Dimming Project Magenta displays ...help!

[imported_MattO]

And Pete Dowsons FSUIPC forum is located for us dummies

http://forums.simflight.com/viewforum.php?f=54

Matt O.

[luker]

Hi Matt

Thanks for the link Matt. I will certainly be checking this out. In the meantime if you do try to dim your displays using Phidgets and have success let me know as I'm at a dead end....

Cheers,
Luke

[luker]

Hi Alan,

Yep good idea, I will be upgrasding to 3.1.2 later today and giving it another go.

I have read both the wideclient/wideserver docs but I don't think the problem lies in this area as the PM Glass cockpit works and connects to flight sim flawlessly but I will read the FSUIPC doco and go to the link suggested by Matt to get a better understanding of the offsets.

For information,... yesterday I was looking through the PM Glass cockpit ini file (pfd.ini) and found a setting to enable dimming but this was also set correctly to allow dimming to occur via way of the offset, so everything appears ok on the PM side of things as well

Cheers,
Luke

[luker]

Hi Alan

Just a short post for your information.

I managed to upgrade to the latest version of the FS2Phidgets software 3.1.2

Unfortunately I still have the same problem. I have also made a post of this problem to the Project Magenta forum to see if I may have done something wrong at the Project Magenta end of things.

I have also read the wideserver and wideclient documentation as suggested and I'm happy that I am not doing anything wrong in that regard.

Cheers,
Luke

[alandyer]

Try something else.
Vary the dimness of the capt PFD using the keyboard and observe values using the FS2Phidget FS variable editor.

Let me know what values you observed ?

[luker]

Hi Alan,

Not sure what you mean about dimming via keyboard :confused: . I don't think the glass cockpit software can be dimmed without using an offset. There are no keys documented that serve to dim the displays....

I will look around and see if I can find a way to dim without relying on hardware for testing purposes as you recommend and report back.

Cheers,
Luke

[alandyer]

Luke,

Had a look on PM web site Documentaion page. Here's what it states
under Boeing-Type Glass Cockpit -> Keyboard commands.

,/. or Ctrl-G,H
Decrease/Increase Brightness (Ctrl-Shift-H resets brightness to 100%)

Regards,
Alan.

[luker]

My apologies Alan for missing this piece of information in the PM documentation. Will try again tonight.

Cheers,
(a deeply embarrased)
Luke

[luker]

Well Alan,

I've tested by using the keyboard. These are the steps I followed. SORRY TO BE LENGTHY AGAIN

Started FS
Started the PM Glass Cockpit software and set it to display upper ecam
Started FS2Phidgets (version 3.1.2)

Through the menu I selected "Tools" then Edit FSUIPC Fields then...

In FS2Phidgets I created (again) the following entry in a new "LucasVar.ini" file through the FS2Phidgets interface.

[LIGHT_CAPT_UECAM]
Offset=55F2
Length=1
Format=0
Multiplier=1.00
Divisor=1.00
Integer=False
WriteOnly=False
FSType=Proportional
LoValue=0
HiValue=100


I saved this and went back to the main FS2Phidgets screen
I then clicked "connect to FS" this then went green

I then assigned the variable to FS Element index 1 (index 0 is already assigned to my throttle)

I then clicked on the enable button and the FS Element index 1 row went green

I then clicked on "start communications" button it went green (not clear what this button is for as my throttle assignment works whether you click it or not)

I then dimmed and brightened the display via the keystrokes you found in the manual for PM glass cockpit. This worked fine.

I then selected Edit FS Variables for LIGHT_CAPT_UECAM and found that the Raw FS value and FS Value fields both read 0.

I also clicked on "Detect from FS" in the possible values area and I continued to watch these text boxes as I varied the dimness/brightness of the ECAM display (both with the Detect from FS checked and also unchecked) and they still read 0.

I then repeated all steps and tried it for the CAPT PFD display (Offset 55F0 - so I changed the variable through FS2Phidgets to reflect this) and then I varied the brightness of the display...again the values from FS appeared as 0 in the text boxes.

SO...I didn't have much success monitoring the values. It's almost like the offset 55F2 is not been looked at by flight simulator ...???

Also just to let you know. I am running FS 2004, the FS2Phidgets software and the PM ecam display on the one machine (for testing purposes) so that I am not using wideclient to communicate to FS as everything is on the one PC.

I tested the comms between the PM software and FS by throttling up and seeing the ECAM display change accordingly so I know that shouldn't be an issue.

For these tests I DID NOT have my phidgets board attached. I did it all via a dummy tab in FS2Phidgets.

Maybe I am making an error somewhere ? Maybe I'm not monitoring the variables correctly ....

Hope you can spot my problem.

Thanks again for all your time as I realise you must be quite busy

Cheers,
Luke

[luker]

Hello Again Alan/Matt

I have finally solved the problem.

Alan you were right all along. The offset(s) 55F0 (for capt PFD) 55F1 (for capt ND) 55F2 (for upper ecam) etc etc...were working.

Over the past few days I was getting lots of Error 91 Object Variable not set errors when I upgraded to 3.1.2. So I finally decided to re-install the phidgets.msi as well as re-install the FS2Phidgets version 3.1.2 software. I also upgraded to the latest version of the PM Boeing Glass cockpit (ver. 430).

After assigning the pot to the variable I created ...eg

[LIGHT_CAPT_UCAM]
Offset=55F2
Length=1
Format=0
Multiplier=1.00
Divisor=1.00
Integer=False
WriteOnly=False
FSType=Proportional
LoValue=0
HiValue=100

Everything worked !!!!

So it could have been a software corruption of some kind (lots off Object not set errors) or that the Boeing Glass Cockpit version I was using previously (ver. 424) did not support dimming ...although the software doco says it does.

Alan: Thanks for your help in explaining how to set up the offsets in the first place.

Matt: I hope you find this useful and can use it to dim your displays if you needed to

Cheers,
Luke