USB controllers with levers and/or dials, DJ mixers, etc.

[stupor-mundi]

I've decided to get a new Joystick because my T16000.M FCS is faulty. Some of the available joysticks that seem good choices don't have the many buttons of the T16000.M though.

 

Rather than many extra buttons, I'd prefer many analogue axis, either as levers or as dials, to use for radiators, throttle, trim, et cetera. Since I don't have a lot space available, essentially have some small, flat rectangular space below the display, I thought, rather than getting a dedicated flight throttle, would it be possible to use music/DJ targeted USB devices, like this
Korg nanoKONTROL2 - Slimline USB MIDI Controller

or this

Behringer X-TOUCH MINI Midi Controller

or this

Worlde EasyControl.9 Portable Mini USB 9 Slim-Line Control MIDI Controller

These DJ type things seem to combine a lever with buttons and a dial, anyways they appear to have something complex going on. So I wonder if their individual levers/dials would all show up as separately usable axis in the IL-2 Settings / key bindings?

 

Has anyone tried something like that?

Edited August 5, 2018 by stupor-mundi

[Sokol1]

If you already own such MIDI gadget you can try use in game - will be need create/programming some interface, are some examples around in flight sim/games forums.

 

But if don't own, don't bough one, instead buy a "joystick controller" like BU0836, DSD 12... or a cheap (~$6) Arduino PRO Micro and flash the MMJoy2 firmware, add some potentiometers  - up to 8 and switches - up to 64. Depends of you DIY skill can make boxes similar to what GVL224 do - including with parts (mechanics) bough from them.

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9jTQ6WqJQv2AVmGP0Wf4aQ

 

What is the defect of your T.16000M? Maybe is (DIY) fixable.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2018 by Sokol1

[stupor-mundi]

Well what attracted me to those MIDI things is that they are ready made, and have roughly the form factor I'm looking for.

The joystick controller approach is very interesting, I might do such a project in the future, but at the moment I want to find a solution that just involves some ready made USB product. Adding an additional layer of software to make it work isn't such a bad prospect for me.

For instance I found the http://75r.de/midikey2key/  software. My main concern about converting MIDI to keystrokes is that, mainly for trim, it could be in effect slow.

I wanted an axis for trim because, at the moment, I have it bound to keys and joystick buttons, and it takes loooong to change the trim. For me the 109 feels very un-agile, that's why I rarely fly it, but I often get shot down by people flying the 109 in a very agile way, and I suspect they are able to do that because they have trim on an analogue axis.

 

Other hardware that looks ideal to me, form factor wise, are 'stage lighting controllers', but they all use a standard called DMX, maybe converting that to USB may be feasible?

Edited August 5, 2018 by stupor-mundi

[stupor-mundi]

I think I found the magic searchterm for this sort of thing:

midi2vjoy

"virtual joystick" is apparently the important concept here, and vjoy is an implementation of this on Windows.

midi2vjoy apparently bridges the gap from the midi device to the virtual joystick.

I guess I'm willing to chance this, since these MIDI devices aren't overly expensive.

[stupor-mundi]

I went ahead and orderd a

Behringer X-TOUCH MINI Midi Controller

 

I'll report on here how it works out.

Edited August 6, 2018 by stupor-mundi

[Guest deleted@83466]

That's actually a pretty out-of-the-box-thinking, ingenious solution to the problem of never having enough sliders and levers. I hope it works for you.   If it doesn't, you might consider using a touchscreen tablet, because you can achieve what you are looking for with that too.

[stupor-mundi]

I've thought about it, and saw there is software for it, but in the end I want something physical, so that after a while, your fingers know which is which knob, and you won't have to look.

[Guest deleted@83466]

Yes, I can certainly appreciate the physical aspect of it.

[OrLoK]

I have a 3d Connexion Space mouse and if a game will support it, ill use it.

 

Its good in elite for VR galaxy map navigation.

[stupor-mundi]

1 hour ago, OrLoK said:

I have a 3d Connexion Space mouse and if a game will support it, ill use it.

 

Its good in elite for VR galaxy map navigation.

does it move like a dial, and a joystick?

so you fly with it, and use the dial ability for rudder, or throttle, or trim?

[OrLoK]

4 hours ago, stupor-mundi said:

does it move like a dial, and a joystick?

so you fly with it, and use the dial ability for rudder, or throttle, or trim?

I've had issues with it I'm il2. last time I tried it registered as my existing sticks.

 

I'll take a peek tomorrow for you.

 

Lok

[stupor-mundi]

31 minutes ago, OrLoK said:

I've had issues with it I'm il2. last time I tried it registered as my existing sticks.

 

I'll take a peek tomorrow for you.

 

Lok

 

I was just curious. Please don't go to any trouble. I'm not really considering getting another interface device, I wouldn't have any space to put it.

 

 

[stupor-mundi]

On 8/6/2018 at 5:45 PM, stupor-mundi said:

I went ahead and orderd a

Behringer X-TOUCH MINI Midi Controller

 

I'll report on here how it works out. 

 

That wasn't too hard.  The flow is this:

-> FreePIE -> VJoy -> IL-2

 

In VJoy you can set up any number of virtual joysticks. This is good, because for 'analogue' input, i.e. axis, each joystick has got x,y,z,rx,ry,rz,slider,dial. With a device like the X-Touch Mini you have 8 dials, but 2 'layers', so essentially 16 dials.  So first, you want to set up as many virtual joysticks as you need to map your dials to (or, as many of your dials as you plan to use).

 

FreePIE works by executing Python scripts. No need to install Python, they run inside FreePIE. I've adapted a script from

https://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=139&t=22847&sid=6eb4e62af002a1f0e4f2b71d350ff9f3

which was written for the Korg NanoControl. The differences between that controller and the X-Touch, script wise, turned out to be minimal. My script so far is only for the first 8 dials.

 

Once the script works (easy to check with VJoy Monitor), start up IL-2 and map those dials to axis.

 

xtouch.py.txt

 

I kept using my regular joystick as well. IL-2 doesn't seem to have a problem dealing with multiple joysticks.

 

Edited August 12, 2018 by stupor-mundi

[stupor-mundi]

I've mapped the xtouch a bit more, more dials, the slider, mapped some of the buttons to achieve multi key presses, which I found useful for trim.

xtouch2.py.txt

[Guest deleted@198300]

2018 년 8 월 12 일. 오전 9시 52 분에, stupor-mundi는 다음과 같이 말했습니다 :

FreePIE -> VJoy

How did you configure the x-touch editor?

No signal comes in with vjoy...

[stupor-mundi]

On 3/27/2019 at 1:26 AM, amek1004 said:

How did you configure the x-touch editor?

No signal comes in with vjoy...

 

Wasn't familiar with the term x-touch editor, googled it...

Found editor for windows from musictribe, which you can DL. is that what you're referring to?

I've not used that at all.

The x-touch, being a a MIDI device, initially gives you that.

FreePIE, acting almost as a switchboard between the different protocols and drivers, with a suitable script, can give you vjoy output.

I found that SOME of those things are getting bound to applications. For instance, I used MIDI OX initially for diagnosis, but while I had that on, it was basically hogging that midi output. So I had to turn it off when using FreePIE.

To see whether the MIDI is incoming, FreePIE itself is suitable, it has a 'Watch' tab at the bottom.

To see whether FreePIE is outputting the vjoy, "Monitor Vjoy" (which is part of the vjoy DL i think) is useful.

IIRC , "Monitor Vjoy" doesn't get in the way, i.e. you can keep it running. (I could remember this wrong)

Vjoy also needs to be set up appropriately, with "Configure Vjoy".

In my current FreePIE script, I use vJoy[0], vJoy[1], vJoy[2], i.e. 3 vjoy devices, which means I had to set up (at least) 3.

Equally, when you use the various axis' and buttons in the FreePIE script, you have to set up those vjoy devices with enough of those.

Meaning, it has to fit. I think when I first ran vjoy, per default it probably had 1 device and only a few buttons.

 

To debug these things, it's important to figure out, diagnostically, where the breakage is happening. i.e. are you not getting MIDI INTO FreePIE, or is that working, but somehow the output isn't getting to vjoy.

 

An important thing to keep in mind, about the naming of those things, when there are multiples of something.

 

Depending on the order in which a thing is loaded, those array indexes are being asigned. I vaguelly remember a situation where I had played around with devices and suddenly my script didn't fit that situation anymore. For example: you might have other MIDI devices connected, etc.

I.e. FreePIE doesn't know which device is which, it just sees x of them, and calls them 0,1,2,...