Can reverse throttle function be handled with only one key?

[allnew]

I have a customer who flies PSX and  wants to purchase a custom made quadrant from me. Our quadrants are not "high fidelity", meaning that to keep costs low, we make some compromises. The reverse lever has only one switch.  Since I don't have a copy of PSX, I am not sure regarding this question. The customer, too, is not sure either. I want to be helpful, but I am bit lost on this one. My understanding, based on what is on the manual, that the only way to make a lever with one switch to work is to pull it up three times when programmed as a key input.
Our quadrant has four levers, so we're talking about one lever per engine.
I'd appreciate an answer.
tony

[Hardy Heinlin]

PSX provides an all-engines reverser button for keyboard users and USB users.

This button is the backspace key on the keyboard, or the "Thrust reverse all" assignment on the USB button menu.

1. push: All four reverser levers are raised to reverse idle, and then to max reverse thrust.

2. push: All four reverser levers are moved down to reverse idle.

3. push: All four reverser levers are fully down and stowed. The next push will be the 1. push again.

In case of an engine failure, the button won't move the lever for the failed engine to max thrust.

There is no reverse button per engine. You may link all four of your USB buttons with that one button in PSX, and ask the user to use only one of the four USB buttons.


|-|ardy

[Will]

I have a similar controller situation, and here's what I did.

I mapped both the #1 throttle's reverse switch and an extra USB button to the "Thrust reverse all" function that Hardy is talking about.

Here's what it looks like in the cockpit:

When reverse thrust is desired, the pilot moves all four throttles into reverse. This triggers button press #1 in Hardy's description below, namely, that all engines go into reverse thrust. Then when the pilot wants to exit reverse thrust, he moves all throttles to the idle detent and then presses the extra USB button twice. Pressing the extra button moves the engines to reverse idle and then stows the reversers. The next time the throttles are moved into the reverse detent, the reverse is once again engaged on all four engines. 

This is a little bit more intuitive than moving the engine levers back and forth three times to activate, idle, and stow the reverses.

Your customer's milage may vary, but this works for me. ;-)

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Next to fumbling with keystrokes, you may want to consider to attach one or two of the reversing switches to a bit of logic.

Two, so you can detect also "reverse on not four, but symmetrical engines" which happens in reality.

Assuming the switches go closed on reverse and open on stow, the electronics could generate one USB keystroke on close and two on open. But this would have the real possibility (it will happen) that something gets out of sync and now you have stupid reversers.

Much better is it to feed the switches to some miniprogram that has enough intelligence to control PSX through the network interface, which is the only "real" way to operate this monster sim. It may sound much more complex than USB, but it works a lot better in the end.

There are plenty of people here on the Forum that know all ins and outs of this, and will gladly help you both out.


Hoppie

[Hardy Heinlin]

By the way, in the next PSX update there will be a symmetric reverse thrust function for the all-engines-reverser button. E.g. if #1 fails, the button will not only keep #1 at idle reverse, but #4 as well. And vice versa. And the same for the pair of #2 and #3. If two engines on one wing have failed, all engines will stay at idle reverse.


|-|

[tango4]

awesome !

[Will]

Very good, that will be excellent.

[Hardy Heinlin]

The symmetry feature is now available in PSX version 10.1.1:

http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=4020.0

(Almost forgot.)


Regards,

|-|ardy