[simpits-tech] Controlling synchros

[Matt Bailey]

On Wednesday 01 June 2005 18:41, Simon Bennett set 1,000 monkies in front of 
keyboards and came up with the following:
> The indicator hasn't even been delivered yet, so there's not much I can do
> for now except read and plan. I'll also need to find the pinout of the ADI
> and buy an inverter so I can supply power to it.

	Man, you've bitten off quite a big piece here. :) Powering/controlling real 
instruments is not known as one of the easiest things in sim building. Good 
luck on it, though. Have you decided on how you're going to control your 
stepper motor (or whatever other device you decide to use to drive your 
torque transmitter)?

<snip>
>
> I have hooked each appropriate column/row lead from the keyboard controller
> up to the output and one of the inputs of an AND gate I had lying around,
> which was the easiest way I found to tell the controller a certain key has
> been pressed, with the components I have lying around right now. All I have
> to do now is figure out how to get a on/off toggle switch to work like it's
> momentary. I worked up this really poorly-done schematic to show how I plan
> on doing this:
>
> http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y258/_desdinova/circuit.jpg
>
> It seems to work, but if anyone has a better way, I'd be grateful if you
> could share it.

	Have you considered http://autohotkey.com/ ? This software allows you to send 
keypresses when a key-down event is received, for example. It also allows a 
whole slew of other things. Keydown/keyup events, macros, loops, condition 
statements, etc. I've used it to repeatedly send a keypress while a joystick 
button is held down, for instance. It would do what you're after. If your 
circuit works satisfactorily, you might even consider using AutoHotkey to 
supplement its functionality, or at least use the circuit for normal 
functions and AH for complex procedures.
	Since you're going to be driving instruments, I assume you're digging into 
the programming aspect of things..what sim are you using? Depending on the 
sim, you may be able to go a step further and set certain sim variables based 
on switch state (this is a lot more straightforward when using joystick 
buttons as opposed to keystroke events, however). This would mean if a switch 
is in the "on" state, the respective sim function would always be "on" as 
well. You wouldn't have to sync up the sim's internal functions to switch 
positions every time you run it.

	-Matt Bailey