What helper software to use with DSD FLT1 button box?

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
1

Howdy, all. Just received the FLT1 button box from Derek Speare Designs (DSD).

There are no drivers for it. You supposedly plug it in and it “just works”. Unfortunately, this was not my experience. None of the dial encoders or buttons would reliably send input to MSFS (or X-Plane, or any other games I tested).

For example, turning a rotary encoder sends an input to MSFS maybe 1 of 8 times. Flipping a toggle switch gives the same behavior, registering maybe 1 of 5 flips. Basically dropping inputs all over the place, making it practically unusable for any games.

[The support response – if you can call it that :laughing: – was disappointing. Rather than offering any help via multiple emails, Derek insisted “We shipped you a device that operates perfectly” and only pointed me to their own simple debugger that showed output ostensibly working correctly. Incredibly frustrating.]

So, assuming the box seems to be sending proper output to, uh, somewhere – it’s just not making its way reliably to any games. I don’t get all the EE stuff under the hood (I’m a software engineer) but seems like maybe there’s some kind of “glue” helper software that could be used to get outputs working properly.

  • What software/utils do others use for massaging the output from button boxes?
  • Anyone have any success with the DSD FLT1 box? Or any DSD boxes, for that matter?

Thanks!

2

Mine works GREAT with X-Plane have not tried it on FS2020.

3

Do you use it with any special mapping software or anything like that, or did you just plug it in and go?

4

Think the cavalry will get here with suggestions of FSUIPC, Axis and Ohs or Spad.next. I have spad myself, but haven’t found a real need as yet. Oddly, everything seems to work as advertised at present and I am confident that I would break it, were I to try otherwise.