Touch screen+touch Buddy to make a A-10C CDU?

[questerymj]

Hello, I got a idea to add a 7 inch touch panel to my 7inch USB powered monitor, and use touch buddy to make it a CDU.

 

By this way I can avoid the effort to tons of wiring, problem of seeking for keyboard/joystick controller for over 100+keys, just to laser cut a panel and all buttons and attach it to the touch panel. The 7 inch monitor can be used for display area.

 

How do you think about the possibillty of this way? Any advice and comment are welcome.:music_whistling:

[Kuky]

it's possible, I have small 7" touchscreen and with touchbuddy I made UFC profile

[JaseGill]

That sounds like a good compromise to me.

I've been looking at building a UFC and for the price and faff of building one I could get a 7 inch touch and use Touchbuddy I guess. The UFC is the one panel that I'd like to have as its the one I seem to spend most time clicking. An added plus would be I suppose is that the 7 inch touch is useful for other stuff than A10C too. I'm sold, I think I just talked myself into a purchase whilst typing this ;)

Do you get any noticeable lag from the 7 inch 2nd screen Kuky? I assume its driven from the 2nd output of your graphics card?

J.

[Kuky]

Do you get any noticeable lag from the 7 inch 2nd screen Kuky? I assume its driven from the 2nd output of your graphics card?

J.

 

Honestly I don't notice any lag... answer to second question is, my touchscreen is actually on its own on low cost secondary video card (main video card is running 3 monitors, a 24" and 2x 8" for MFDs)

 

I do have to say though that 7" is ideally little small for the UFC due to its width and 8-9" would suit better, but at least for me its still not a show stopper... just that after having one I think little bigger would be better as buttons on the profile can be biger and more to true life size, it would make pressing buttons little easier I think. You could make the UFC split into 2 parts but I still like the whole thing being in one piece, but also what that did enable me is to add F1 to F12 buttons and make 3 more buttons for UHF/VHF radio buttons which come in handy when using radio as then I don't need keyboard at all

Edited January 24, 2011 by Kuky

[JaseGill]

Kuky,

Thanks, much appreciated.

In your opinion does a 10" seem overkill. I haven't used Touchbuddy before so some guidance would be helpful.

Also I guess from your reply that the touchscreen isn't one of those that runs of USB inputs? I'm wondering if one of those would suffice.

Thanks in advance,

J.

[Feed]

Profiles for Touchbuddy can be scaled to any size touch screen - it just depends on how many buttons you want to have onscreen. The smaller the button, the more buttons onscreen, and the harder it will be to 'hit' each one when trying to click it. Big 'buttons' means easy to touch, but fewer buttons onscreen.

 

Whether using a monitor with a touch screen built-in, or one that is a separate overlay, you will probably need a VGA (or DVI, or DisplayPort, or S-vid, or HDMI) port to run the "monitor" signal, and a USB connection for signals from the touchscreen.

 

Touchbuddy is just one option; it's free, but is limited to keyboard 'input' - meaning a touch on the screen generates a key as if you'd pressed a key (or multiple keys) on the keyboard. It's a great piece of software that I've used quite a bit, though.

 

If you're looking to get information FROM the simulation, to run instrumentation, indicator lights, or things like that, you should check out OpenCockpits/SIOC, Lua, and Helios. You can end up paying very little or quite a bit, depending on what you want to do and how much time/energy you're willing to put into it.

[JaseGill]

Feed,

The Mimo and Liliput monitors I have been looking at just run off USB and seem to hint that they have their onw on baord USB graphics driver that makes it look as if its a "real" monitor.

Im wondering if these are of any quality or one needs a "proper" video input to be of any quality using Touchbuddy?

[MackTheKnight]

I had a Mimo 7 " screen non-touch for a brief time. It worked well for a month or two and then shorted out or something. I returned it and got a refund. Would have exchanged it but the place I bought it didn't have any more.

 

I was using it for a shkval in blackshark and it worked really well. Little to no input lag.

 

If it worked for that, I'm sure it'd work fine as a static touch-screen interface with Touch-Buddy or Helios.

 

Quality was an issue for the mimo, given that it malfunctioned after only a month or so of use. Maybe I was just unlucky though.

 

Be sure to check return policies, just to be safe.

 

-Mack

[Feed]

The Mimo and Liliput monitors do have integrated graphics cards via the USB bus, so they do not require a dedicated video port - thanks for clarifying. Most larger screens will require a port as I said above, but these are two notable exceptions, and only require a free USB port.

 

Using these for touchbuddy would be fine (I should know, I have a Mimo)!

[Gadroc]

For a touchbuddy profile or a static Helios profile they should work fine. You will have to test anything else (like deploying a gauge from Helios on it, or exporting MFDs to it) as the USB monitors do not have hardware acceleration. In addition check their support forums for driver issues win Win 7 x64, I know some of the chip set drivers for USB monitors have had problems there or only support one USB monitor at a time.

[JaseGill]

For a touchbuddy profile or a static Helios profile they should work fine. You will have to test anything else (like deploying a gauge from Helios on it, or exporting MFDs to it) as the USB monitors do not have hardware acceleration. In addition check their support forums for driver issues win Win 7 x64, I know some of the chip set drivers for USB monitors have had problems there or only support one USB monitor at a time.

 

Gadroc,

Thanks very much. Its good to get the info from one of the Helios magicians, Im seriously impressed by your work and commitment to the cause.

I'm not too worried about getting gauge information out as I'm thinking only replicating the UFC.

Should I wish to go the gauge route then I would get a bigger screen and attach my TM MFCD's to it as I have seen on here (and been very impressed with).

Thanks for the steer on Win 7 64 too, I often forget that its not been around all that long and that some hardware developers don't support their kit quite as well as they should.

 

As an aside, I cant find any but that doesn't mean they aren't around. Has anyone seen any small (10" or less) screens driven by "proper" graphical outputs rather than on USB that has a Touch-screen? I just don't think I currently have the room to use one of my "spare" NEC 2090 Multi-synch Touch-screens for Helios, no matter how much Id like to.

Cheers,

Jase.

[Gadroc]

I have two 10.4" raw LCD panels I use with 10.4 touch screen overlays. You can find these on ebay sellers PM me and I'll point you in the direction of who I bought them for. Only do this if you are comfortable fashioning your own case / surround depending on where how your going to mount them. I'll check my bookmarks links but I also found vendors who had 10" VGA/Touchscreens, but they all cost $200-$300 so might as well pick up an HP 21" touchscreen for that much.

Edited January 24, 2011 by Gadroc
Hit submit to fast....

[questerymj]

Thanks all for nice infomations!:D

 

I have 2 mino 7 inch monitors and they used very well with DCS:Blackshark. Not test A-10 yet, but I think if you only use them for MFD/CPU exporting they will works well under Windows7. Under XP you will get serious FPS lost due to window mode.

 

I bought these 7inch monitor before TM MFD released for my home-made MFD bazels. Now they are replaced by 2 8-inch LCD-8000U(same usb-powered) so they are no use right now, so I plan to buy some 7inch touch panel to make they into other instrument with a lot of buttons(I hate wiring TACTS:(). CDU is the fiest choice.

 

In fact I don't like touch screen too much for simming, real buttons made me feel better, but touch screen+ real buttons can get benefit of both side I think. And after read TB toturial I find it's so easy to add a lot of buttons for a profile. And I can make the background pure white in non-display area to simulate button backlights. This is very handy and ideal for a poor and lazy guy like me...:P

[JaseGill]

Questrymj,

Thanks, much appreciated. Good to know the Mimo's work in Win 7 too.

Are you using Win7 32 or 64 and if so do you know if 64 is ok too?

[MackTheKnight]

Worked in Win7 64 bit for me.

[JaseGill]

Cheers Mack.

Well just waiting now to see which is cheaper, Boot910's great looking hardware UFC or a second small USB touch monitor one.

[questerymj]

Use Windows7 64bit, DCS runs better with 64bit, and WDDM driver of windows7 make window mode almost lost no fps due to window mode...BS is nearly unplayable under XP with window mode(to use usb-powered monitors), but nearly no FPS loss under W7 like a magic!:D

 

I would like to say WDDM is the savior of these usb-powered monitors.

[JaseGill]

Questrymj,

Is it necessary therefore to use Window Mode to run a USB Monitor? Sorry I'm not up on all the multi monitor stuff that is becoming more popular.

I'm already on Win 7 64 for DCS so that's not a snag.

[questerymj]

Questrymj,

Is it necessary therefore to use Window Mode to run a USB Monitor? Sorry I'm not up on all the multi monitor stuff that is becoming more popular.

I'm already on Win 7 64 for DCS so that's not a snag.

 

Yes, because in DCS:BS you need to use window mode for monitors of different vertical resolution or the game will crash.

 

In my situation, my main monitor (24 inch) is 1920x1200, but my sub monitors are 600x800 and 480x800, so I'm forced to use window mode. Not sure if DCS:A-10C use the same way although.

 

If you are looking for multi monitor setting you can dig out the old thread about this, and there is a wiki have detail description about it. The only different is most ppls use normal monitors but I use usb-powered ones.

[JaseGill]

Questrymj,

Many thanks, I wasn't aware of that. We learn something new every day, I hope.