phidgets i/o

[spiro]

hi all
i was looking at i/o boards and am a bite mixed up with phidget
lets say i whant to interface light switches and all of most on a cockpit exept
7 segment because i have plug and play moduels i whant mainly
switched (lights,gear,flaps,spoilers.)and out put led like warning and so on
if i were to buy phidget boards do i need softwere like PM or can i do it with FSUIPC? do i need programming skills or is it strait forward with its own softwere
can some one explain


i mean if i get the phidget i/o boards and have all my switches power supply and a registed copy of FSUIPC can it be done??
kind regards

[ANDYSMITH]

Good day, here is my take on this, I have no PM or any other expensive software, just FSX and some cheap add ons, FSUIPC (registered) is a must have for your setup. Then you should get "FS2Phidgets" by Alan Dyer, also a "must have" in my opinion. FS2P will talk to FSX via the "wideserver and wideclient" that come with FSUIPC so you can have your phidgets cards on another PC if you want. then you have choices in the I/O cards. if you want switches and rotary encoders you do not need to use phidgets, you can use any joystick interface to assign switches. I use Leo's 832X card(s) because they are cheap and give you 32 inputs, windows will see the card with no drivers needed, there is a utility that you need for encoders but it is free and simple as well. Then I use a phidget "LED64" card for all indicator lights. this works real good for a basic setup. The next step would be to use a phidget 0/16/16 card that gives you 16 inputs and 16 outputs. the advantage there is that you can assign a button for a light test.(the test button and the lights need to both be on a phidgets card for this) It's pretty cool to push a test button and see your whole overhead light up (made my day). the test feature will work with all attached phidgets cards meaning that your test botton on the 0/16/16 card will also light up the led64 card as well. the phidgets software is real easy to set up, just pull down a menu and pick what you want. And when your ready, the phidget servo card will drive most guages.
I feel like i am rambling on so ask away, I will help any way I can....Andy

[spiro]

thanks Andy
i have a registed copy of FSUIPC using win7 64 bit and fsx
i decided to go with phidget cards as i can find them here in greece
easy and i get a discount on them

As for leos card with all the inputs i looks nice but i have tryed to contact
him a coupel of times but no answer he must be bussiey

any way i have started to build a full sim and whant it one day to work 100%
so i decided to go with somthing that has technical support and can allways find
it

for startes i whant to make a light panel,apu start,gear up/down and work som leds like warnnings and stuff experiment with the 0/16/16
at the moment i am using saiteks switch panel it works ok but i would like to be able to control it more what i really whant to do is asighn swiutches and out leds and if i whant to expand just get more of the same

i dont realy whant to use all diffrent types of i/o bords and mix it all up !!!!
so can you tell me am i thinking right of using phidget for inputs and out puts
i read some were that they are the most relyable is that true??
regards

[ptrebian]

Spiro and Andy:

I am new to the setup of phidgets. After reading this thread I am wondering if it is possible to setup phidgets on a single PC with FSX on it. I have FS2Phidgets 4.3.21, FSVariable4.3.15 in the right location, FSUIPC 4.53 in place running, FSX running, and the phidgets 2.16 library installed and the Phidgets servcie running. I can see the phigets, but FS2Phidgets does not see FSX. I have another thread in the user forum "Help - I can't get the red out". I am wondering from this thread, Andy mentions FSP talks to FSUIPC/FSX via wideserve/wideclient. Will I need to setup a client server setup with wideserver/wideclient locally? Can I get FSP to talk to FSX/FSUIPC without the wideserver/wideclient setup? I know wideserver and wideclient is to be used to connect remote PCs to a master FSX setup.

The reason I went with phidgets are the small footprint the inputs will give me for switches and controls. My goal is a portable basic flight control setup for my laptop. I have started with the mini joystick to see if that works, and if so, I will expand to other cockpit phidget mini controls for a single engine airplane setup.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks!

Paul

[CocnutAir]

Only need wideserver-client for remote setups. If running an FSUIPC application on same machine FSUIPC needs to be set up as per FSUIPC documentation for running an application on the same machine. Its all in the FSUIPC documenation.

[ptrebian]

Alan,

Thanks for the reply. I will check out the FSUIPC documentation for your direction for me. I knew it was something simple. All I needed was a push int he right direction.

I will let you know how it goes.

BTW, you program is very nice, graphic and easy to follow. I knew that the problem was mostl likely something I had missed.

Now to the fix.

Paul

[spiro]

Hello merry xmas to all
it all sounds like a nother languege to me
i got my first o/16/16 but need alitel step buy step help how to
get it running ,what to download,and how to ajust FSUIPC
the connection part with switches is easy i under stand that but
my qestion is how do i get it working with fsx?
regards

[CocnutAir]

Have you:
(a) Dowloaded FSUIPC
(b) Installed FSUIPC
(c) Obtained FSUIPC registration key

[spiro]

hello
yes i have FSUIPC registed 4.53
regards

[CocnutAir]

Have a look at your WideServer.log
See if server is being detected.