How to use Arduino as a controller?

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Hey, I want to use an arduino with buttons, potentiometers, LEDs and displays to control the simulator.

I know that this is possible with MobiFlight. It allows me to detect when a button is pressed and to set an LVAR when that happens. However, MobiFlight restricts my freedom of programming the arduino how I please by taking it over with its own firmware and this is why I’m looking for alternatives.

So I need some software that allows me to read and write to LVARS and normal simvars by coding an arduino.

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i believe this is why Simconnect and FSUIPC exists: To get external applications (or in your case hardware) to “talk” to the sim and read various information (like sim variables).

https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/Programming_Tools/SimVars/Simulation_Variables.htm

^ This should tell you most if not all the possible variables in the sim (AP Engage, throttle, P. Brake etc). Hope this helps

Take why i say with a grain of salt, i’m still very new to manipulating simvars to doing what i want myself

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I was able to make an Arduino control a servo in response to the elevator trim in the game, using Spad.next. I just followed the examples on the Spad website. The examples weren’t specific to my project, but the examples were easy enough to adapt.

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Thanks for the answers.

FSUIPC seems promising because it allows me to create a lua script that talks with the arduino using the COM library. I found this great forum post explaining the basics for anyone interested: https://forum.simflight.com/topic/92311-lua-with-other-products/

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What about FS2020TA.exe ?

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Thanks for the suggestion. Might work, but I don’t know if it supports LVARs.

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Yes, only “normal” simconnect variables for this. But you surely get freedom of programming.