How do you use the 5-state mode dial on your CM2/CM3 Throttle?

[roodie]

Just ordered one and I am curious about how do you use the mode dial.

[ARM505]

It's set up by default as a five state dial. Which I left it as. Frankly, there are already enough buttons that it becomes confusing enough moving between different aircraft, I didn't want to further add to the confusion. Secondly, the programming interface, while very powerful, becomes a little fiddly if you're going to add 'shifted' commands (and five states of them!) as well, since it's all done 'per button'. And it's not very intuitive at all for the more advanced settings like that. Youtube will provide I'm sure, but I didn't. All I did was add buttons in the axis range for the idle cutoff. So, idle cutoff and run, that's two virtual 'buttons' per throttle axis. That was enough for me. But, one tip: The two way red switches, of which there are four, are set up oddly from the factory - they are either 'on' or 'off' by default even though they have two 'physical' inputs as you'd expect - you might want to set them up as two button controls, ie. one input per position. Something to bear in mind. Once you get used to the idea of 'physical' vs 'output' buttons, and the way the software works, it's easier to understand. And then always remember to upload it to the device once you've made the change.

[dburne]

Yeah I left mine as it came default and really do not use any of the other modes than the first one. I have more than enough buttons combined and really do not need addtional buttons on those modes.

[HC_Official]

I use it in no mode modifier profile and use it to control profiles inside joystick gremlin for all my aircraft

Beauty of this way is that it can control any joystick device even if not virpil

see my signature for my tutorials on this stuff

[Burt]

I use it for the ACM modes on the F-15 Eagle and fuel dump for the Hornet and Tomcat #2 dial other then that  I haven’t found much use for the other positions yet.

[animaal]

I use it for radar off/standby/on. That's a set of controls I want at my fingertips.

On the F16, I reverse it - Normal/quiet/silent.

[EbonySeraphim]

I use the mode dial as a DCS modifier. In VPC software / device firmware, they are just buttons and the only thing I have them do is change the color of all of the LEDs so I know one of the mode dial buttons is being held down easily. In DCS, I assign each mode (aside from the first) as a modifier. That way I can have a lot of buttons and each mode can have a consistent them acros s modules. Mode 2 might be radio+comms, Mode 3 would be lighting etc. For the most part, any mode other than the default is for startup or non-combat / non-common functionality. The LED colors are critical because in DCS, if you're holding down a modifier button on any controller, no other controls will work and it leads to confusion when you press a button on another device and it just doesn't do what you expect it to do. 99% of the time, this is because you have a modifier held down on another controller.

Aside from "having a physical replica" of a throttle, the CM3 is pretty much perfection for me. The only way they could make this thing better is if they included configurable magnetic positional switches, and could be set based on game state. That is, the way the JFS switch auto turns off on the F/A-18 would be seen through the module export, and would trigger the controller to return the switch on the throttle. I would want that optional as different modules have wildly different natural behavior so through firmware/software you could say which switches you wanted to behave as momentary or not and in which positions. I don't even know if it's physically possible to do such a thing, but it would be hella expensive for one; and add serious power consumption. Surely it would need it's own power source beyond what USB delivers over type A ports. Maybe type C 35W+?

Edited January 30, 2023 by EbonySeraphim
added hype mumbo jumbo

[Tom Kazansky]

On 1/6/2023 at 1:12 PM, ARM505 said:

All I did was add buttons in the axis range for the idle cutoff. So, idle cutoff and run, that's two virtual 'buttons' per throttle axis.

I don't want to derail this thread, but could you please lead me to an explanation of how to do exactly this with my new VPC throttle?

Does it keep the "usual" throttle behaviour once you get over the idle detent (coming from cut off)?

edit: disregard. I've found this thread here:

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Tom Kazansky

[_Hoss]

Would be nice if the face plates were easily removed, so we could replace them with custom plates, kind of like BlackHog and TMWH. There are people lurking in the forums that make some very nice ones. 

[imacken]

15 hours ago, Tom Kazansky said:

I don't want to derail this thread, but could you please lead me to an explanation of how to do exactly this with my new VPC throttle?

Does it keep the "usual" throttle behaviour once you get over the idle detent (coming from cut off)?

edit: disregard. I've found this thread here:

 

 

That thread is outdated now.

Here is my method for defining detents, afterburners and modules without them. It has been found to be useful by quite a few people. I hope it helps. Give it as try.

Virpil Detents setup description.zip

[Tom Kazansky]

22 minutes ago, imacken said:

That thread is outdated now.

Here is my method for defining detents, afterburners and modules without them. It has been found to be useful by quite a few people. I hope it helps. Give it as try.

Virpil Detents setup description.zip 13.67 kB · 0 downloads

thanks a lot. yeah, that thread is not for the current version of Virpil software, but it finally showed me the way to getting things sorted. Biggest issue was not having a "result button" anymore. But Virpil decided to simply create "physical" buttons when needed by "axis-to-buttons" (or whatever they call them). I'm ok with that, now!

Edited April 18, 2023 by Tom Kazansky

[imacken]

Give my method a try.  It's very efficient and saves you virtual buttons.

[bfr]

On 1/6/2023 at 12:50 PM, HC_Official said:

I use it in no mode modifier profile and use it to control profiles inside joystick gremlin for all my aircraft

Beauty of this way is that it can control any joystick device even if not virpil

see my signature for my tutorials on this stuff

Yeah, i've been doing similar (but use Joy2Key rather than Joystick Gremlin) as I have a VKB stick. Plus I could just reassign existing mappings to new buttons from my old throttle config set up the same way, which is saving a fair amount of time.

EDIT: I ended up trying Joystick Gremlin as well and have started using that now as being able to do multiple things when the switch is thrown was useful e.g. as well as changing to another set of mappings, I can use it to set the aircraft master mode (e.g. press 1 when I switch to my AA specific configuration, or 2 when I go to AG).  A limitation on Joy2Key was it'd change the stick config but not let you do anything else in response to that event.

Edited April 24, 2023 by bfr

[Squeaks]

Don't mean to necro this thread, but just wanted to add my two penneth' in case someone else finds it useful.

 

I've just changed my 5-way switch to control views. So 1 is the default cockpit, 2 is released weapon, 3 is external view, 4 is LSO, not found a use for 5 yet. I did think about putting either ground or air targets on one of the positions and using the rotary encoder below to cycle through, but not tried it yet.

 

(Please note, to use it this way, you need to configure the 5-way swtich for each position to be a momentary-on switch on the virpil config tool)

[Nightdare]

Mind you I have the CM1, but still applies

 

I use it as 5-way AND shift state for the F-14

As a 5-way it selects Take off, Cruise, A/A, A/G and Landing switches on the right panel

while the Shift State assign the 2x4 and 3 momentary toggles to the specific functions required in those modes

 

I did a (somewhat out of date) topic on this:

 

 

[Marshallman]

On 1/6/2023 at 10:53 AM, roodie said:

Just ordered one and I am curious about how do you use the mode dial.

Just changed mine to 5 modes, easy via YT videos

I use the modes for  Startup, Weapons, Radio, Landing and Views.
Doesnt take long to get used to mode switching.

Regards

[Double Dutch]

Anyone flying the FA-18 and want to share his settings for the 5 x 6? buttons?