New Virpil CM3 Throttle has arrived

[dburne]

8 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

 

Just in time for...... CLOUDS! 

 

 

[dburne]

So if I do receive my repaired CM3 Throttle today, that will be exactly 2 weeks from date I shipped it out to Virpil.

Can't get much quicker than that.

Shipped on Wed. 3/31.

Virpil received on Tues. 4/6.

Virpil repaired and shipped back out on Thurs. 4/8.

Scheduled to be delivered today by Fed Ex 4/14.

 

So the bigger question - which will arrive first? DCS 2.7 or repaired CM3 Throttle? I may have a very busy afternoon lol.

Edited April 14, 2021 by dburne

[imacken]

3 minutes ago, dburne said:

So if I do receive my repaired CM3 Throttle today, that will be exactly 2 weeks from date I shipped it out to Virpil.

Can't get much quicker than that.

 

Sorry Don, but I can beat that. My last send back was picked up on a Monday, arrived in Lithuania on Wednesday, shipped back to me on Thursday and arrived with me on the Friday - next day delivery from Lithuania to UK!

[dburne]

6 minutes ago, imacken said:

Sorry Don, but I can beat that. My last send back was picked up on a Monday, arrived in Lithuania on Wednesday, shipped back to me on Thursday and arrived with me on the Friday - next day delivery from Lithuania to UK!

 

Lol yeah well you are closer!!

 

I was just going through the communication with Virpil Support on my ticket. 

Quote

In my opinion, the best solution would be to send the throttle to a service center in Lithuania.
We will pick up the device ourselves, quickly repair it and return it to you, all at our expense. Do you agree?

Time frame on whole operation: 2 weeks.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

 

He was certainly spot on with the time frame estimate of 2 weeks. I remember thinking when I read that like yeah sure, probably be more like three weeks. I am pleasantly surprised.

I just hope my mini stick is now in perfect order like yours was when it got repaired.

Edited April 14, 2021 by dburne

[dburne]

Fed EX tracking now shows the CM3 on the truck for delivery.

Yay, it is really happening today!

[dburne]

Throttle just arrived!! Thank you Fed Ex!

Now to open it up, check it out,  and get set back up with DCS. Between 2.7 drop and now this I got my hands full today LOL.

[dburne]

 

Much better now!

[dburne]

Got my controller profile in DCS for the CM3 loaded back in.

Now I gotta relearn all my assignments again ugh.

[Drac]

My replacement cables have been delivered by FedEx.  Will be replacing the cables within a few days...lot to do at the moment.

[dburne]

Nothing like being in the heat of air to air battle with a wingman and coming to the sudden realization that oh  I forgot to re-bind my Voice Attack to the throttle.

 

[zildac]

3 minutes ago, dburne said:

Nothing like being in the heat of air to air battle with a wingman and coming to the sudden realization that oh  I forgot to re-bind my Voice Attack to the throttle.

 

I really must give VA a go, just haven't got around to it and I'm having trouble thinking of use cases (I'm sure there are tons) what with all the throttle buttons I now have at my disposal

[dburne]

2 minutes ago, zildac said:

I really must give VA a go, just haven't got around to it and I'm having trouble thinking of use cases (I'm sure there are tons) what with all the throttle buttons I now have at my disposal

 

Voice Attack with Vaicom Pro is the bees knees for wingman and ATC communication in DCS.

I very highly recommend both.

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by dburne

[zildac]

3 minutes ago, dburne said:

 

Voice Attack with Vaicom Pro is the bees knees for wingman and ATC communication in DCS.

I very highly recommend both.

 

 

Hadn't thought of that use case. See, glad I mentioned it. Will definetely give it a go. Faffing with the radio menu is a pain in fairness

Edited April 14, 2021 by zildac

[dburne]

Well my repaired micro stick still does not center perfectly in both axis, have to put a small deadzone in both to compensate for it.

But it is very smooth and no stickiness at all, so I am fine with it as is. 

[Drac]

1 hour ago, dburne said:

Well my repaired micro stick still does not center perfectly in both axis, have to put a small deadzone in both to compensate for it.

But it is very smooth and no stickiness at all, so I am fine with it as is. 

Do you have the option to replace yourself?  I would at least get a replacement microstick and decide what to do with it at a later date.  I'm sure you are somebody you know can replace it.

[dburne]

9 minutes ago, Drac said:

Do you have the option to replace yourself?  I would at least get a replacement microstick and decide what to do with it at a later date.  I'm sure you are somebody you know can replace it.

 

I don't think so but don't know really. Could be the replacement would do the same thing. I don't know if they replaced mine or how they serviced it. It is not bad, just not perfect at returning to absolute center in both axis. A small dead zone takes care of it for how I use it for TDC slew.

Without putting the dead-zone in the tdc cursor would just slowly move.

 

[wowbagger]

Glad you got your throttle back in time for the big 2.7 drop!

 

Do you prefer to use the throttle stick for TDC vs the one on joystick? My old throttle (x-65) didn't have a useable stick, so I've always used the one on the MCG. Right now I use the CM3 stick for rotating F2 view and not much else - haven't reassigned anything yet to try it, too loathe to mix up my controls - but I'm wondering if it's better as TDC than the MCG stick.

[imacken]

Out of interest, how did you bind the CM3 stick to rotating the F2 view?  

[wowbagger]

I believe I just used the axis-to-button function and assigned buttons to the 0-20% and the 81-100% of both mini stick axes, and then assigned those buttons to Move Right Slow, Move Up Slow, etc (or whatever those camera controls are called - the same as the Numpad default assignments).

 

The X-65F has a tiny mouse controller stick on it. It was too inaccurate to use for pressing buttons, but worked well enough for slewing the exterior camera. I was surprised how much I missed it when I switched to the Virpil .

[imacken]

You are a genius, sir!  I have been trying to work out how to get the stick to work the external view for a long time!  I could never work out what the relevant binds were. I never even thought about move l/r/u/d slow, and bind zoom in/out, so total control now of the external views without having to reach for the mouse.

 

This is one of the beauties of Virpil configurations.  Axis can be both axes and buttons at the same time in DCS.  For example, I use the zoom axis for zoom in TrackIR/monitor, but then I use the 0-20% and 81-100% buttons for VR zoom on the same axis.  Same with the mini-stick now I'm enlightened. I use it for TDC slew as axes and the external view as buttons. Brilliant!

 

Thanks a lot.

[wowbagger]

Excellent!

 

I will have to try it for TDC to see if it feels better than the MCG. I really don't know how else to use the MCG stick though ...   DLC on the Tomcat I suppose  (I have still never found a use for the Master Mode axes thing).

 

I love the Virpil axis-to-button feature! I also have buttons on pretty much every axis - flaps, zoom buttons, engine cutoff, external view. Also I find the Virpil software a thousand times more intuitive to use than the VKB stuff.   My only current  issue is that some of the axis-to-buttons won't work in toggle-on mode, but only in normal mode. But I think that is already under investigation.

[imacken]

Well, if the stick on the VKB is like my stick on the Virpil Alpha, I use it as SCS/DMS using the axis to buttons facility on VPC devices.

 

I use the scroll wheel on the Alpha for DLC.

 

Yes, as you know, NVV is looking at the toggle-on issue.

[wowbagger]

The VKB axis-to-button function is far less easy to figure out, for me. I was able to assign buttons to the rudder axis, but I haven't sorted it out for any of the others. Maybe I will have to have another go at turning it into a normal HAT.

 

The Alpha's scroll wheel is a great addition - would love to have something like that.

[dburne]

2 hours ago, wowbagger said:

Glad you got your throttle back in time for the big 2.7 drop!

 

Do you prefer to use the throttle stick for TDC vs the one on joystick? My old throttle (x-65) didn't have a useable stick, so I've always used the one on the MCG. Right now I use the CM3 stick for rotating F2 view and not much else - haven't reassigned anything yet to try it, too loathe to mix up my controls - but I'm wondering if it's better as TDC than the MCG stick.

 

Thanks!

Yes I really prefer to use the mini stick of the CM3 for TDC slew and depress.

 

Also talking about exterior views, I use the lower hat in center of my VKB Ultimate Grip for this. Pressing the left/right/up/down is for different exterior camera views, then pressing with a modifier button on the CM3 held down cycles between left slow, up slow, right slow, and down slow.

[imacken]

Interesting, however, if you use the technique mentioned above with axis-to-button on the mini-stick, there is no need to use modifiers, it is seamless between axes and buttons on the mini-stick.