Hey guys, I have a general question about an emergency stop configuration. My goal is to have a single button to shut down my motion platform, ffb hardware and seat belt all at once.... My proposed setup: 1. Master stop button runs off 5v USB power and powers a 4x optocoupler module. Should only be a few milliamps to drive the optocouplers. 2. Devices have a 24V built in relay in the power circuit, with a low load line that closes the relay via the optocoupler. My reasoning is that this way, I have one central button, and no high amperage lines all over. Does this work and is it safe?
That's certainly effective but I would prefer to keep all the electronics running, and just cut power to anything that moves. Currently I have no mains voltage on the rig itself. It is mainly about physical safety, electrical/fire safety is ok without need for this button. And the haptics should be a single red, intuitive STOP button which the occupant or any bystander can smack intuitively when something seems dangerous.
Any F-14 drivers here. I am having two issues since getting Rhino. One of them is, altitude autopilot does not work as expected once I press Autopilot Reference button on stick. Second is, joy travels quite far forward from me. I need to redo take off trim to 2 degrees.
just started using the various UH60 mods for DCS - what's the best way to get them up and running the rhino? (from what I can see some form of force trim seems to have been implememted although not sure)
That seems reasonable to me. I would just make sure all of the critical bits fail in the open state. I think some solid state relays can fail in the closed state, so thatβs bad. Belt and suspenders version would have a secondary pass through another relay. The idea being if one of the relays fails in the closed state, the secondary one will be the fail-safe. Have a look at multi pole contactor relays used in CNC machines.
You can set up a momentary button for enable and then it will stay enabled until either a momentary stop or E-stop button breaks the enable circuit. Kinda like logic but done with a relay. Iβll try to find a link to an example circuit.
I canβt help but I have seen it posted by more than one person about the F14 specifically losing AOA when trying to use Altitude auto pilot?
Again I donβt own F14 so Iβm only relaying what I remember but youβre not the first person Iβve seen post this so search for it and maybe you and the other two Tomcats can work together on a solution until some sort of telem patch is sorted out
Essentially, yeah. Optocouplers could fail closed though. Another benefit of using the method Iβm talking about is that you can have multiple stop buttons and/or Estop buttons because they are all in a loop, carrying only low power signal.
Maybe I can solve it with a procedure.... like always press the stop button when shutting down, and engage motors only after powering everything up. If some component fails closed, it can be noticed that way..
Check out this video. You would put one or more Normally Closed momentary buttons to in series with the red button, along with as many Estop switches as you want. The beauty of this is that only the coil control voltage has to run to the switches. Your loads would be run through the main input/output terminals of the contactor. Probably the positive leg of each power circuit. Hopefully this makes sense.
But I don't want many switches. I want one e-stop to turn off many devices. So I use the optocouplers so that when the estop opens, many optocouplers open in many low current loops to the devices. The device then has a relay, which will open when no current is coming in through that loop. And thus the device loses its supply which runs through that relay. Most scenarios will interrupt power to the relays. So I need to consider that either the optocoupler or relay could fail in the closed position. Your suggestion is to double them up in series, to have a reduced probability that both fail closed. I guess if I would want multiple estops, I would simply wire them in series before the optocouplers.
thanks - so this means to get force trim you should select the option in the telem options - also think there is a force trim option in the main rhino software (from memory) do you need to enable both for it to work?
also what does this mean when setting up the module in telem - pretty sure i got the prompt that uh60l was not found when I first run it (so should u be selecting another helicoter to be used (such as teh ah64) to select when the FFB effects for when the mh60 us running or do something else?) - also pretty sure last time I ran it was getting some kind of force/effects through the stick or was this just some kind of default spring effect?
The UH60L has a default profile in TelemFFB. Possible that the additional modded versions have different "names" that would show up un-matched, but its pretty obvious in TelemFFB how to clone from another aircraft if that is the case.
In DCS, the "actual" FFB part is handled natively by the sim. This includes force-trim for helicopters, and dynamic stick forces and trim following for fixed wing.
None of the community mod aircraft support FFB so you have to fake it with hardware force trim using the configurator software.
got it - actually I think the profile must have been detected but I set the search parameter to anything with UH60 in it (so thats what I must be getting?) - strangely I dont have force trim (hardware trim) selected in either telem or the main software - but when I flick the force trim switch it "seems" to reslect the centre (so something is happening and the actual centre of the stick is jumping) - is your suggestion to just select the force trim in the telem software or the main rhino option to get force trim to work?
are you talking about the virtual stick? AFAIK, the "trim release" binding in the helicopter will make the cyclic behave as "instant trim" (but without FFB).. meaning that as soon as you press it, it sets the virtual offset of the stick such that when you release the stick back to center, the virtual stick will be where it was when you pressed the button.
To set it up with hardware force trim, you would want to unbind the in-game force trim and set your configurator up like this... If you also want motorized hat trim, I would unbind the trims in the game and set up the trim override (green boxes) in configurator
thanks - think we are talking about the same thing - 1)by force trim (although some dcs modules call it instant trim in the options) I mean when I release the force trim switch it essentially resets my stick centre(can see my virtual stick in the uh60 move to this new centre) - when I hit the trim reset button it re-centres the virtual stick to the default centre - although interested to know what you mean by this function not having FFB?(as these mods don't support it) - I find with the AH64 for example the stick has no spring in it when I push the trim switch up?
2)weirdly for the uh60 and also the new oh6 mod I have force trim bound in game and I seem to be getting some kind of force trim effect already! (the virtual stick moves to the new centre) even though in the rhino menu I do not have hardware force trim selected? - is your suggestions to clear the force trim/reset bindings in DCS and enable the hardware force trim setting in the rhino menu for the best result? (also if I do this do I need to touch any of the force trim settings in the profile page of the telem software or can I just leave this untouched?)
Without FFB hardware, When you enable "instant trim" for any of the official modules, as soon as you release the force trim button, you need to recenter your physical joystick, because the trimming results in a doubling of your input so that at physical=0,0.. the virtual x,y is whatever you trimmed it to.
WITH FFB hardware, when you press force trim, the spring forces are relieved on the joystick.. when you are done trimming/maneuvering and release the trim button, the spring forces return, centered on the new position. Physical and Virtual stick positions always match.
Neither of these freeware/community mods support FFB. Thus, the stick will not behave as in the 2nd description. You need to use hardware trim to emulate the behavior.
If you enable hardware trim but don't unbind the force-trim in the game, you will end up with an offset spring position but with double the input in the game = bad times.
Regarding hat trim, the IRL Blackhawk has an AFCS system and has motorized hat beep trim, The IRL OH-6 does not have "force trim", but does have hat trim to help alleviate stick forces required to hold the helo at any given attitude
Thanks 1)for the uh60 will enable the hard ware force trim in the rhino software - do I also have to tick the forcetrim box in the Telem software or can I leave it unchecked? 2)for the hat trim shall enable it in the rhino software (assume force trim simply will not work then?) - still struggling to understand how the hat trim works - but is it like a fixed wing aircraft trim - up trims up?
just gave your trim setup suggestions a try on the UH60L - strangely if I unbind the trim controls in game and then enable hardware trim (in the rhino software) and assign buttons - the trim does not seem to function at all with the re-centre position just not registering (which makes the helicopter uncontrollable) when I bind again in game the force trim works ok and I can see from the axis control box the stick centre shift (white box) after I release the force trim button (does not feel as good as the ah64 implementation but it still appears to work ok....) - any help appreciated?
I found a perfect solution for my central emergency stop quest: a modular emergency stop button. This needs to be sticky somewhere on the discord! https://aliexpress.com/item/1005004157851197.html
I think the way this works is - you buy a button which you configure in the order page with 2 modules, the voltage is for the led light in case you chose that. Then you add NO or NC modules if you need more than two contacts they support up to 220v 25A. They stack infintely by the threesome. The LED is a module of its own, so it can be wired in parrallel to one of the stop circuits but can also powered by something like an arduino.
Hello guys, How to set up the Damper force in Heli trim mode? I wanted to have some strong damper force when holding the trim button in Apache. Now the problem is when holding the trim button, there is no force to hold the stick.
With the abundance of options, I might just be tempted to have one contact go to an arduino (which is emulating a hid gaming device), which then passes the state of the emergency switch to the PC. When anyone hits the switch, the PC will do a controlled shutdown
I'm about to try the OH-6 for the first time. Not sure whether or not I want a simulated force trim (OH-6 had none). I'll try what trim override feels like. Would it be like the IRL thingy then?