Flap hardware choice

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Mike Horsten
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Flap hardware choice

#1 Post by Mike Horsten »

HI,

Just a question about the choice of hardware to build the Flap control for a Cessna.

A: A potentiometer - advantage smooth transitions but lots of programming?
B: Rotary 4 position switch
c: Encoder

Any hits what to use my preference would be the switch but the issue there is that the steps might be to big for the flap settings.

Mike
(reasonably new a 3D printing & Flight sim building)
Building a home Cessna 172SP Steam. X-plane/MFS2020
(ex Name on Airmanager forum Polarair)

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Ralph
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Re: Flap hardware choice

#2 Post by Ralph »

In Air Manager 4 there's a pre-made hardware function that has 4 options:
- Up/down 2-way switch
- Up/down 3-way switch
- Up/down potentiometer
- Up down rocker switch (two buttons)

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Sling
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Re: Flap hardware choice

#3 Post by Sling »

How is flap up/down done with a 2 way switch?

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Ralph
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Re: Flap hardware choice

#4 Post by Ralph »

That's just completely up and down. Not something you would use normally I think.

Mike Horsten
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Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2020 8:50 am

Re: Flap hardware choice

#5 Post by Mike Horsten »

Ralph,

One small question, i have been looking at what dataref to use for the indicator of the flap position for a servo, can you point me to the right one. I have tried a whole bunch of them but no luck.

Mike
Building a home Cessna 172SP Steam. X-plane/MFS2020
(ex Name on Airmanager forum Polarair)

ericrolfe
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Re: Flap hardware choice

#6 Post by ericrolfe »

Mike,

Regarding the question of which dataref to use for flap position.

What sim are you using?
If x-plane, try using the dataref tool.
Russ made a nice video describing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAyGbDWhlaw

Move the flap switch in the sim and see what datarefs change.

Eric

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Ralph
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Re: Flap hardware choice

#7 Post by Ralph »

Can indeed be useful to have a look with the datareftool. It will probably be sim/flightmodel/controls/flaprat

Mike Horsten
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Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2020 8:50 am

Re: Flap hardware choice

#8 Post by Mike Horsten »

Thank you both, i was not aware of the tool, this is really helpful to all new builders. Just in case somebody else is looking for it.
https://developer.x-plane.com/tools/datarefeditor/ and the tool described above https://github.com/leecbaker/datareftool/releases
Last edited by Mike Horsten on Wed Dec 09, 2020 7:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
Building a home Cessna 172SP Steam. X-plane/MFS2020
(ex Name on Airmanager forum Polarair)

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Sling
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Re: Flap hardware choice

#9 Post by Sling »

Ralph wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:48 pm That's just completely up and down. Not something you would use normally I think.
Yeah can’t really see that being used.

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Sling
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Re: Flap hardware choice

#10 Post by Sling »

Mike Horsten wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 7:15 am Thank you both, i was not aware of the tool, this is really helpful to all new builders. Just in case somebody else is looking for it.
https://developer.x-plane.com/tools/datarefeditor/
You can’t really do without it. The other way is to find an existing AM instrument that performs the function you need. There are flap indicators among the community instruments.

Tony

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