GA trimwheel - looking for solution (hardware or software)

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Hi all!

I´m totally into GA planes, i don´t touch the big airliners at all. So the following is definitely about GA, not sure if it could also be useful for bigger birds.

I am looking for a useful and relatively precise hardware solution to trim my planes. I don´t like it via “mouse+trimming the wheel in the cockpit”, as it´s a bit too distracting for me.

Currently i have it on 2 buttons on my T16000 stick, it works ok, but i am looking for a solution to be “smoother” in trim, like a “real” trim wheel would be.

As it seems, there currently are no hardware trimwheels available to purchase and i am absolutely not capeable to build one myselves, i am looking for some useful workarounds.

A couple of thoughts:

(1) Has anybody had success in using something like “ALT+mousewheel up” or “ALT+mousewheel down” in the game config? The defaulr “mousewheel up” or “mousewheel down” needs to be kept for the zoom in/out function, so is there a way to use it with ALT or CTRL or any other key combined?

(2) Does anybody have experience with using a trackball for trim? Is there a chance to select 2 different “equal” input devices like 2 different mouses, one for the mousepointer, the other for the trim maybe?

Like this f.e.:

(3) How about using a “Trackpad” like laptops or notebooks have?

or

Just something, which can be directly operated by hand, not having to grab a pen or other tool before being able to use the trim. It needs to be non distracting, just by the move of a hand up or down, i think.

For (2) and (3) there will be something needed to tell the sim, if this device is meant to be a mouse to move the mousepointer around, the other device ONLY is allowed to adjust something else (like operating trim, WITHOUT moving a mouse pointer to avoid input interference.

Does anybody have any experience with this? Any hints would be very welcome!

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Flightvelocity.com has a newly-redesigned dedicated trim wheel device. I ordered one last week. Haven’t received it yet because they are building & shipping this new model. It’s a little pricey at $80.

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3

I have the HC Bravo, using the trim wheel on that is an exercise in futility, same goes with using two buttons on my joystick. One is always having to hit a button even though the attitude and speed is stable. You can map trim to the throttle on a joystick if not required but I didn’t find that any better than the buttons.

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Hmm all the reviews i read/watched said the trim wheel was great on that thing

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I believe propwash has one in one of their switch panels

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I changed zoom functions to right click+mouse wheel so the wheel function itself is unmapped… Haven’t tried it for trim but it might work

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I’ve been using the big silver rotary dial on the x56 throttle and with a bit of tweaking to the sensitivity it works nicely.

Looks like there’s a similar dial on the left side of your throttle - would that work?

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For my part, as I also needed others functions and buttons than a trim, I use a Leo Bodnar card, and I make a trim wheel with a rotary encoder with a narrow button of diameter 50mm, using it with the thumb having hand on throttle lever. (See picture).
But if you cannot/dont want to do it yourself, a good trim wheel is included on the Logitech Multi Panel. You use it with the thumb and it have a good feeling, not too soft. They use a sticky grease inside that act like a “brake” on the wheel. Very good sensitivity.
It’s expensive, but if you also need an autopilot panel, perhaps you can consider this solution.
And to a finer adjustment of the trim sensitivity, you can tweak it in the flight_model.cfg file of each plane, under [FLIGHT_TUNING] section, line “elevator_trim_effectiveness”.
Decrease value for less reaction, increase it for more. It works also with your actual trim buttons.
Hope it will help.

trim
trim1080×1422 238 KB

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Thanks a lot for all your suggestions, please keep them coming!
Trackball or trackpad or second mouse anybody?

Thanks a lot, thats a great suggestion!
So we have to fine-tune the trim sensitivity for each and every plane manually, as there is no “global” setting, if i get it right? On the other hand, this will make sense, i think, as different planes will have different mass and physics, so will react different. Probably. I guess.
:wink:

The problem with any flight sim equipment currently seems to me, that anything like sticks, yokes, pedals, banels, … seems to be completely out of stock since the release of MSFS all over Europe, There is a definitive “vacuum”, maybe also increased by the covid situation.

What ever i was interested in and looking for “ready for purchase” products, i got the info, it would probably just be delivered not before Q2 this year.

So i thought of maybe being able to “mis-use” something else as trim, like a trackball or trackpad.

EDIT: holy moly… my creativity is waking up…

Can we just use 1 or 2 keys + “mouse forward” or “mouse back”?
Like “CRTL+ALT+mouse forward” for “trim down” and “CRTL+ALT+mouse backward” for “trim up”?
This could be used for other adjustments like mixture control and/or power, too, kust with different keys to press.

A mouse is extremely precise to do small corrections, so this could be an awesome solution, no need for additional hardware also.
Gonna test this tonight.

Any suggestions very welcome!

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I read a review about it a couple of days ago, which said, it would not work with MSFS properly or at least not yet. This made me a bit insecure about it.

EDIT: i have not managed to map the mousewheel for 2 different operations so far. So, when it´s used for zoom, i can´t mao the mousewheel to trim, also, even if i wanna use an key like ALT+mousewheel.

Maybe i´m not mapping correctly?

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I use the throttle slider on the Thrustmaster TCA, which is very similar to you T16000. Reduced the sensitivity, default is too twitchy. Only disadvantage for me is when switching off the auto pilot on approach, the trim is out of sync with the slider. So as soon as I move the slider, there is a jump in trim. But I definitely prefer the slider compared to using buttons.

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I use the Logitech multi-panel does the job ok and comes with autopilot buttons and flaps.

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13

I set numpad 7 and 4 as trim up/down. It ain’t pretty, but it works until I can buy a Honeycomb - my entire setup is KB+M at the moment.

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@ Zachry8600 Does this change trim increasingly, as long as you are pressing the keys or do you have to press them a couple of times to increase, like pressing “7 7 7 7 7” to change trim for 5 steps?

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Both work - I always tap it so that I have better control over it, but it can be held too.

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Thanks for the hint, gonna try this, too.

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Do i understand this right, that there can be one key to only change trim a little, another key to do bigger changes?

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Please send me a link that shows the trim wheel in operation

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The trim wheel on the Bravo is fantastic. The issue you describe is part of the flight model for whatever plane you’re flying.

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I’m not sure about that - I have one key set up for trim up and one key for trim down. If I need a larger increment, I simply hold it down briefly

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