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389 Switch LEDs Active in Cold and Dark

(Original thread started on 11-08-11 by Eric Williams)

Using the Jet45 Offsets, my LEDs are active before I activate any power in the Lear BATT / Avionics. Am I doing something wrong or is there a solution to this issue?

 

(Posted by Mark L. on 11-08-11)

Not sure about the FDS board, but the state of pin with a PoKeys can be normal or 'inverted' giving you that condition initially depending on what you want. Does it have something similar? Doubt it's in Jet45 if in the Virtual Cockpit mode the lights are extinguished. Reads from the same location.

 

(Posted by Eric W. on 11-09-11)

Yep the virtual cockpit ones are out but mine are on. No power on at all. They work just fine beyond this. If I invert them wont that invert their entire operation? FDS does have this option BTW.

 

I will try, but it sure looks like JET45 doesn't stop sending the offset/state when batteries are off. I checked and the signal is definitely coming from Jet45. It has to be running before I get 73d6 3 and 4.

 

(Posted by Eric Tomlin on 11-09-11)

Eric, no- you must invert it in InterfaceIT. It's not a JET45 issue- it's a MS FLIGHT SIMULATOR issue. You will have the very same thing happen with your Landing Gear lights too, and here's why-

 

Flight Simulator simply generates an offset stating "Gear Down". It doesn't care that the batteries are off. Therefore, since an I/O card is seeing an offset on the network, it picks it up and says "Okay, the gear are DOWN, therefore, these LEDs light up since the card is programmed to light them up if that offset of [i]down[/i] is read. This is an age-old problem.

 

However, there is a very clever way to get around this, although it will make you pull your hair out some times. Try creating an internal logic function within InterfaceIT. The function will essentially state that If "x" = "0", then y = 1. Believe it or not, I got all this working nearly perfect before taking the sim apart 2 months ago to install lots of new hardware by using Internal logic feature of InterfaceIT. I got it working with several LEDs, and I've nearly forgotten which ones but I believe they were Left Pitot Heat, Master Caution/Warning, L Batt Master and L Avionics Master.

 

(Posted by Eric Williams on 11-09-11)

Thanks gents. I will play around with it- so for the logic end of things should I try if BATT=off then do not display LEDs of something like that?

 

They work great right now during flight- they come on and off exactly as desired. I just have some issues the the acknowledge being intermittent. Thanks again, I knew this phase was going to be a bit of a challenge.

 

(Posted by Eric Tomlin on 11-09-11)

You have the right idea there with the logic you put above. The big thing is that often when the sim first starts up (before touching any switches) you will have the Master Caution/Warning and Gear lights, etc. because if the Engine is shutdown, then it trips a CAS message, etc. So, rightly so, your I/O card displays it as such. The key here is that with time, you will develop ways around it with your Internal Logic in your interface and JET45 can slowly have triggers put in place to prevent annunciation if BATT= 0, GP=0, APU=0, and L/R GEN =0. See, there's lot's going on isn't there!?

 

(Posted by Ron Rollo on 08-28-17)

Several years ago, Eric and I came up with a neat solution to the issue of creating a "cold and dark" cockpit prior to activating any switches in the flightdeck. The issue was that if you were to set up your sim, several of the 389 replica switches (AML switches) had their lights illuminated at the get go when everything should be cold and dark.

 

The solution that we found sounded a little scary at first but after more than five years of operation, we can say that there are no adverse reactions to the following solution:

 

The solution involves the FDS SYS card which receives 12 VDC power from a AC adapter, (that plugs into the wall in your home). What we did was cut the ground line from the adapter which cuts all power to the FDS SYS card. (DO NOT cut the power line. There are only two wires coming from the AC adapter!) Then we ran that broken ground line to a relay switch that is controlled by the LEFT and RIGHT BATT switches on the Electrical Panel.

 

NOTE: These are the only two 389 replica switches that require a double pole switch. (All other 389 replica switches are single pole.) One pole is to handle the offsets in the software via InterfaceIT and the FDS SYS cards and the other pole is to handle the the 12 volt power from the left and right hot busses to open and close the relay switches which in turn applies power to the FDS SYS card, which in turn lights up the LEDs in the 389 replica switches.

 

When hooked up properly, this action of turning the left and right battery switches on turns a cold and dark cockpit into one that suddenly comes to life just like the real aircraft!

 

Keep in mind that this solution is only possible with interface cards that have an external AC power source like the FDS SYS cards. If your interface card is USB powered, (like most of them are), you will have to find a software logic solution as Eric W. and Eric T. were discussing in the previous post above.

 

As I have mentioned, this solution is being used by several members of Hangar45 who are also using the FDS SYS cards with no problems. A great and effective solution to what was once a big problem!