Rotary Switches: F-18 INS

[matt.israel]

How are folks addressing home pits requiring more than ~10 I/O ports? Just keep adding Arduinos?

 

I'm planning on making a second button box for the FA-18c and I would like to add the INS rotary switch, but it requires 8 pins. I would be fine omitting the positions after IFA if I could edit the code below. Wondering if there are any 'reasonable' ways to reduce the number of pins needed for a 'SwitchMultiPos' in DCS- Bios?

 

 

const byte insSwPins[15] = {PIN_0, PIN_1, PIN_2, PIN_3, PIN_4, PIN_5, PIN_6, PIN_7}

DcsBios::SwitchMultiPos insSw("INS_SW", insSwPins, 15);

[No1sonuk]

Analogue pins can be used for digital O/I as well if you set them up as such.

Check "Notes and warnings" here:

https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/language/functions/digital-io/digitalread/

 

My P51 fuel system "mockpit" panel uses a Nano's A0-A3 as LED outputs too.

That panel has a 5-position tank select switch, a fuel cutoff switch, 4 servo outputs and 4 LED outputs. That's 6 in and 8 out. All 14 are used as digital.

[tekadept]

To reduce the amount of pins for rotary switches look into resistor ladders, then you only need a single analog input to detect what position.

[matt.israel]

To reduce the number of pins for rotary switches look into resistor ladders, then you only need a single analog input to detect what position.

 

I've seen the resistor ladders used. Do you know if/how they work with DCS-Bios? I think it would bring me back to where I started - wondering about modifying DCS-Bios code.

 

Based on what I read it seemed like wiring wasn't terribly difficult, but won't work with DCS-Bios.

[tekadept]

Well its not natively supported with a simple dcsbios command, but its easy enough to program. below is a class I use you can add to switches.h

Its called by say

DcsBios::AnalogMultiPos INSSW("INS_KNB", A7, 8, 250)

 

class AnalogMultiPos : PollingInput

{

private:

const char *msg_;

char pin_;

char numOfSteps;

int divisor;

char lastState_;

int period = 750;

unsigned long time_now = 0;

 

char readState()

{

int which = 0;

int nextval = -10;

int readvalue = analogRead(pin_);

for (int i = 0; i < (int)numOfSteps; i++)

{

if (readvalue >= nextval)

{

which = i;

nextval = nextval + (1024 / numOfSteps);

}

}

return which;

}

 

void pollInput()

{

char state = readState();

 

if (millis() > time_now + period)

{

time_now = millis();

if (state != lastState_)

{

 

if (state == 0)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "0"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 1)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "1"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 2)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "2"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 3)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "3"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 4)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "4"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 5)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "5"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 6)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "6"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 7)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "7"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 8)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "8"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 9)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "9"))

lastState_ = state;

if (state == 10)

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, "10"))

lastState_ = state;

}

}

}

 

public:

AnalogMultiPos(const char *msg, char pin, char numOfSteps_, int divisor_)

{

msg_ = msg;

pin_ = pin;

divisor = divisor_;

lastState_ = readState();

numOfSteps = numOfSteps_;

}

 

 

void pollInputCurrent()

{

char state = readState();

char buf[7];

utoa(state, buf, 10);

if (tryToSendDcsBiosMessage(msg_, buf))

lastState_ = state;

 

delay(100);

}

 

void SetControl(const char *msg)

{

msg_ = msg;

}

};