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Appendix B. Configuring electrical linking of dual
control stations (under development).
V1.100 of the CL software has updated code for
electrically linking dual pilot & co-pilot controls (stations). This
feature is still under development....
The electrical linking operates by setting one of
the flight control stations as the "Master" station and one as the
"Slave". The master station continues with normal FFB and the slave
station goes into a PID controlled position following mode in which
it mimics the movement of the master station.
Which station is master and which is slave can be
swapped at any time using joystick card buttons assigned for the
task. For a pilot/co-pilot to take flight control at his/her
controls when they are currently assigned as the slave station
he/she must first toggle the master/slave button to make his/her
controls active.
This is a limitation of the electrical linking
method - if you can't live with this then it might be better to link
your two control stations mechanically.
Which station is used to feed position to FS
depends on the operation mode of the CL system.
When the CL system is operating in its original
mode in which joystick card position data is used as the input to FS
then regardless of which station is master it is the
position of the pilot controls that the system adopts as the inputs
to FS. When the co-pilot station is master the method relies on
proper position following by the pilot station (as slave) to provide
the position inputs to FS. So trying to control the aircraft
using the co-pilot station when it is assigned as the slave station
will not have any effect on the aircraft.
When the CL system is in "potentiometer-less" mode
then it is the position of the "master" station which is used to
feed the FS controls via FSUIPC (using the motor encoder position
data). So the station used to provide position input to FS will
change as the master/slave toggle switch is operated to make one or
other station the controlling station.
The position following methods used for electrical
linking are the same as are used by the system for Auto-Pilot
position following.
TIP: before trying to set up dual control
electrical linking confirm that AP position following is fully
operational on your pilot station controls - this will save you time
later!
Important Pre-requisites:
- The pilot and co-pilot controls should be
mechanically and electrically identical. A single set of
PID position following settings will be used for both and so will
NOT produce similar position following performance on
mechanically different stations. This can give problems.
- All BLDRV-12/24 driver cards should have the
same firmware programming.
- Each station should be set up and tested as a
stand-alone system before setting up the electrical linking.
This requires that each station has its own joystick card -
although, once linking is active, ONLY the pilot card should be
assigned in FS as the control input.
NOTE for systems configured for "potentiometer-less"
operation game-controller card position reporting is not
required for the main axes on either station. See
Appendix A for details.
- Good Auto-Pilot position following behaviour
should be confirmed on the pilot control station at least BEFORE
setting up the electrical linking. This means the movement of
the pilot controls during AP following should be smooth and of
expected range.
- A single "momentary" button on each station's
joystick card should be reserved for the master/slave station
swap/toggle function. Ideally these would be located on the
control yokes for convenience of operation by the pilots.
NOTE for systems configured for "potentiometer-less"
operation the assigned toggle buttons should be on the single
joystick card used for the trim inputs (either the pilot station
"stick no" or alternative trim button stick number set in the
Setup App).
Configuration Settings: Run the BFF Setup
application and go to the elevator area - Tab 1 - Setup.
- Under the COMS Settings set the
Co_Pilot COM port number for the PICAXE AXE027 cable used to
connect to the co-pilot station driver cards.
- Set the Co-Pilot Joystick No, to the
joystick card number for the co-pilot controls (click the
List Sticks button to identify the number - or run the BFF
Driver Test application and check the stick number there).
In the case of systems configured for "Potentiometer-Less"
operation set the Co-Pilot Joystick No = -1 to enable the
electrical linking.
- Set the upper Toggle But number to the
button on the pilot station joystick card which will be used as
the master/slave toggle button. And set the lower Toggle But
to the button number on the co-pilot joystick card used for the
same purpose.
In the case of systems configured for "Potentiometer-Less"
operation both buttons will be assumed as being on the "Pilot"
joystick card - ie usually the card used for trim inputs etc.
- SAVE the settings.
- Make sure that only the Pilot station
joystick card is assigned in FS for the main control inputs (but
not
for "Pot-less" configurations).
This configures the system for electrically linked
dual stations. When the system starts and the loading is engaged one
of the stations will be in master mode and the other in slave
(position following) mode. Clicking either of the master/slave
toggle buttons will swap the master and slave stations.
Check that the position following is active and
the slave controls follow the master's movements smoothly. Check
that the control inputs to FS are satisfactory and that the aircraft
can be flown satisfactorily from the co-pilot station.
The position following behaviour is determined by
the PID values in the background process settings. If necessary the
overall strength of the position following forces can be increased
by altering the programming of the 20X2 chips on the cards. By
default the position following forces are capped to protect the
system.
When AP following mode becomes active BOTH
stations should follow the control actions of the AP and
displacement of either set of controls should cause the AP to
disengage - this will set the displaced controls as the new Master
station.
(NOTE: In v1.285 of the BFF Background Process the
direction of movement of the slave station can be reversed using the
background process setting Line 74: Slave movement invert in the
Setup Application.)
PLEASE NOTE: this is developmental, it is likely
that additional tuning is required to the coding - so watch out for
bugs or other strange behaviours.
Still to be implemented:
- Provision for 2nd PICAXE cable on co-pilot
station (to match dual cable capability on pilot station)
- Visual display of ping status of co-pilot
station cards on the CL software window (although the data is
written to the BFF_Pry.log file as usual). -- NOW
implemented in V1.111 --
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