WW F16 ICP displays DED without SIMAPP PRO

[Kiseki_Yu]

With the recent YouTube review of WW F16 ICP, the screen automatically displays and synchronizes to DCS F16 DED by simply launching SIMAPP PRO.

My question is the following:

Is there a way to synchronize the DED without using SIMAPP PRO? Just like a normal MFD expansion.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Kiseki_Yu

[norman99]

If it’s anything like the Hornet UFC, then no. The DED is not an additional monitor, like the MFDs are, and therefore will require some sort of software interface between DCS and the ICP. 

[MustangSally]

Nope, you need Simappro running.

[Ishigami]

Is there any particular reason you do not want to run SimApp Pro?

 

Besides that you may want to look into the app DCS UFC available for Android and iOS. That way you can use a tablet to simulate a digital ICP (UFC etc.). It works quite well.

Tek Creation has an ICP and DED as well: F16 ICP (Integrated Control Panel) Controller DCS:Viper / FalconBMS (tekcreations.space) and F16 Falcon DED Realistic Immersion without a full cockpit Build (tekcreations.space)

So does Simgears: F16 ICP Replica - USB Controller - Simgears - Flight Simulator Part Replicas for Gamers

The obvious disadvantage to WW solution is the price due to probably low volume...

Edited December 24, 2023 by Ishigami

[MAXsenna]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:16 AM, Kiseki_Yu said:

With the recent YouTube review of WW F16 ICP, the screen automatically displays and synchronizes to DCS F16 DED by simply launching SIMAPP PRO.

My question is the following:

Is there a way to synchronize the DED without using SIMAPP PRO? Just like a normal MFD expansion.

 

Not sure about the WW version and what kind of screen it uses. But you can export the DED normally like an MFD to another screen.

[MustangSally]

54 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Not sure about the WW version and what kind of screen it uses. But you can export the DED normally like an MFD to another screen.

Why would you if you have the ICP? Absolutely nothing wrong with running Simappro!

Edited December 26, 2023 by MustangSally

[MAXsenna]

Why would you if you have the ICP? Absolutely nothing wrong with running Simappro!

I just replied to his last question.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Flav]

do you think its possible to export or may be an other solution to display the F18 IFEI ( for exemple) with or without SIM APP PRO? that an idea....

do you think it's possible to use the winwing  icp F16 screen to display something else (except native DED of course)? Like universal UFC?

Edited February 23, 2024 by Flav

[prestonflying]

@Flav I have explored making something like the F18 UFC mod for the F16, but it would be much more in-depth and time consuming. This is what I found:
- The F16 ICP is a matrix display, thus you can not display a screen or window on it, instead if works Dot Matrix display
- WinWIng Export lua exports the string characters currently shown on the ICP, it does not export the actual DED export window
- SimApp Pro reads these string messages of the DED and draws them on the Dot Matrix display using custom code within SimApp Pro

Possible paths to get data on the DED screen without using SimApp Pro and showing custom data:
- Determine what SimApp Pro is sending the USB DED to get data to appear on the screen, you could use a program like Reverse USB Protocol or USB Trace
- Once you determine what data is being sent to the USB F16 DED, you can then written a program which writes to this device using HIDAPI or some other api to send read/write messages to the USB Device. Lets call this program DEDWriter (since it writes data to the DED)
- Once we can send custom data to the device, you then determine what data you want to appear (Example: Flying the A10 and you want to see the number of bullets remaining, you can use Export.lua to send out a udp message to DEDWriter with the value of the A10 bullets remaining, this can be extended to other types of info from DCS). We are not limited to DCS either, you could use SimConnect to export data from MSFS
- The end result here would be 1. DED Writter (Program that listens for data to draw on the DED and sends USB write commands via HIDAPI) and 2. Some program (either DCS export lua or SimConnect for MSFS) to export data via UDP to DED Writer 

 

[prestonflying]

So after writing up this response yesterday, I felt the need to try it mysnullelf! Here is the result, Ill be continuing with a stand-alone application that allows any data to be drawn on this LCD screen. This means when flying the Tomcat, you could put airspeed, selected weapon, arm status, etc on this screen. It is early on in development as I just finished up Step 2 in my list above.

[ANDR0ID]

@prestonflying awesome work once again! I don't have the F-16 ICP, but its great to see the trend of Universal application continuing. Thanks for your contributions to the DCS community. 

Edited February 29, 2024 by ANDR0ID

[Flav]

On 2/26/2024 at 8:41 PM, prestonflying said:

@Flav I have explored making something like the F18 UFC mod for the F16, but it would be much more in-depth and time consuming. This is what I found:
- The F16 ICP is a matrix display, thus you can not display a screen or window on it, instead if works Dot Matrix display
- WinWIng Export lua exports the string characters currently shown on the ICP, it does not export the actual DED export window
- SimApp Pro reads these string messages of the DED and draws them on the Dot Matrix display using custom code within SimApp Pro

Possible paths to get data on the DED screen without using SimApp Pro and showing custom data:
- Determine what SimApp Pro is sending the USB DED to get data to appear on the screen, you could use a program like Reverse USB Protocol or USB Trace
- Once you determine what data is being sent to the USB F16 DED, you can then written a program which writes to this device using HIDAPI or some other api to send read/write messages to the USB Device. Lets call this program DEDWriter (since it writes data to the DED)
- Once we can send custom data to the device, you then determine what data you want to appear (Example: Flying the A10 and you want to see the number of bullets remaining, you can use Export.lua to send out a udp message to DEDWriter with the value of the A10 bullets remaining, this can be extended to other types of info from DCS). We are not limited to DCS either, you could use SimConnect to export data from MSFS
- The end result here would be 1. DED Writter (Program that listens for data to draw on the DED and sends USB write commands via HIDAPI) and 2. Some program (either DCS export lua or SimConnect for MSFS) to export data via UDP to DED Writer 

 

thank you for your reply and your enthusiasm

it's really a great start

 

[RickJamesBish]

Does anyone know that ENGINE section in SimappPro is for?  I have two WW MFDs configured, one for Left DDI and one for RIght DDI. They work correctly. I was trying to see what ENGINE displays so I designated one of the two displays to ENGINE, but it still displays the MFD.  null

[twopac187]

If you have the third screen, that one shows the eHSI. If you look at that location in the cockpit in game, you will see that panel.

[Johnny Johnny Johnny]

On 2/28/2024 at 7:28 PM, prestonflying said:

So after writing up this response yesterday, I felt the need to try it mysnullelf! Here is the result, Ill be continuing with a stand-alone application that allows any data to be drawn on this LCD screen. This means when flying the Tomcat, you could put airspeed, selected weapon, arm status, etc on this screen. It is early on in development as I just finished up Step 2 in my list above.

Amazing, I just bought the F16 ICP and I would love to have uses for the screen for other aircraft, any news?

[=DROOPY=]

On 11/23/2024 at 12:19 PM, Johnny Johnny Johnny said:

Amazing, I just bought the F16 ICP and I would love to have uses for the screen for other aircraft, any news?

^ This... 

[prestonflying]

On 11/26/2024 at 9:12 AM, =DROOPY= said:

^ This... 

I am not working on any features for it, just showing a proof of concept. I posted onto Github with a start template of writing data to the DED if others want to take a go at it. The hard part was figuring out how to draw/write text on the screen which in the Github project I use the DLLs from SimApp pro to call the methods WinWIng wrote to interface with the F16 DED.

[Flav]

Hello there,
do you have any news about this project for DCS?

on the other hand, i'm trying to use the ICP DED screen, for flight simulator through mobifliht. but my problem is that i can't see the screen in hardware. i can see the ICP as a joystick, the buttons work, but i can't see the screen at all...

PrestonFlying, how did you manage to write your TEST page, how did you see the LCD screen?

EDIT : sorry, nevermind, I read back your post with explanation

regards

Edited December 18, 2024 by Flav

[ExoLight]

Hey all,

With the current sales on Winwing's website, I'm also considering getting the ICP, but the DED only supporting the F-16 is a bit off-putting. I've seen @prestonflying's GitHub playground repo, but is anyone planning on taking this on and making a utility that could be used in conjunction with Lua export scripts? Or has anyone figured out another way of displaying stuff on the DED?

If not, and if I ever get the ICP, I could give it a shot, but I never touched NodeJS (or JS for that matter) - so if I make it work, expect something botched.

Edited December 17, 2024 by ExoLight

[prestonflying]

Hello, a user in the Papi Planes discord hooked up the ICP with X-Plane to extract data and draw on the ICP while flying. Here is a screenshot of it. (Discord invite https://discord.gg/MaerngqfKS -> tmp-f16-ded channel is where we discuss this).