I’m new to flight sim(s) and especially making my own controllers to use in game. I’m trying to construct something like this for the ingame 172 skyhawk (G1000) using one of those zero delay boards and I’m particularly having trouble with putting together a magneto switch.
I don’t have a keyswitch but I do have a couple 3 position rotary switches [OFF][ON][ON][ON]. The idea I had in my head was that I’d use the rotary switch to cycle through left magneto, right magneto, both and then I’d use a momentary pushbutton to crank the engine. This has led me to discover the way the game seems to react to inputs that are always on. When I get to the first two [ON] positions (assigned mag 1 left, mag 1 right) the key just jiggles back and forth as if the control is being toggled on and off. This doesn’t happen with mag both and given the push button is only on for a split second that works fine. I’ve checked and made sure it was working within “game controller settings” in windows. Is there something I’m doing wrong or missing?
EDIT: I’ve learned that if I use the “all magnetos” inputs instead of magneto 1 inputs this problem goes away and works as expected. Now the only problem is if I turn the switch to the left most position ([OFF]) the magneto stays on right because it isn’t an [ON] position I guess. Is there a way around this that doesn’t involve buying a switch with all [ON] positions?
You could always knockup a couple of really basic monostable pulse generators using a 555 timer so that when you switch to [ON] for mag1 or mag2 you get a single pulse. Some modification of this (rotary switch to ground as trigger, reset by ? not sure on reset, maybe connect 0v to trigger ? ) with appropriate values for R1 and C1 would probably do it.
At least that is the principle, convert the continuous [ON] output to a single momentary pulse. I am sure there are people here with more electronics knowledge then me that could come up with better solutions 
I’ve figured out a solution to the jiggling key problem by using “magnetos” instead of “magneto 1”. I think it would certainly help if they include a list of inputs for each plane somewhere with a detailed description of what it does. Your solution is clever though but beyond my electronics knowledge. The switches I’m using came from an order I placed over 10 years ago, I just never got around to using the parts. Apparently I had bought less switches than I remember so I’ll have to order more toggles anyway. I might as well grab a rotary with the appropriate amount of positions while I’m at it.
Hi,
I have modified a standard rotary switch with 12 positions with 30°. The switch can be limited to 5 positions OFF-RIGHT-LEFT-BOTH-START. It is possible to disassemble the switch. Be careful, because there are some springs. The rotary switch was taken apart and the detent rebuilt so that by bridging a tooth, the last stage does not detent, it springs back from START to the BOTH position. The teeth were filed down a bit and then bridged with a brass plate and this was fixed with epoxy glue.
Regards Michael
That’s cool. I have 12 position plastic body switches with the ring thing you use to select your number of turms and it looks like it can come apart in two pieces like this. How hard would this be to do?
It was an experiment, and it works. You can carefully disassamble the switch:
- rotate to pos 12
- careful open the body at the 4 hooks, hold the axis in position and note the position of the grinder
- rotate to pos1 and see the one ball
- careful shift the axis, inside are two balls and one spring.
- now you have to cut two matching brass sheets like in the pictur and modify especially the deepening at BOTH and the next two teeth.
- you then have to test with the inserted balls and springs to see if it goes easily.
- finally, I filled the gap with epoxy resin glue.
I hope this helps you
