Native support for toggle switches

  • hey guys


    I moved this post here as there was no answer in Dev. discussion.

    I was messing around with the settings and realized that we can actually use direct toggle switches like no other sim can (without plugins).

    Not sure if this is intentional but where there is button assignment for both (+) and (-) or (up) and (down) function we can assign each button to opposite direction of one toggle switch.

    This means that stuff like landing gear, electrical and light switches, and eventually every toggle switch in the cockpit can be controlled by an actual toggle switch in our home cockpit, without plugins or additional IO cards.

    Unfortunately most of these functions above only allow for one "direction" of assignment (like Gear on the picture). Anybody behind this piece of code, would you consider to add both (+) (-) buttons to the rest of the controls please?

    It would make life of cockpit building much easier;)


    Over and Out

    Jay

    • Official Post

    It would make Boeing centre 'off' gear control easier, where the centre position of the landing gear lever depressurises the gear circuit. Up gives gear up, down gives centre and 2nd down gives gear down.

    The B737 already has this built in now, with the normal key command it just sets it to up, then off after some time.

    if you click the lever it stays up and you have to manually set it to off then...

  • Hey boys


    I think you didn't get my point here..

    Let me explain this a little better with FS-X example. When we wanna use an actual toggle switch like the one on Saitek's TPM module (normal on/off toggle), we need additional plugin (FSUIPC) so we assign one button press for each position of the switch. You flick the switch down and FSUIPS emulates press of landing gear button for example. You flick the switch up and it repeats the same action so your gear goes up.

    Now have a look at AFS2 and it's behavior using the same switch assigned to any button press. You flick the switch one direction and the button in setting goes full green (engaged). When you flick it to another side, it will not just disengage the command but additionally send another very short one so you see little green flash on assigned button.

    Lets take the flaps as another example. The picture above show button 9 assigned to either side (in/out). I assigned the switch flicking it down on one side and up on another. When in flight I can actually move the flaps in and out (by one notch) just by flicking one switch.

    Well back to my point. It is not very useful for flaps but there is an option to control two position toggles in the cockpit. Stuff like lite switches, landing gear etc.

    Button presses are boring though, so I was actually asking IPACS if they could add button assignments to both sides of each function (or at least the once with toggles in cockpit).


    Hope it's clearer now

    Regards Jay

    Over and Out

    Jay

    • Official Post

    So you want your toggle switch to act as a repetition of the gear position? Yes, we have something planned for this in the future.

    For the flaps, how do you want the interaction to work with an aircraft like the b747? Hold on = full flaps, Off = flaps up?

    Landing gear and other buttons make a lot more sense, this should be considered as well, yes.


    Active signal = active landing lights, gear down,...


    Noted down, we'll see what we can do for these kind of buttons.

  • I'm trying to say that whatever you did it works quite well already. Obviously flaps don't make much sense with toggle switch but there are other functions which would be great with it but don't have both + and - button assignment (either side of axis bar).

    However you do that, all I'm asking really just for native support of toggle switches. Something like: Active signal = active landing light. Disengaged signal = lights off and so on..

    Great, easy and cheap for cockpit builders though..


    Anyway thanks for noting it down;)

    Over and Out

    Jay

  • I am also checking the possibilities of controlling the cockpit by real switches rather than the mouse. In first place I woul d love to see AF2 being interfaced with my 13 GoFlight modules. I think there is a dll available in the sdk with which a talented c++ programmer could build an interface. However as I do not think this will happen soon I work with a usb key encoder from hagstrom electronics which is very simple to handle but effective. One can connect switches, rotary switches and potentiometers. For two way switches it is best to have on/on switches so they can generate a different key for both states (e.g. G for gear down and schift-G for gear up). But of course it also works with G for gear down and G for gear up. This works fine but is not perfect because it does not read the status from the sim especially when it comes to things like course, nav, speed and VS. Therefore a proper pluggin that writes and reads in both directions is finally needed.


    With all this mentioned I have some questions to ipacs regarding the setting options: - why do most settings have axes e.g. beacon? What is the idea behind?

    - why do not all settings have a key option on both sides (-+, down up) e.g. gear, many light switches?

    - why have most settings two setting options on each side?


    Thomas

    Regards,

    Thomas


    i7-6700K @ 4.0 GHz, Geforce GTX 1080, 32MB RAM, 500GB SSD M.2, 1TB SSD M.2, 2TB SSD M.2, 1TB HD, 32" Monitor 4K, Oculus Rift

  • I'm glad we have axis assignments for panel and instrument lights so we can use potentiometers with those just like real C172. Unfortunately those assignments don't work for some reason, it's been already reported.

    I also have two Leo Bodnar boards laying around waiting to be build into my pit. They are great for rotary encoders and toggle switches so I'm excited to build additional panel for radios and instrument tuning. I hope that IPACS will come closer to this subject in the matter of supporting different kinds of inputs and more complex setting options so we don't have to wait for another FSUIPC like addon.


    Jay

    Over and Out

    Jay

  • Jay

    After having visited the Bodnar site I now understand better what you mean. With these kind of boards it is possible to connect directly switches, buttons, rotary encoders and pots directly and configure them in the settings tab as they are regarded as a joystick. Yes, it would be great to have input settings on boths sides of each option. Hence you would mostly work with on/on oder on/off/on buttons.

    Thomas

    Regards,

    Thomas


    i7-6700K @ 4.0 GHz, Geforce GTX 1080, 32MB RAM, 500GB SSD M.2, 1TB SSD M.2, 2TB SSD M.2, 1TB HD, 32" Monitor 4K, Oculus Rift

  • Jay

    After having visited the Bodnar site I now understand better what you mean. With these kind of boards it is possible to connect directly switches, buttons, rotary encoders and pots directly and configure them in the settings tab as they are regarded as a joystick. Yes, it would be great to have input settings on boths sides of each option. Hence you would mostly work with on/on oder on/off/on buttons.

    Thomas

    Exactly, that was my point.. there's so many geeks about flight simming and we just love our flight desks and home cockpits. I hope IPACS won't forget about us and bring something remarkable (as usual) ;)


    Jay

    Over and Out

    Jay