Differential braking with the digital brake lever ends in the meadow - my suggestion

[wernst]

Steering while taxiing the Mossi is challenging, because it's done by differential braking. I think it's a lot harder wit the Mossi than with the other warbirds wich have differential brakes.

In order to steer precisely, you need to apply more or less force to the wheel brakes - carefully. Binding the wheel brakes to the brake lever on the TM Warthog stick is not sensitive at all. Because it only allows digital ON / OFF braking, it is not an analog brake axis.              

I tried binding the wheel brakes to the analog axis of one toe brake. The result wasn't great. Steering with both rudder pedals and at the same time carefully apply more or less braking force to the toe brake often ended in the grass next to the runway.

My suggestion (to the wishlist): 

I would like the ED Devs to reprogram the inputs from the digital on / off lever of the TM joystick. The time it takes to move this lever from OFF to ON should be measured and converted linearly into the strength of the braking force. Fast/short = strong braking force, slow/long = weak braking force.

Digression:

Every good electric piano has a dynamic touch control which controls the volume of the tone linear/analog although all keys oonly have digital actuation (only on / off). It's implemented by measuring the time which takes for a key from OFF to ON: Hard touch = fast/short time key actuation = loud tone, soft touch = slow/long time key actuation = silent tone.

The programming of the joystick brake lever actuation shouldn't be that difficult - but I don't know which hardware limitation could hinder this idea.  

[razo+r]

A switch is either off or on, its not an axis, so your suggestion wont work. 

 

And personally, I find it the easiest plane to taxi, and I have mapped the brakes to the paddle switch of the TM Warthog. 

[wernst]

30 minutes ago, razo+r said:

A switch is either off or on, its not an axis, so your suggestion wont work. 

Please read carefully what I have written. My suggestion is that the program should measure the time how long does it take for the digital switch to go from OFF to ON position. And then  translate this time to the force of the brake. Example: A digital piano only has digital on / off keys (switches) but can play loudly or silently, the keys have no axes.    

[razo+r]

9 minutes ago, wernst said:

Please read carefully what I have written. My suggestion is that the program should measure the time how long does it take for the digital switch to go from OFF to ON position. And then  translate this time to the force of the brake. Example: A digital piano only has digital on / off keys (switches) but can play loudly or silently, the keys have no axes.    

A piano is a bit different though. There you HAVE TO measure how fast a key is pressed, and they have different sensors in there for that.

 

A joystick just needs to know if a button is pressed or not, so the hardware in it surely differes from the piano there.

 

You can also try it out yourself. Press a button on the joystick and look how it behaves. It's either on or off. And if you look at the hardware itself, it looks like it cannot measure time, it can only detected if it's pressed or not.

 

A easier solution would be for ED to change the rate of pressure filling, like in the Spitfire.

Edited November 8, 2021 by razo+r

[wernst]

10 minutes ago, razo+r said:

A piano is a bit different though. There you HAVE TO measure how fast a key is pressed, and they have different sensors in there for that.

No, the piano is not different. Please learn that I have DIY built electronic organs and I know well that there is dedicated circuitry to measure the time of switching digital keys - no special sensors.  

[razo+r]

That's all good and all, but you're not playing DCS with a piano, are you?

 

Does a joystick have that that sensor, or as you call it, dedicated circuit? Does only an expensive one have that, or also a cheap one, or perhaps neither of them?

[lmp]

A digital piano has multiple (at least two) switches per key which are closed at different points in the key stroke - this allows the piano to measure the velocity of the key press. The pinky lever in the Warthog as far as I'm aware only has one switch. There is no physical way to detect the strength or velocity of a key press using just one switch. You could try it with the trigger (using both stages), but how reliable that would be would depend on the quality of the switches (amount of switch bounce).

Edited November 8, 2021 by lmp

[wernst]

2 minutes ago, lmp said:

A digital piano has multiple (at least two) switches per key which are closed at different points in the key stroke - this allows the piano to measure the velocity of the key press. The pinky lever in the Warthog as far as I'm aware only has one switch. There is no physical way to detect the strength or velocity of a key press using just one switch. You could try it with the trigger (using both stages), but how reliable that would be would depend on the quality of the switches (amount of switch bounce).

 

Yes, Imp, that could be the point. The piano has indeed two positions, each will be electrically registered. Ground line (wire) + 12 Volt line (wire).  If the joystick lever's contact in OFF position is not electrically registered then I'm in . . . the meadow.  And, yes, the quality of the switches is essential, bouncing effects would be an issue. (In the E-piano you could hear it).

Conclusion: Further practice with the stick didgital lever as it is.     

 

[MAXsenna]

I agree with @razo+r
The Warthog has a paddle switch, not a brake lever. It was probably never intended to be used as such.
Now there is a recent YT video from a user that achieves almost exactly what you want by using Joystick Gremlin or something with the Mossie as the example.
What I did was using a spare TM16K I have. I use the slider on it with my right hand, and the Warthog throttle in my left. And rudder pedals.
It was still really hard. So my technique will be that I just barely touch the slider with very little input from the pedals.
I have a force feedback stick, that will raise itself when I get on speed and don't need to brake anymore. Took a lot of swearing and failures until it just clicked for me.

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[scoobie]

41 minutes ago, lmp said:

A digital piano has multiple (at least two) switches per key which are closed at different points in the key stroke - this allows the piano to measure the velocity of the key press. The pinky lever in the Warthog as far as I'm aware only has one switch. There is no physical way to detect the strength or velocity of a key press using just one switch.

^ This... which means you can't have "fast=strong vs. slow=mild" with a single button, but you can have it the other way round (short=mild, long=strong).
However, brakes in the Mossie aren't digital, they are "analog", but simply too fast. In the Spit it takes a second or so of keeping the button depressed for the brakes to go from zero to full. In the Mossie it takes a fifth of a second or so. That's the only difference.

Fortunately this has been discussed elsewhere and NineLine reported it here:

 

 

[lmp]

I would be in favor of having more options for digital brake controls. So perhaps instead of just one key to activate the brakes, separate keys that would engage the brakes quickly or slowly (so you could "tap" it to effectively achieve an intermediate position), or maybe separate keys to hold the brakes at 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% deflection... this way we could choose which control scheme works best with the hardware that we have.

[scoobie]

The latter seems possible out of the box. For example "25% brakes else 0%" command (a new binding command you need to put in the ...\input\joystick\default.lua and/or ....\input\keyboard\default.lua):

{cockpit_device_id = devices.CONTROLS, down = device_commands.Button_1, up = device_commands.Button_1, value_down = 0.25, value_up = 0, name = _("Input.Yak52.wheel_brakes_slider") .. " 25% else 0%", category = _("Stick")},

Attached is the track file that shows how it works, so you can see if we're talking the same thing. First I was pressing the button bound to this "DIY" command pasted above, then I was just pressing "W" (the default binding for wheel brakes). Rudder centered throught the track.

The general rule of thumb is that if something is an axis in DCS, there probably exists a way to "inject" specific values (positions) into such axis with button(s).
For example I don't want to squander a potentiometer for formation lights in the Hornet, so I have a hardware toggle switch for that: "formation lights full bright else 0".

 

mossie_quarter_brakes.trk

[lmp]

Wow, I honestly haven't thought of just doing this in the default.lua, but it makes perfect sense. That's a really nice solution, scoobie!

[No1sonuk]

I'm an electronics engineer.
There is NO WAY a simple on/off switch ( like the paddle lever switch ) can be used to detect how fast it switches.
It is either on or off - the "delay between on and off" doesn't exist as far as the controller is concerned.
There is no way the controller can tell when you started pressing the button because there is only one set of contacts.

[wernst]

11 hours ago, No1sonuk said:

There is NO WAY a simple on/off switch ( like the paddle lever switch ) can be used to detect how fast it switches.

You are absolutely right. If the joystick lever has no two-way-switch, which toggles between GROUND and PLUS, so there is no way for what I have suggested. Obviously the "brake is open"  position will not be detected by the sim, only "brake closed" when the lever switch is activated. I was hoping it was a two-way-switch.      

It means, we are as far as before. 

[No1sonuk]

I'm nearly ready to post details of my modified version of an analogue brake lever add-on for the Warthog stick.

Someone linked to it in an IL-2 forum, and I filled in some gaps and changed the sensing system.

Edited November 10, 2021 by No1sonuk
Teaser photo added.

[wernst]

17 hours ago, No1sonuk said:

I'm nearly ready to post details of my modified version of an analogue brake lever add-on for the Warthog stick.

That would be great. This braking lever problem has been annoying me for a long time.
Does your modification require a 3D printer? (Which I dont have). Electronic DIY is not a problem at all.  

[No1sonuk]

5 hours ago, wernst said:

That would be great. This braking lever problem has been annoying me for a long time.
Does your modification require a 3D printer? (Which I dont have). Electronic DIY is not a problem at all.  

Unfortunately it does require a 3D printer. If I were to make parts for people, I'll need to redesign the lever a bit.

[No1sonuk]

For all here interested:

 

[Baldrick33]

My cheap and cheerful solution was to modify an old joystick as an analog brake, recalibrating it to just the back half of the range . A bit low end compared with the solution above but a quick fix for now