I have made my own flight yoke for my pit. And I would love to add FFB to it. I do not own a FFB joystick to take apart to see how the internals work. So does anybody know what kind of signal FS Force outputs to the controler to control the motors? I also would assume there are some position feed back pots that feed back to FS Force as well to tell the the controls current position. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. I really dont want to make use the existing controls out of a junk joystick to control my yoke.
Also would FS Force control FFB in rudder pedals if they where set up with FFB?
Making Flight Yoke
Moderator: RussDirks
I did a bit more digging on this and I think I found a few things. I think I need to run a USB servo control that will run the two DC motor controls for the two axis.
Now this is where I get lost. Will FS force run any USB servo controller that I get or is it way more complex than this? I am not a programmer so I am not sure how the FSF software comunicates with the joystick, or in my case hopefuly a standard USB servo controller. Any comments or insite would be appreciated.
Now this is where I get lost. Will FS force run any USB servo controller that I get or is it way more complex than this? I am not a programmer so I am not sure how the FSF software comunicates with the joystick, or in my case hopefuly a standard USB servo controller. Any comments or insite would be appreciated.
FS Force doesn't interact directly with the Joystick. FSF does it's stuff by making API calls to DirectX, which then interacts with the drivers, and the drivers interact with the Joystick. So unfortunately I don't think I can help you much with the low level stuff you're trying to do.
Here's a link to the DirectInput section of DirectX.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... S.85).aspx
Here's a link to the DirectInput section of DirectX.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... S.85).aspx
Russel Dirks
Forum Moderator
Forum Moderator
Firts post in this tiny and quiet forum.
As most people around here, I spent the extra money to get a FFB joystick mainly to finally handle trimming in a realistic way. In my preliminar research to see if MS flight simulator supports FFB properly (surprise, in doesn't ¬¬) I found FS-Force. Once more, what microsoft didn't care to add to their sim was done by a third party.
The thoughts that I wanted to share here, following the topic on this thread, is that I realized that an inexpensive trimming capable yoke (or joystick) could be built without using force feedback. In a spring centered yoke all that is needed is a physical mechanism that smoothly changes the center position with a wheel or a slider, so the springs will force the yoke to stay in the new position when hands off. It would lack the rest of features of a FFB device but, on the other side, it doesn't need motors, control circuits, power line, interfacing with direct input and all that.
I think it could be a good idea for yoke builders that want to be able to trim in a realistic way but find adding FFB too complex and expensive.
The truth is that, thinking about it, commercial yokes should already have such a feature (and also serious joysticks). And, of course, simulators should handle hardware with a mechanical trimmer properly by being knowable of the position of the trimmer, reflect it on the cockpit, etc. But the sad truth is that only a few sims support FFB capable joysticks correctly (I only know of Lock-on Flamming Cliffs, DCS: BlackShark and Condor), so no wonder why this essential control is missed so widely.
You may already notice that english is not my 1st language. Sorry for the mistakes, I hope you all understand what I'm saying. You wouldn't believe how much time it took me to put all this words together... phew!
As most people around here, I spent the extra money to get a FFB joystick mainly to finally handle trimming in a realistic way. In my preliminar research to see if MS flight simulator supports FFB properly (surprise, in doesn't ¬¬) I found FS-Force. Once more, what microsoft didn't care to add to their sim was done by a third party.
The thoughts that I wanted to share here, following the topic on this thread, is that I realized that an inexpensive trimming capable yoke (or joystick) could be built without using force feedback. In a spring centered yoke all that is needed is a physical mechanism that smoothly changes the center position with a wheel or a slider, so the springs will force the yoke to stay in the new position when hands off. It would lack the rest of features of a FFB device but, on the other side, it doesn't need motors, control circuits, power line, interfacing with direct input and all that.
I think it could be a good idea for yoke builders that want to be able to trim in a realistic way but find adding FFB too complex and expensive.
The truth is that, thinking about it, commercial yokes should already have such a feature (and also serious joysticks). And, of course, simulators should handle hardware with a mechanical trimmer properly by being knowable of the position of the trimmer, reflect it on the cockpit, etc. But the sad truth is that only a few sims support FFB capable joysticks correctly (I only know of Lock-on Flamming Cliffs, DCS: BlackShark and Condor), so no wonder why this essential control is missed so widely.
You may already notice that english is not my 1st language. Sorry for the mistakes, I hope you all understand what I'm saying. You wouldn't believe how much time it took me to put all this words together... phew!