well in both looks and functionality. This goes for both the P1-1 style on the grip and the P1-7 style on the throttle panel. I think they're a massive improvement over the Cougar style buttons that are simply a coloured cap pushing directly on a tact switch that has very little travel or actuation force. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, the warthog button is of course still a cap pushing on a tact switch, only this time there's a spring and longer travel involved. However, the TM buttons are nothing compared to mil spec buttons like the an OTTO P1. The operating force, the smooth travel and the crisp snap action really put these in another league. You won't accidentally drop any bombs by just brushing a button - it takes deliberate action.

The Hornet stick is now available for pre-order on French amazon for the rest of Europe that can't order directly from Thrustmaster or elsewhere. Got it for €179 including tax. Seems to be back at €199 now though, but if you're quick about it you may be able to get it at the reduced rate when it releases on amazon.co.uk or amazon.de (again). Hopefully it will fit the P1-11111 and P1-11121 that I have lying around.. :music_whistling: 2.5 lbs actuation force for pinkie comfort and 4 lbs for serious business works really well on my Warthog and Cougar sticks. Ahh sweet sweet tactile feedback

Just use snap ring pliers, aka lock ring pliers. It is a very common tool specifically designed to handle those clips. I had no problem popping the locking ring off and putting it back on again with such a tool when I replaced my push buttons on the stick

Small correction to my statement - 650 is more like 1% of full deflection :) So we may want to use a bigger value if we're going for stall speed approximation.. Gear down lights is a good indicator that you're on the ground or close to it. Depending on what you want to use it for it can be okay

Check your DCS BIOS documentation, select advanced. 65535 is the max deflection of the gauge, meaning 650 is about 10%. You can translate this to a specific indicated airspeed. The idea is that if your airspeed is above stall speed, then you should be off the ground without WoW :smartass: If you're on a moving carrier and you're taxing forward in that frame of reference your indicated airspeed can get pretty high even though you still have WoW, let's say 25 knots + your taxi speed = pretty fast indicated. In practice you may want to use a bigger value than 650, I think I indeed did adjust it up a bit. A bit of background - from what I can tell we can only infer if we have WoW in DCS BIOS, there is no specific variable that can be read directly. Alternatives to reading the airspeed gauge position (sensitive to stall speed, icing of probes, movement of carrier), could be the barometric altitude gauge (sensitive to pressure setting) and the radar altitude gauge in the F18. I suppose if you really want to be specific and make the WoW inference airframe independent, you could calculate an absolute velocity from changes to the DCS BIOS commonData lat and long coordinates. You may want to throw MSL altitude change in there to account for vertical component (climbing) and get the true vector and velocity :huh: Regardless of how you do it, you will face the issue that stall speed varies with aircraft weight, air density, load factor and lift coefficient - variables that we can't read directly from DCS BIOS..

Fantastic work. I hope you can bring this to the market as a kit or plans or whatever. It really looks like it brings the experience to the next level

Very nice work! I would think that any noise from the seat would be drowned out by the roar of the ECS and the jet engines behind the pilot :) How are the VR goggles treating you in the cockpit? Can you see the controls well enough under the face seal to operate the switches and stuff?

Looking good Andrew. No going back now

Sweet, but what do you plan on using the two 8856K7s for? Seems to me like you'd only need one for the IFF master switch, but then of course I haven't exactly seen a complete list of switches anywhere. They seem to vary between generations of hornets and possibly between manufacturers of the panels. Only other place I've seen a 'K7 used is on the A-10C CMSP.

FLIR control joystick from a Chinook: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Helicopter-Aircraft-Control-Grip-Unit-Believed-To-Be-Of-A-Chinook-Mk4-Ex-Raf-Mod/123575476825 Of interest is the DACO force transducer thumb joystick that can used to replace the Warthog slew sensor. Check out https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=200198 for info on that. We transplanted one into my throttle and it is just awesome. I'm sure DAL would whip you up a controller board for a small fee if you asked him nicely :)

Keep up the good work :) Here's my take on the throttle switches and functionality: Uncertain about the 4 way comms switch, seems to be a custom of the regular T4 type 4-ways. From what I understand the center return mechanism for the antenna elevation switch is custom built around a potentiometer. Also the force transducer push button mechanism must be a custom shrunk down version of the F15 TDC to fit the handle geometry.

Sure - I have uploaded the file to the Autodesk gallery. You have to register to download it I think. I haven't refined the file further than my initial version. I printed in Shapeways' smooth fine detail plastic material for the translucency and detail but if you don't want to bother with backlight you can print in a cheaper material of course. The tolerances are pretty tight as it is so I'm not sure how the fit will be if you print in another material or use another printer.

Thanks guys. It certainly adds to the fun around the carrier. Brun, if you don't want to mess with the solenoid, the easiest way to disable downlock mechanically is probably to just unscrew the front panel and wrap something around the red override button behind to keep it pressed in when you screw the panel back on.

Got the hook switch up and running. It is a pretty simple conversion of another Tornado gear switch bought on EBay with a few added details. The handle dimensions are interpreted from photos and adjusted to fit the switch so I'm sure they're not accurate. The wheel handle is replaced with a custom designed, 3D printed hook handle. The red handle lights have been swapped for a bright green LED to provide backlight for the 'HOOK' lettering and there is a notch for holding a metal bar to defeat the uplock mechanism. The handle is printed in semi transparent material and painted so the letters can be illuminated from within. The painting process is like I do knobs and light plates - first a thin white base layer (Tamiya Primer L spray), then the letters are masked off with delicate 1 mm modeller's masking tape, followed by two layers of gray paint (Tamiya AS-7 spray). Finally the masking tape is removed and two layers of clear matte varnish is applied. Each layer is allowed to dry before the next is applied. The letters are probably sunk in a bit too deep as it was pretty difficult to mask the round shapes off and get the white paint in there in an even fashion. I had to cover some light leaks as well so the final paint job looks a little rough up close I guess. We'll call this a draft version :) The backlight intensity is PWM controlled and coded to follow the INST PNL knob position and I've coded a check to see if conditions should allow it to turn on. It seems we need power on the AC bus, which we can check for indirectly by looking at least one generator switch on and the corresponding engine RPM on the IFEI at least in ground IDLE (let's say above 60%). I've skipped the check for ground power, so during maintenance the plane cap will have to feel her way around the pit in darkness I'm afraid. The LED wiring is routed through the handle and out the back using the existing wiring. I just installed a 150R resistor back there. I've installed a hook indicator light in the front plate. This is the top part of a NKK KB series rectangular illuminated push button with the dinky amber LED. I drilled out the hole in the front plate to 8,5mm to fit the indicator and the wiring (including a 150R resistor) is simply routed out the back over the solenoid. The 'HOOK' label is simply printed on a clear sheet, cut to size and fitted behind the cap. The downlock solenoid is fed a constant supply of 12V from the landing gear switch source to keep it disengaged. I went ahead and wrapped wire around the back of the override button to keep it pressed in as well so I guess I'm covered here. The uplock is defeated by keeping a sawn off 16 mm part of the lever mechanism wedged down and in place by a slot in the handle. I use the same Monstertech brackets for mounting as I did for the landing gear switch in the first post. Here's a short video of the switch, the backlight and the indicator in action:

It works fine for me in stable release 2.5.3.22176. Are you in the Open Beta? If you're seeing the commands over the com port but nothing happens in DCS, probably they've changed the IDs around in the modules again. You can see earlier in this thread the same thing happened before. Consider downgrading your install to latest stable until Andrew takes a look...

Yeah, I measure the same 0,3A @12V. For the FET, I think most logic level MOSFET would be okay, since these are designed to give you full output at 5V. I use IRL540NPBF to drive these gear switches as well as my mag switches.

I used this this drawing (under manuals) for my own designs

Update looks good. A small nitpick - looks like you missed the LTexture and RTexture outputs for the IFEI (the small L and R that show up next to fuel quantities in QTY sub modes). Something to consider for your next update..

The gear switch assembly is basically just a mechanism that throws a bunch of toggle switches when you move the handle up or down. I've put LEDs in the handle that light up in place of the little lamps there were there originally and they're wired through the handle and out the back along with the toggle switches. So...the wiring is very straightforward and follows exactly how you would wire any toggle switch and any LED to any Arduino board. I strongly recommend that you follow Ian's tutorial to learn how to do exactly that and how to use the DCS BIOS code as well: http://dcs-bios.a10c.de/docs/v0.7.0/userguide.html It shows an example for an Uno and the A-10C module but the principle works for any board and any module, including the Nano and the F/A-18C. If you want to learn about how to control a solenoid I recommend that you check out Hansolo's thread or GSS Rain's excellent videos, like . The guys are dealing with MAG switches, but since these also contain a solenoid the same MOSFET solution applies. Note that you can get away with using 12V in many cases.

Thanks for the comments guys. The setup is still working great after a few weeks of use. I bought another gear switch from this guy to convert into a hook switch: https://www.ebay.com/itm/RAF-Aircraft-Undercarriage-Selector-Switch-as-fitted-to-Tornado-Aircraft/223124835190 He only has one more left if anyone's interested, but then there's many similar switches to be found, e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Aircraft-ZE158-1986-Panavia-Tornado-F-3-Undercarriage-U-C-Selector-Switch-K0653/223155655591 This model seems to be quite common. It is a little different from the one I have and I can't make out if the two little holes on the end is supposed to light up during operation.

Cheers guys So here's a fun little thing I put together I don't have room for a full pit in which to integrate a "full" landing gear handle setup, so I have been struggling to find a satisfying solution beyond toggle switches with 3d printed levers stuck on them. What I did was I bought a Tornado gear switch assembly on EBay (as others around here have) and converted it for use with DCS and mounted it to the side of a Monstertech joystick table mount. It is fun to operate and makes landings and takeoffs that much more involved when you have to throw that heavy handle :joystick: The box fits pretty snugly on the side of the alu profile and doesn't get in the way of joystick or leg/rudder movements in neither up or down handle positions. I have it sitting high enough off of the mounting plate so it is easy to grab and operate without getting any fingers pinched. To be more realistic it should probably sit off to the left side of the throttle of course but I found it interfered with the throttle when I tried mounting it there. In practice I find it very easy and fast to find and operate the gear lever without having to look down. To hold the box in place I tried plastic strips and clamps at first which didn't really work. I then tried clamping it using standard corner brackets from Monstertech and it turns out that they fit just perfectly! They're cheap and easy to install. I'm thinking to buy another gear switch and convert it to a hook handle that I can place on the right side of the joystick for added fun around the carrier. The switch assembly has the wiring schematic printed on the side and the pins on the back are labeled so wiring it up was very straightforward. I didn't have a mil connector and I didn't want to pry the thing open so I soldered directly onto the pins in the back. A crappy but functional solution. I have it hooked up to a Nano running DCS BIOS and it works perfectly with both the F/A-18C and the A-10C. I'm sure it would work with the other modules but I haven't tested it. There were little bulbs in the gear handle but I couldn't get them to light up so I swapped them out for a pair of ultra bright red LEDs. I drive them with 5V PWM straight from the Nano with no issue. They look white in the video but they actually shine a nice red. The assembly has a mechanical downlock that is disabled by either manually pressing the override button or by activating the solenoid inside. It is rated at 28V but 12V from a regular (switching) wall adapter works just fine. I control power supply for the solenoid with a little MOSFET circuit that engages when DCS BIOS outputs an airspeed higher than taxi speed, since we can't seem to check for weight-on-wheels directly. More precisely I read the airspeed gauge postion and just engage the 12v when it is above 10% of max or whatever. Here's crappy video showing the switch in action. You can hear a clank as the jet accelerates and the solenoid energizes and disables the downlock. Here's link to the Monstertech corner brackets - needs the fastening set option to attach to the profile.

Haha that's so cool! Looking forward to see more of your design That's a really neat way to attach the box to the throttle. Amazing the design flexibility you get with a 3d printer.

Hi John, I fear that I may have complicated matters by suggesting you guys edit the module since we're now no longer working on the same file. If AndrewW updates his original upload it would make sense to revert to that to make troubleshooting easier. Anyways, I've just tried the FCS reset and the T/O trim and they worked fine for me with no edits, so I'm not sure what's wrong on your end here. I then tried the comm panel and it didn't work at first but after updating the device IDs to 40, they worked fine. Tested the IFF and ILS toggles and the RWR volume pot with no issue. I can think of a few things that could have gone wrong for you You may have broken something in the module during your edits - re download and edit one thing at a time and verify it works You may be copying commands with wrong addresses if the documentation is not updated after edits (try to delete the JSON files and then start a mission and refresh the command reference) There's an issue with your switches or wiring - confirm they work with other functions you know work in the sim