backstab

I just fixed an issue that I am confident others will run into eventually with the Virpil throttle. This issue arose about a week ago. I noticed that on the left throttle (because I fly mostly with the throttles separated) that the once smooth travel was now a scratchy metal on metal feeling. It was providing friction that I didnt want and I knew something was up. I disassembled the entire throttle to discover what the issue was. The adjustable detents are made from two ball bearings running over a slit in a piece of steel. when the ball sits in the slit this is the resistance you feel. The positions of those bearings are adjustable by the set screws on the bottom of the throttle. A good idea actually. As seen in the picture the bearings have actually cut grooves into the approach for the slit. This is unusual as ball bearings are meant to roll, not slide. The balls are back spring mounted so they always are forced against the steel. The grooves on one side (left throttle) got so bad that it was scraping not rolling. I suspect that the ball bearing quality or functionality is suspect. Its not rolling and the other 3 look like eventually they will end up scratchy and bad. The issue I take is that the ball and the plate of steel (picture) was shipped absolutely devoid of oil or grease. Zero lubrication. This was a mistake. It was a mistake to think it didnt need lubrication or it was a mistake to have forgotten it. Either way I ended up doing some extra work. The solution for you guys is to check it which can only be done with a tear down. It wasn't difficult to disassemble or assemble the Virpil throttle. Take pictures along the way of the parts. Because mine was so worn in, lube didnt help. I flipped the plate over for a fresh start and lubed that side. I suspect this will eventually break down again because of a non rolling bearing. I hope I'm wrong.

I learned another thing recently pertaining to my dials and their function. After I was able to quintuple the functionality of the dials as per the process above, both push button and turning, I noticed they were notchy and had to be turned slowly to make the mapped item move ie lighting CCW/CW. To smooth this out add the maximum delay of 3 in the delay column within the button tab on the left side. I do not know what this delay is but it makes the dials work much better.

I have used the 5 way shift selector to multiply the 3 dials on the throttle so now I have 15 dials. In this process I have consumed virtual button presses from about 45 up to 85. There is a problem. It seems that even though everything is mapped the same way, the software will not allow me to use any virtual buttons above 81. I cannot get around this. Does anyone know why this might be? edit It turned out to be a failing usb hub that was supporting all the devices. i replaced the hub and all buttons working.

I have made the 3 dials on the throttle send different logical buttons based on the position of the 5 way selector as a shift state. All was well until I needed to use logical button 82 and up. I just cannot get above 81 to be pressed. Its as though I am locked out. Is there something going on because I need almost all of the logical buttons for what I am doing (96) edit It turned out to be a failing usb hub that was supporting all the devices. i replaced the hub and all buttons working.

My rig needs that but I dont know if Im up to it :(

Where did you get that chair with the cutout for stick travel. I have a car seat and the extension but havent used the extension because I do not have a slot in the seat for movement

I agree. With all the hours and thinking that goes into the mapping and memorization, muscle memory we put into this game you would be crazy to not take a full copy of the Configuration folder. Mine sits on my desktop and gets re saved by me manually any time I make changes. This way if it gets mutilated I just drop the entire folder in and its all there. Get used to doing that

It makes no sense to buy plane specific controls. Especially if you are using VR. Buy the best quality you can afford with the most buttons on it. Right now the best stuff out there is Virpil. I have the new throttle and the T50 stick and its really nice stuff. Perfect centering and 1 calibration for 4 months.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=220444 I manage to discover some of the way this throttle is programmed and laid it out here. I cannot answer all your questions with my rant. There is no manual on programming yet. Ridiculous

More observations on these new "15" dials I have created. It looked like all was working. I shift stated 3 dials and their Z axis press 5 times and quintupled my dials. What I notice is that the second, third, fourth and fifth mode of these dials only allow a very slow rate of adjustment on the item I bind it to. ie the volume of something. It takes many many turns to get a large change. This is worse for light dimmers I think because they have a wider range than say a volume (just the way the game is). The first, original dial setting (mode 1) which has the Encoder set in the mode window and this particular dial seems to move any dial much faster. Obviously the encoder mode works differently and better. They appear the same inthe test window in the configurator but perform differently. Maybe Ill head into axis and try to modify it if i can. it technically isn't an axis but maybe I can get it to move more with less movement I literally have so many dials I can't remember what's what. I go to turn up the volume and the wings fold, I turn down the lighting and radio turns off. I like this problem.

Ok well if I am right about how you see this mapping you mentioned I see an issue. I think you are right about the math but the functionality will be an issue. Here's why. If I map say 96 to mode 2 and tell DCS that 96 is a new modifier then that should mean that when mode 2 is selected 96 is being sent continuously and every single trim switch airbrake you name it has to be a 96 modified button press. You could do that but as soon as you switch to mode 3 (say button 97) then all the 96 modified buttons are dead. What I need are certain buttons on the mode switch which I have figured out and then a momentary modifier button to selectively modify certain buttons. You have reminded me that I can in fact choose and select ANY button as a modifier in the add modifier tab at the bottom of the mapping page. I knew about it but completely forgot so thanks for that. So now I can get my momentary modifier. In fact Ill do 2 of them. I don't feel like adding them all up but thanks to your reminder we will have hundreds of buttons. I was in mapping, because that's all I do now is map (its a mapping game now) and I am trying to decide what goes where. The usual first world problems and I decide that I want to shift state an axis. 2 in fact. Those nice round dials A1 A2. I think I will, if I can turn them into either 10 dials with the 5 position mod switch or 6 dials with 2 modifiers. I cant see a way to shift an axis so I may just momentarily mod them with some button.

Confirm that your calibration is good. Look on the axis tab, left, and see that throttles match and all makes sense. If not do a calibration and save it to profile and reload the profile. Get used to doing this reloading profile business. Head to button tab and stare at this for 2 hours in complete disbelief. Cry and look over at your X65F throttles and marvel at how easy they were to program. Look back at configurator for another 2 hours. The idea is this and I certainly do not know 20% of what is going on here, You press a physical button and it sends a logical button press. A logical button press is a phantom pretend button, a signal that you choose to send based on what physical button you choose to associate with it. That's right you can tell any physical button on your controller what to send. In the case of our E1-3 dials z axis presses (buttons 52 53 54) and their turning axis (60 61 62 63 64 65) note that the turning axis on these 3 dials consumes 2 buttons each dial. A ccw and cw button press. See this by actually turning them and pressing them. If your buttons aren't the same as mine I don't think it matters. Also note that in the button tab, mode column you should see that these dials are set to Encoder. I'm sure someone will explain what that is. So what we want or at least what I want is to multiply these E1-3 as many times as I can to have 15 dials instead of just 3. To do this we need to shift state those dials using the 5 position mode switch. Each mode will allow each dial to send a completely different "button press" to DCS so we can map to our delight all things dial worthy. If we did not shift state these E1-3 then they would only send 60 61 62 63 64 65 or 3 sets of cw and ccw. I cant be cool unless I can tweak the lighting on the left MFD during a 7G pull. Let's take a look at the list of buttons in the columns. You press a physical button and you get some other phantom logical button press sent outbound. Someone set these at the factory, they aren't sequential and I don't care. What is important to note is that eventually the physical buttons run out at about 45 or so(I forget the number as I have mine all mapped) but the logical buttons continue to 96. Every time you double or triple or in my case quintuple up on button replication you consume those extra logical buttons. The original natural 9 button presses will always be there but when I set say E1 to do another set of 9 presses but on mode 2 then 9 more of those logicals get consumed. You thought 96 was a lot and now its less than half of what I think I need but that's just me griping. Let's begin by looking at the shift column in the button tab. You may see some other buttons shifted (a number in the shift column beside a button) but not 60 61 62 63 64 65 or 52 53 54. Right now if you were to map E1-3 to something it would work no matter what position setting you put the mode selector in. We don't want that. We want a full set of dials for each mode 1-5. Double click physical button 52 (the z axis press of one of the E dials). Uncheck auto bind. Choose shift 1. Save it. (not save and next) You have just forced the z axis press of that E dial to only operate on mode 1 of the 5 mode switch setting. It shouldn't work on 2,3,4,5. Note that you haven't yet consumed an extra logical button as you just used the same logical button (41 in my case and who cares). By now hopefully the light bulb is flickering. Continue with this process to turn all 9 associated button presses (in my case 60 61 62 63 64 65 and 52 53 54) into shift stated (locked to mode 1) buttons. There should be a 1 next to all 9 of these buttons. In the end unless you guys take exception, I don't care at all what logical button number I use. It just doesn't seem to matter. Test the new shift stated buttons and dials. Assign them to DCS radio (comm UFC) press to pull the radio and dial to com 1 channel. See that on mode 1 they all work as expected and on mode 2,3,4,5 they are dead and do nothing at all. If this is the case then you have almost won the internet. Notes: The dials (not the z press), when double clicked in the button tab physical button column, are set to encoder and have a 2 set in the timer. I do not know what these mean exactly but I left them there and I copied the timing over (2) but NOT the encoder setting. It's time to set mode 2 of the 5 position mode switch. Now you will be consuming logical buttons. Go to the end of your phys button column and choose the first row that has a free logical button on the left side. For me it was about 46 or 48 I can't remember, who cares. Double click that open logic button. Autobind off, under physical button I set 52, under logic I happened to have say 48 (whatever the open logic button was who cares), mode normal and of course a 2 set in the shift window. See what we did there? It is still physical button 52 on the controller (z press of an E dial) we are playing with but it is not the same logical button sent to outbound. We need to send a unique new button press and we assigned whatever was your first open logic button in the list of 96. Now continue to select the next open logic button and continue this process, saving along the way, until all 9 associated presses are set to 9 new unique logic buttons. Make sure you continue to assign the correct physical buttons in the phys.button column which should be 53 and then next 54 and the next 60, 61,62 all the way to 65. In my case when I was done this process I have 5 full sets of 52 53 54 60 61 62 63 64 65. Over and over I assigned the same 9 physical buttons to send 5 full sets of different logical buttons outbound to what will be lights and dials and volumes etc.) Important. I found that when you are assigning all these logic buttons that only the original dials (not the z axis press) can have the Encoder mode set in that window. All the copies you make (in my case 4 copies) will have normal set in there. Don't know why dont care. You should be able to continue this process of setting mode 3,4,5 in the shift window of each button as mentioned earlier until you have your 5 full sets of 9 physical buttons all sending a total of 45 unique logical buttons. If I am wrong on this or not doing it right then you will destroy me on the internet and I will deserve it.

I see I am engaging in written masturbation so I'll continue. The procedure for mapping dials and buttons. Plug in your throttle and start the configurator. Select your throttle that appears up in the top left window, select the firmware box, open firmware mode, then start upgrade. Once finished make sure you close the firmware upgrade mode by selecting the button. It doesn't seem to matter which device you select for the firmware upgrade process but I did both my T50 stick and my t50 throttle one after the other to be sure. Now that you have the latest firmware you can save that device profile and then load the very same device profile by just clicking on load device profile. The green sync button should exist now top left. Make sure you select your throttle in the device list at the top left. Now select import profile at the bottom left. Choose from the list of profiles in the folder you downloaded that also contains the firmware. You can choose throttle or throttle 5modes. Do not send the throttle profile to the stick or the stick profile to the throttle. Sending the wrong profile to the wrong device can make one of your devices disappear from the list. You can make it reappear by sending the right profile to the right remaining device, if that happens. Once you load the profile, the progress bar will finish and the device will drop offline and reconnect. You will hear the USB sounds to confirm this. Once the device is back and the Not sync yellow button exists top left you can then hit the load profile button and the green sync button will now exist. It is important to calibrate axis next. You can access this from the axis button on the left. Do a calibration. Again save the device profile and then immediately load the same profile. Now you should have updated firmware, a throttle profile and a fresh calibration. My throttles during the calibration were opposite to each other. When I moved them together one little box moved high the other low. It made no difference in the end. Note: When it comes to WHEN to calibrate in this process I chose to do it after the profile was both saved then loaded (green sync exists). I found it was better to save a profile, then load that same profile, then do a calibration, then save the profile again and then lastly reload the same profile. Also I noticed that many times after loading the profile and then saving that the software would shit the bed and lock me out with some error and I would just close the configurator, restart it, load device profile. Most times when the configurator locked me out it had at least saved the calibration I had just done so hitting the load device profile button was all I needed to do. Congratulations you are now left with a super confusing but ready to program configurator.

So based off their 5 mode example file that is included in the latest firmware I see that when they shift state those 8 B1 through B8 buttons they consume (of the 96 allowable logical buttons) 40. Or 32 extra buttons, the first 8 natural B1-8 buttons are already using their 8. So what I wanted was to be able to control most volumes, channel changing, and light settings in any particular plane (but the F18 is the one I am working with on this), basically most things in the DCS mapping screen that have a CCW/CW mapping. Not everything, but useful things. So what this means is that those 3 E1-3 dials each consume 3 logical buttons, a press (Zaxis) and a ccw and a cw button. Because the first set always is given its natural button assignment E1-3 consumes 9 buttons before shift stating. If I use the 5 shift state I need to add 4 more sets of 9 or 36 logical buttons on top of the 9 already in use. What are we at now? 40 for the B1-8 and 45 for the E1-3 so 85. There aren't 85 extra logical buttons available. There was 96 to start with and prior to shift stating many of them were already used for all the other normal button presses. We are going to need more logical buttons. I know nothing of the limitations pertaining to acquiring more logical buttons but Id say 250 would do it. This has little to do with memorizing all the buttons because a great many of them are just ccw or cw button presses based on turning a dial. With my X65F throttle I used a pinky 2 way button as a shift and alt modifier. This meant that I had 3 full sets of buttons on both the stick and the throttle. About 55 buttons times 3, 165. I used about 110 of them and was fairly happy but the radio channel and volume stuff was always a mouse click and in VR that's a drag. At this time I am unable to find a way to even map shift,alt, or ctrl to any button so that I can expand the number of items I can control. So far all I see is that 5 position shift mode switch dial. Everything on the X65F that was shift stated was all HOTAS. I never had to remove my hands to do anything but radios it seemed. Now if I can't find a way to create a new shift modifier I will need to turn that dial to do it. NOTE I missed the obvious here. Right in DCS there is a way to add modifiers. Very simple The other bummer is the constant resetting of all mapping everytime you reload the Virpil configurator. Literally wiping clean the mapping in DCS forcing you to put it all back in. I have only been working on one plane but what if it cleans out 8 planes worth of mapping? It will be weeks and weeks before any pilot here has their shit nailed down as far as button setup goes. Everytime you make a change expect to have to remap the entire thing unless I am missing something important.

Hello I need to know how to turn that 5 position selector switch into a 5 modifier switch so I can (in the end) turn those 3 dials into 15 dials for various things. I just cant seem to make any sense of how to do this in the configurator. I did load the Throttle 5modes profile but when I map in DCS the selector can be in any position and the mapping still works even though I mapped it in position 1. The idea is to have the 3 dials act as all volumes on position 1 and then all brightness on position 2 and so on. Has anyone got this figured out? Thanks

IMO the new wave of VR will never cease. Soon we will have gloves or something on our fingernails that will allow us the turn knobs and move levers in a virtual cockpit. Until then manufacturers should create a system where the throttle hase many knobs and buttons and modes that can be memorized so the VR pilot can do everything HOTAS.

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Nellis+AFB,+NV,+USA/@36.236512,-115.0395485,5328m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x80c8dd979f1a4539:0x890a4a296fadb5ef!8m2!3d36.2414162!4d-115.0508066 confirmed

I thought I was the only one. I just posted this bug and they moved it here like they did yours. So these guys not realize how this is supposed to work?

I found a bug in the f18. It has to do with the G limit override functionality as it relates to the axis tuning within DCS. Without tuning the axis a few things are true. It is true that when the NWS/Autopilot disconnect/G limit override paddle button on my joystick is activated the aircraft was able to over G as per the expected functionality. Another truth was that ( I noticed) the displayed joystick in the game would reach its maximum forward and aft physical limit long before my personal joystick would. This was annoying and it meant I have lots of real stick travel left over when the planes maximum travel had already been reached. To bring my joystick in line with the motion of the F18 displayed joystick I used axis tuning. Specifically Saturation Y. What I did was a trial and error to force the F 18 digital stick in the cockpit to hit its physical limit at the exact same time my personal real joystick hit its limits. I was able to do this very easily. The number happened to be 52 Saturation Y. I thought I had the perfect setup because I can now max out the pitch control in the game and it followed exactly my joystick control in real life. Wonderful. Then I get in the game and I see that under normal circumstances (no G limit override) I have great control of pitch. When I use G limit override paddle button however and pull the stick back I am unable to "activate" or get any more pitch control. It is as if I am not using the G limit override at all. No more pitch and no "Flight controls flight controls" call from the plane which it dutifully does when you are in a state of G limit override. The issue is that according to the physical movement of the F18 stick in the game I am absolutely able to max that control stick out to its extreme travel in pitch but the game doesn't recognize the pitch I am able to put in. I do not fully understand this. Note that I have not used the term elevator to describe pitch. I understand that the pilot of a real F18 does not directly control the surfaces. He asks for pitch by pulling back on a stick and the computers decide for him what is best done to deliver the pitch for the pilot. I get that. The reality is that the pilot has only that stick to make the request for pitch from the computers. I am able to max out that sticks travel but I am not able to get the G limit override to activate somehow. I sense this may be a bug or I am not sure what to call it. An inaccuracy perhaps. To add to the mystery, I notice that when I have not altered Saturation Y in any way (100) and I use the G limit switch I can get activation of G limit override without having to reach the displayed joysticks maximum deflection. In other words I don't need to ask for max pitch to get the G limit override to activate. This tells me it's not about stick travel. I can't figure it out. Can you look into the logic that "activates" the G limit override. I understand there is a paddle button and it does work however there must be a certain stick travel or pitch travel that is required that is somehow independent of the digital control stick inside the F18. I have evidence of this because when I turn up the Saturation Y from 52 to 71 I can now get G limit override to activate or turn on as per normal. Of course my stick is no longer synced with the planes stick. If there is another piece of logic that allows/disallows G limit to activate can it be removed or adjusted?

In the DCS F/A 18C key mapping when I bind left (CCW) rudder trim and then use it in flight it is applying right (CW) rudder trim. Plainly this is backwards. I have confirmed it with inclinometer movement and nose movement. Right trim is also reversed.