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How to use the MCG Ultimate as Cyclic?


Bedouin

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

If it's of any interest I have a "zero-prestige" arrangement

image.png

I made a wooden box that fits around the gunfighter base plate with a sandwich of 3 coreflute plastic layers to act as a damper and keep the cyclic in place when not held. The coreflute has candle wax rubbed on it as dry lube. it's completely sticktionless and can make very fine inputs. The goosenecks are made out of broken carbon fibre windsurfing booms and weigh very little. The gunfighter base currently has the weakest set of single springs installed and the fixed wing cams, but they aren't even needed with the damping and it just stops the stick slowly sagging when at it's extremes. The clutches are fully loosened.

video of it working 

https://i.imgur.com/f5zvpaH.mp4

 


Edited by Dogmanbird
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  • 4 months later...
On 4/24/2022 at 10:21 PM, Dogmanbird said:

p.s. if you're not aware, there's a small firmware centre deadzone from factory. You can completely remove it using the vkb firmware/config editor 

Can you elaborate on that? I am not sure I fully understand how to do it and what it  will do ....

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On 9/2/2022 at 4:58 AM, TonyMM said:

Can you elaborate on that? I am not sure I fully understand how to do it and what it  will do ....


 

Hi Tony. If you'd like a screenshot of where to find it I can post some pics. Part of the reason I mentioned it above, is because some sticks and rudders don't allow the complete removal of the centre deadzone, even though the config software says it's set to minimum or none ala thrustmaster / logitech and saitek. 

Fallout9 kindly tested the cheaper vkb nxt / evo bases and confirmed they can completely remove it (thanks)

i'm definitely not an authority on sticks and helicopters, but should any of the following be useful  ;

For anyone not that familiar with dead zones / deadzones / dz -  A centre deadzone exists on almost every joystick one can buy (and rudder pedals), it is generally stored in the sticks firmware and can usually be modified by the sticks software. There's a small spot in the joystick's very centre position (and possibly at full joystick deflection) that doesn't register movement - hence a "dead zone". It's only a few degrees in size, it doesn't respond to stick movement and one of it's tasks is to dampen/mask the noise that's output from the joysticks axis sensor (whichever type of sensor is used) and make the stick appear stationary. Regardless of the method used to sense movement, there's always some noise (random jittering of the values output from the sensor), which is unwanted and can affect the aircraft's controls. For cheap joysticks, it's also used to help hide deficiencies in the stick design, such as the flex in a plastic construction that might cause unwanted movement around center. 

The vkb Config software will allow you to set a deadzone to 0, instead of it's default value of maybe 3 or 5 or 10 etc. and does totally remove the deadzone. VKB sets this to something above 0 by default like most manufacturers to mask the noise and make the joystick appear stationary when within the "deadzone". The larger the number, the greater the range of movement that will behave as a deadzone.

For folk not familiar with helicopters - (generally) the cyclic control and torque (or anti torque) control whish basically the rudder, have no absolute centre position. What could be considered center is affected by, and based on, environmental conditions, speed and probably other things like aircraft /cargo weight distribution at the time as it is with planes, but maybe more so. The controls tend to stay where you leave them when pilot removes hands, particularly if hovering or travelling slow, though they may move towards centre if travelling at higher speeds due to air pressure on the blades and fuselage. Helicopters require very small degrees of movement from the controls  to maintain stability or it's course. If the stick happens to pass through a deadzone then the stick becomes unresponsive, so removing it is beneficial. The heli pilot is making constant micro stick movements, relative to the stick movements used for a plane. 

If using a long joystick extension, which allows for finer inputs (desirable for heli flying), it has the effect of magnifying the deadzone area if one is present.

If someone's not flying helicopters, and mainly flying planes, it's not necessary to remove the deazone from the joystick (and rudder pedals). 

In addition to deadzones - If required, the joystick's microprocessor can remove the noise / jitter somewhat by applying a filter that takes a few axis sensor readings and calculates the average of those readings, then outputs that to the game. (this can be set in vkb config) This is usually turned on by default. The more sensor readings per calculation, the less jitter, resulting in a smoother output. Unfortunately, if this is set to include many readings per calculation, it takes longer to calculate the average. If too long, the game then noticeably lags behind your joystick movements (input latency). Manufacturers tend to set this filter to include only two or three readings per calculation to keep the lag to a minimum. MSFS2020 appears to do the above within the game itself, with what appears to be many sensor readings and this can't be completely disabled (from what I can see). This adds to the joysticks own lag. Therefore MSFS always feels a bit laggy regardless of how the joysticks built-in filter is configured. DCS doesn't appear to apply any filtering which imho is great. Lag can make it more difficult to hover the helicopter and tends to make the user overcorrect. Lag / latency is not such a problem when flying planes and often folk aren't even aware of it until it's pointed out.

Having said all that, people have been enjoying flying helicopters with their cheaper or expensive sticks (and rudders) even with deadzones. It just becomes more apparent when needing to fly or hover between objects with minimal space, remain close to the ground at high speed, cargo drops, land quickly and smoothly within a very small space and right onto a target without fluffing around too much etc.

 


Edited by Dogmanbird
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