Tag: simchair

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AB412 collective head showcase!

Have you ever dreamed of starting the engine of DCS Huey without touching your mouse or keyboard? Now you can, with this open source Simchair MKIII collective lever. I’ve been working hard on software for the last couple of days. The head now supports 4 different switch operation modes to cover all your needs, 3-way  mode selector switch option (which will triple your buttons or spring-loaded switches number), IDLE CUTOFF compatibility mode for DCS Huey. Because of the latter, the realistic startup procedure can be performed, with one exception.

In a real heli, the idle stop button controls a solenoid valve. if the battery will die in the wrong moment during startup  (that happens sometimes), this valve may not open and you won’t be able to shut down, resulting in a burned engine. That’s why you want to position throttle just a little bit off the idle stop position on the decrease side, but you can’t, due to how DCS handles throttle operation past the idle cutoff switch. This is really a minor issue, still, if you want the procedure to be as realistic as possible, connect an external power prior to startup. Note that when flying in multiplayer, chat window has to be closed when using idle stop related operations with the collective.

The fresh software snapshot with all the goodies included is available on GitHub

Cheers!

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AB412 collective test print photos and thoughts on software

 

Finished the first test print of the head, and it looks good! Seems like it will be quite interesting from a point of software: with 3-way switches, there will be 17 buttons + 2 hat switches, and if we add a mode switch, it will triple this number. The question is, whether the master controller will be able to poll all this stuff and return values to windows without lags (in windows joysticks have weird limitations of 32 buttons, 1 hat switch and 2 7 axes per piece, so it will have to look as several joysticks to work everywhere). In the worst case scenario, it will be a semi-scale head with 2 hats, 11 buttons, 1 rotary axis and (probably) a mode switch.

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Master controller software bug fix, please update

When working on a flight test video, I noticed that emergency trim release with SENS_SWITCH function had not been working properly if force trim release button was pressed (actually the case when you may need emergency trim release function most). This was just fixed, so please update your master controller software.

Download it from GitHub

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News on single engine collective with head support

Single engine collective test print

I’ve been working on the new lever for some time, and it’s very close to release now. This lever is a successor of the twin throttle 412 themed lever with some improvements, which simplify assembly process by a considerable degree, yet significantly increase its strength and, most importantly, rotation smoothness. Because of a new tensioner with rubber bands added to it, the lever can hold any type of a head of large enough weight and still feel as light and smooth as the simple one!

I’ve been able to fly with it today for a while, with my old cyclic grip used as a head mockup (to simulate a head’s weight) and it feels just right.  It can be set up so that the tension is barely noticeable even with an object as heavy as this dummy cyclic grip. This lever has 200-degree throttle travel range. After a few days of testing, I will release it along with an assembly and demo flight videos.

I have added support for a new lever to simchair software. Check it out on GitHub!

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Thoughts on sensitivity of controls

I have been testing new hardware more thoroughly and noticed, that different sims have very different controls sensitivity settings (and ways to adjust it).  More than that, some of the sims tend to react on even the slightest jitter from Hall effect sensors and ADC (which is really almost nonexistent), while others ignore it completely.  That means that often, there’s a need for per-sim or even per-aircraft setting.

Simchair MKIII cyclic and pedals are sensitive enough to emulate the control response of lightest and twitchiest helicopters out there. But what if you feel it is too sensitive for the particular helicopter model you want to fly? Or, maybe the sim you are flying in treats joystick sensitivity settings differently, or even doesn’t have proper controls settings at all? What if setting curves is not what you want, but your sim doesn’t have any linear sensitivity adjustment options?

Continue reading “Thoughts on sensitivity of controls”

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A better resolution for cyclic and pedals

While experimenting with adjusting controls sensitivity for different sims, I have found an interesting thing: in fact, the ADS1115 is so precise its values can be used without filtering at a 15-bit resolution! It is rather impressive 32768 points per axis. I can’t say the difference is as huge as between 8 bit and 12, but it depends on the game. For example, while I  only felt a marginal difference in DCS and X-plane, it was very noticeable in Arma 3. That’s why  I added an ADS1115_RESOLUTION constant to the master controller sketch.

You can set ADS1115 resolution like that:

#define ADS1115_RESOLUTION 15 //from 12 to 15 bits

I am now curious if changing a connection scheme of an ADC to a differential one will give even better results!

You can download an updated .ino file from GitHub.