I have read all the posts regarding a flat battery but none of them provide information regarding a simple method of recharge of a flat battery from within MSFS in a similar way to the “add fuel” feature that can be assigned to a button.
Somehow whenever the Robin DA400 loads up it “remembers” a flat battery (I am not sure how it got that way in the first place - but that is not the point).
Is there a way to “recharge” the battery or reset the default charge level when restarting a flight in the Robin DR400 - (or any other GA plane)?
I have assigned a button to “add fuel” anytime I need it.
It would be good to be able to assign a button for a recharged battery.
Just tried that. The fuel tank got filled but the battery is still dead. The only way I can fly the Robin DR400 is to start flight with all switches on so the plane spawns on the runway with engine running. I am going to go for a fly and see if for some reason the battery charges during the flight and park on return.
Update… Parked and turned off engine, Tried to restart… Battery still too flat. As before, motor turns over but after short moment all you get is that clicking sound of a starter solenoid unable to fire the starter.
Are you sure it’s the battery? It should be reset every time you load to a default value. Most planes (including all the stock ones) don’t have any state saving.
Maybe you didn’t turn on the fuel, forgot to prime the engine or some other step?
Thanks… I watched that video. Yes, I do all that as per the video. I know it sounds crazy, but I have started the DR400 many times before and there has been no problem.
I was able to use the start key on my Honeycomb Alpha or press the red button on the DR400 console. It used to turn over just like the video.
Now it turns over once and LITERALY sounds like trying to start a motor bike with a flat battery. The flat-battery start sound has been modelled perfectly.
I am stumped. I will make a video tomorrow as a demonstration.
Try disconnecting the honecomb yoke or create a new profile and clear all the mappings except axis. I had it often conflicting with what you see in the cockpit. So in cockpit battery is on but on the yoke it’s off and the sim gets mixed signals.
Thanks again… I understand what you have suggested… (and I can try that)… but I am certain that is not the issue. Like I said, I have started it before with the same config. Nothing has changed. I can start every other plane using either the Honeycombe switch or click in the SIM.
I can see the correct switches and buttons go on in sync with the real switches on my devices.
I know on a previous occasion I just “restarted” the flight.
I have tried restarting in Developer mode.
Nothing works.
It seems to me that a config file has become corrupted and is telling the plane that the voltage is less than what it shold be,
I remember in the early days of the sim (and I haven’t done it recently), I was sitting at a parking spot familiarising myself with the plane for a bit too long and ran the battery flat.
After some head-scratching I turned on Dev Mode and opened the window for changing to a different aircraft. I simply chose the same one again and the battery was charged up.
Thanks. I saw that idea somewhere else too. I tried it but I did not open the aircraft from the Dev Mode Tools. I will try again.
Update: Loaded from Dev mode. Started OK. But then I tried landing and switching off to see what would happen. I had the same problem so I tried to figure out what I was doing.
I still do not really know EXACTLY what is the issue, but I made sure that the throttle was forward about an inch, turned on the fuel pump, magnetos on “both”, brake on… then START button. Starts OK. I will have to see if that was a fluke or if one of those procedures missed prevents the start.
One thing that I do know is that the key start on the Bravo Alpha will not activate the starter. It just "ticks"like the flat battery sound. So (because I have a full cockpit dash that hides the main SIM instrument panel) I need to set up a button in Air Manager on my dash screen so I can press it without having to translate my front TV view up to see the start button. I will put it in the space on that centre panel just above the oil guages.
