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Brunner Force Feedback Joystick Base


Mozart

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I have some questions about the Brunner base (as a G940 owner):

 

1. Is there a "standard" center spring mode?

2. How is Windows handling the device, will i be able to play games like Elite Dangerous with it?

3. Are the forces strong enough to hold the stick in place?

4. How is the beta working with DCS atm?

 

 

1. no but you can make your own standard profile. such as, you can can make a profile and you can say how much spring force you want it to have at each incremention. you need to check the box move back to center or somesuch or else you get a chopper profile where it will act as dry clutches. it will remain in the position where you leave the stick. so its better tahn a standard center spring mode. you can make all these different profiles and you dont need to change cams or springs like you do on the VKB or VIRPIL bases.

 

 

2. if you dont want ffb then windows just sees it as a generic usb stick and you can bind y and x axis and all buttons etc.

if you do want ffb then you need to install vjoy and be on windows 1808. (this is packaged with the latest software with a read.me) afterwards in order to have ffb work instead of the cls-e stick you have to bind the vjoy axes. yes you can play elite with it. i play star citizen with mine.

 

 

3. forces are strong enough to keep stick in center. but if you use a warthog metal stick and 12 cm alluminium extension like i do and fly helicopters where you trim the cyclic so it has a new center very off center then the stick dips a bit because of the weight. so i trim cyclic and then trim a bit back up with normal trim to have it keep is new center where i want it. gonna buy a lighter stick from virpil.

 

 

 

4. it works but its a bit rough around the edges. just flashed new firmware and i got rid of ghost hardware trim binds which kept messing things up. altough when i open the profile again it still looks like all the binds are not bound, they are in fact bound. one frustrating problem is that the option to hardware bind cyclic trim appears to be missing. just trim up,down,righ,left and reset trim are present. luckily i still have it active in my helo profile.

 

 

I even got ffb working today with cliffs of dover. with latest software and firmware i should have been able to select emulate usb connection as sim connection but that seems not to work.

I got a workaround from the boys at brunner:

 

 

Close CLS2Sim

Open CLS2Sim installation folder.

Open Settings folder

Open connection.stx with editor.

Find line with "APP_VJOY_FORCE_ENABLE_AXES"

in next line set

<boolean>false</boolean>

to

<boolean>true</boolean>

Save and close.n

Open CLS2Sim and select DCS Beta as Sim.

vJoy axes will move.

 

 

 

 

ffb in cliffs of dover is very rough around the edges. also some violent shaking had to fight the stick on mission start. going to the edges of the stick movement it stopped. had to put ffb to 10 percent in the profile.

 

 

in DCS ffb is very very cool. only used it with the f-14 and p-51d both work great. no shake with weapons fire though. but stall/buffet etc works. tighter with speed i havent noticed. i dont know if the old software conveyed it well. need to try again.

 

 

tried the su27 as well but was rough at the edges. probably because its an older module.

 

 

also the boys at brunner will be closed for 2 weeks during vacation break so i probably have to be content with this :) luckily i had the old base soldered so its compatible with the virpil mongoost50cm2 stick which i will hopefully get not too long from now.


Edited by kingpinda
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Just recieved the Brunner a couple days ago. Very nice! I thought I saw a mention of a discord channel where owners were discussing it. Do any of you know of one. If not would any you be interested in joining a discord to discuss the Brunner with different sims.

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How much play does the base have around the center point before the motors start providing feedback effects? On the MS FFB2 the play was fairly big, so when I was trimming for helicopters, I had to pull the stick back a tiny amount from where I wanted it so that when I released the stick, it would "fall forward" into the position that I actually wanted it to be in.

 

Also, can anyone give an idea of how the FFB strength compares to the MS FFB2? I know the motors in the Brunner aren't strong enough to use with a long extension, but is the FFB strength significantly stronger than the FFB2, or just slightly?

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Just recieved the Brunner a couple days ago. Very nice! I thought I saw a mention of a discord channel where owners were discussing it. Do any of you know of one. If not would any you be interested in joining a discord to discuss the Brunner with different sims.

 

https://discord.gg/szqaJE7

Ten_beers this is the hotas discord. It's getting very big and awsome for everything sim related. I'm hotmom on there.

 

Ranma: I believe it's strong enough with an extension. Just not the Warthog stick with extension. Right now it works exactly like your ms ffb2 except I use Warthog stick with 12 cm extension. Practically no slop in center but because of the weight it dips when trimmed pitch down for instance. Hoping to rectify it with a plastic stick. Have the mongoost50 cm2 on order.

 

Max force is 4nm I don't know how much the ms ffb2 is.

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ok I have vjoy setup and working fine but in CLS2sim I'm getting a A blocking operation was interrupted by a call to WSACancelBlockingCall any ideas ? and yes win fwall is off

 

 

It happened to me once but i dont remember how i got rid of it. i think it went away after one time.

 

 

btw do you have the latest windows 10 update? if yes download then latest vjoy build instead of using the vjoy in the brunner folder.

 

 

http://vjoystick.sourceforge.net/site/index.php/download-a-install/download

 

 

also if you want to use ffb on other games do this. since emulate usb hid doesnt seem to work most of the time:

 

 

got ffb working on cliffs of dover.

Close CLS2Sim Open CLS2Sim installation folder. Open Settings folder Open connection.stx with editor. Find line with "APP_VJOY_FORCE_ENABLE_AXES" in next line set <boolean>false</boolean> to <boolean>true</boolean> Save and close. Open CLS2Sim and select DCS Beta as Sim.


Edited by kingpinda
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got a mongoosT50cm2 stick now with extension. and man is it better than the warthog. much much lighter.

 

 

Only thing is that i cant seem to hardware bind cyclic trim. I wasnt able to with the latest software but there was a ghost trim present. but swapping sticks that dissapeared now as well. The brunner boys are on holiday and all i can trim right now is normal hat trim and reset but no cyclic trim.. so i have to fly planes until the brunner boys get me sorted..

 

 

edit: solved it myself. The dcs world beta is indeed a beta. the binds dont seem to stick but they do. but they left out airelon/elevator release command which is the cyclic trim. when disconnected select xplane as connection instead of DCS world beta. then set your binds and disconnect and connect to dcs world beta. under the buttons tab there doesnt seem anything bind but it works anyway.


Edited by kingpinda
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How much play does the base have around the center point before the motors start providing feedback effects? On the MS FFB2 the play was fairly big, so when I was trimming for helicopters, I had to pull the stick back a tiny amount from where I wanted it so that when I released the stick, it would "fall forward" into the position that I actually wanted it to be in.

 

Also, can anyone give an idea of how the FFB strength compares to the MS FFB2? I know the motors in the Brunner aren't strong enough to use with a long extension, but is the FFB strength significantly stronger than the FFB2, or just slightly?

 

 

 

 

been testing today with my new mongoost50CM2 stick and 2 virpil extensions. 50mm and 7,5mm on top of eachother.

 

 

 

compared to the warthog with a 12 cm extension the difference is astounding. the warthog is really really really heavy!!!

 

 

I have almost NO slack in the original or trimmed center whatsoever! in the elevator axis absolutely no slack and in the airelon axis almost no slack it is nearly not noticable. its that small of a slack.

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ok I have vjoy setup and working fine but in CLS2sim I'm getting a A blocking operation was interrupted by a call to WSACancelBlockingCall any ideas ? and yes win fwall is off

 

 

 

 

Simflight: Ive opened a thread on the brunner forums with feedback about the latest beta software from brunner. you might want to pitch in. or you might find the answer in my essay.

 

 

https://forum.brunner-innovation.swiss/forums/topic/dcs-world-beta-force-feedback-cls2sim-feedback-opinion/

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  • 4 weeks later...

It's been a while and I've finally raised enough funds to purchase a Brunner CLS-E base. I wanted to check and see what the current state of the official software is at. In particular:

 

1. Is FFB working in DCS for all aircraft? Are all the effects implemented (Su-25T shudder when >600km/h, stick position moving when trimming in fixed wing, helicopter force trim working properly, etc)?

 

2. Are there any issues with the FFB in DCS? Last I heard, the rumbling effect on the ground in the F-14 was too excessive. Is that still an issue, and do any of the other modules have issues as well?

 

3. Last I heard, FFB is not working in IL-2 BoX yet (which is understandable, the FFB data it sends out is very strange). Is this still the case?

 

4. It seems like some people are having trouble getting FFB to work with DCS. Has this been resolved, or is it still an issue for some people?

 

5. I plan to center mount the base in between my legs and use it without an extension, but someone stated that the base is quite large and might be uncomfortable to use when mounted this way. Is this true?

 

6. Are there any other issues that would be good to know about before purchasing the base?

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Sorry, can't comment on the FFB + DCS, since I didn't try.

I'm fine with the hardware trim, which works both for fixed wing and helicopter.

 

5. I plan to center mount the base in between my legs and use it without an extension, but someone stated that the base is quite large and might be uncomfortable to use when mounted this way. Is this true?

I'd say so, yes.

I think the best would be to try it out. Just take some card board and make a box with the dimensions (145mm×220mm×143mm) of the base.

Keep in mind that those dimensions are without mounting, so depending on your solution there you might have to add a bit more to the dimensions.

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  • 3 weeks later...

1 yeah all that stuff is working. Trim works flawlessly but only with brunner hardware trim mode. Which is awsome. You can even trim in craft that dont have trim that way. Cyclic release/force trim rhe same. Works fine.

 

2 f-14 I havent experience excessive rumbling. But sometimes there was a hickup between sim and brunner ar start of mission. Stick shaking massively untill throttling up. For Some reaon it had Some faulty data coming in untill throttling up and getting correct

Data from game. The shaking then stopped and all was Well. There is no deadmans grip like on rhe Logitech g940

 

3 only checked it once. Didnt work. Didnt try again. Cliffs of Dover though does work.

 

4 I think most people got it working by now. At least that is what i read on brunner forum and on hotas/Simpit discord.

 

5 yeah it is big. Its designed as a side stick base. Center mount without extension might not be comfortabel. Im actually thinking of making a curved extension so i can get the stick closer still. The sliding bar on my carseat makes it so I cant get the base close enough.

 

6 dcs ffb is still lackin autopilot stick moving. I dont notice stiffness increasing with airspeed. Its expensive and be expecting import taxes which could amount to a fifth of the Total cost if you sont live in switserland. A new player has risen but not proven itself yet. Gauss. Virpil/Bauer is contemplating a ffb base. Software is still bit buggy. Work in progress. Its not a 100 percent plug and play ffb device. It takes certain stuff from the sim and it uses other stuff from the brunner software.

 

Come to hotas discord and ill gladly tell you more in je brunner channel:

https://discord.gg/szqaJE7


Edited by kingpinda
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when you say everything works perfectly what do you mean?

 

Like, stick forces are progressive, buffet at stall, etc.

 

Or does it mimic the actuators in the Hornet for G and AoA feedback? is it progressive like the real thing? iirc deflection force is 4lbs per G, e.g. so that at 10G deflection force would be 40lbs

 

How does the gimbal compare to VKB/Virp's top offerings?

 

I love the concept, hate the absence of feel in my sim sticks, but I think poorly implemented would be worse than none. I've never tried one outside a level D sim though.

just a dude who probably doesn't know what he's talking about

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Hello everyone

I’m about to order one FFB joystick base from Brunner. Could you please give me a hand with choosing a grip for it. Seems like not everything’s connecting smoothly. Does anyone have any working combination or experience how to make it working. Preferably is to get Mongoose from Virpil cause it has a brake lever and VKB MCG grip is not working with this system at all.

Thank you for your advices.

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when you say everything works perfectly what do you mean?

 

Like, stick forces are progressive, buffet at stall, etc.

 

Or does it mimic the actuators in the Hornet for G and AoA feedback? is it progressive like the real thing? iirc deflection force is 4lbs per G, e.g. so that at 10G deflection force would be 40lbs

 

How does the gimbal compare to VKB/Virp's top offerings?

 

I love the concept, hate the absence of feel in my sim sticks, but I think poorly implemented would be worse than none. I've never tried one outside a level D sim though.

 

Buffet at stall and high g aye. Ground shake. Gun fire rumble not present. Progressive stick forces I haven't been able to make it work. In the brunner software you are supposed to make stick forces stiffer with increased velocity. But I haven't been able to make it work. Or it does work but I'm not sensing it.

 

Have no clue about the hornet. I don't own that module. You can create individual.profiles with each their own spring force.and progressive force in brunner software but if you can get the correct hornet values in I don't know. It can put our max.force of 4NM.

 

The Ffb in the f-14 and p-51d are well done though. I can really Fly at the edge of the flight models envelope without plane losing control.

 

I own the original monfoost50 gimbal. The brunner is better than that. Return to center can be programmed so it won't flop around when let go. Just dial in a bit of hydraulics and it snap to center without oscillating. You can change "spring" strength and "cam" profile with the change of a profile instead of physically opening it and exchanging springs or cams. So in my opinion the gimbal is far superior at those in regards to the spring/cam gimbal of vkb and virpil.

I have different profiles for fixed plane, helos and space games.

Add Ffb and hardware trimming to that as well.

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Hello everyone

I’m about to order one FFB joystick base from Brunner. Could you please give me a hand with choosing a grip for it. Seems like not everything’s connecting smoothly. Does anyone have any working combination or experience how to make it working. Preferably is to get Mongoose from Virpil cause it has a brake lever and VKB MCG grip is not working with this system at all.

Thank you for your advices.

 

I tried the Warthog stick with 12 cm extension. Was great but too heavy

Cyclic trimming in helo was not 1:1. Because of the shear weight when let go it dipped a bit so wasn't trimmed good enough.

 

Now am using 12 cm extension with mongoost50cm2 stick. Works perfectly. Only downside is that calibrating the brake lever can not be done in brunner software *yet*. They advise to calibrate in Windows. Problem with that is that if you press in the brake lever that the last third of the travel it will trigger a button press which ends rhe calibration prematurely thus you can only use 3/4 of the total brake lever deflection.

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I tried the Warthog stick with 12 cm extension. Was great but too heavy

Cyclic trimming in helo was not 1:1. Because of the shear weight when let go it dipped a bit so wasn't trimmed good enough.

 

Now am using 12 cm extension with mongoost50cm2 stick. Works perfectly. Only downside is that calibrating the brake lever can not be done in brunner software *yet*. They advise to calibrate in Windows. Problem with that is that if you press in the brake lever that the last third of the travel it will trigger a button press which ends rhe calibration prematurely thus you can only use 3/4 of the total brake lever deflection.

 

Thank you very much for the quick response. Am I getting you right that you’re using original 12cm Virpil extension of the stick and still getting a decent load with this arm!? I haven’t expected that to be honest. I thought those motors are not that powerful to keep up with any extension. Can you please describe what load (amount of force) approximately can you get with such an extension before you can overcome stick. Let’s say in killos or pounds?

So grip itself works okay providing key mapping of all buttons and axis (with 3/4 of brake lever travel?

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Thank you very much for the quick response. Am I getting you right that you’re using original 12cm Virpil extension of the stick and still getting a decent load with this arm!? I haven’t expected that to be honest. I thought those motors are not that powerful to keep up with any extension. Can you please describe what load (amount of force) approximately can you get with such an extension before you can overcome stick. Let’s say in killos or pounds?

So grip itself works okay providing key mapping of all buttons and axis (with 3/4 of brake lever travel?

 

I dont know how to explain in kilo’s or pounds. Total force peak what brunner device can give is 4NM ofcourse with an extension this Will feel lighter. But I have two profiles set up. One lighter helo profile and one stronger fixed wing profile. The stronger profile hits maybe 3NM on the Axis extremes. Any stronger and i wouldnt be able to fly for longer than 15 minutes due to fatique I would think. The mongoos stick is very light in contrast to the warthog! Also i used to use Milans 12 cm extension but am now using virpils 50mm and 75mm extensions on top of each other. The force can be overcome however. I mailed brunner when I was on the fence if I could program a software limit on one of axis. To emulate less travel in the pitch down area like most fighter craft. They said I could but that I could easily push through becausenof the force limits on the cls-e. I tested this and I couldnt find much added resistance when hitting the limit. If I wanted to really limit this off I should buy the cls-p version with a strength of max 40/50NM somewhere along that line. But if I want to know how much that costs I would have to ask for a quote. And that usually means it's too expensive for me :)

 

 

Yesterday after a few windows 10 updates I tried calibrating the analog beaker lever again and behold! They changed the calibration process! Or I did something wrong the first times. Now I got a slightly different calibration screen and although it still says push a button to continue it doesn't respond to buttons and I have to click next in the menu. So triggering that button on the brake lever axis doesn't end calibration. I now got a 100 percent compatible virpil stick on top of the brunner cls-e.

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Thank you. So 4NM means around 1,5 kg or 3,5lbs with arm of around 25cm (10cm extension +grip) Well not that much, but the point in this whole thing that it could give you feedback - feeling of “airplane behavior”. As I understand, cls-e joystick it’s just side product of professional actuators production and that’s why the main feature like FFB is still under development. So you can precisely tune behavior of joystick in order make one particular aircraft fly as it should in real life through deep management in software. It’s more suitable for making a simulation cockpit, like we use for the type ratings and recurrents. But for the “in home” simulation you can use VR for being in the cockpit of variety of aircraft, and every Sim itself already calculating data for all forces (changeable “center” stick position and variable load) you just need to check FFB box in the menu. So the key feature is still missing, but I still is going to order this joystick, hoping that they gonna fix it soon. Once it’s working you don’t have to be thinking too much, how to tune every airplane module, cause Sims doing it for you depends on what aircraft type it is. Does it have a hydraulic or does it it have a force-trim.

Also it would be possible to fly in other Sims which are more suitable for flying piston engine airplanes like IL-2, or Condor2- glider simulator.

OH by the way. I’ve heard that in order to let the load rise with the airspeed in DCS, you’ve to uncheck hydraulic box in Brunner software.

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But for the “in home” simulation you can use VR for being in the cockpit of variety of aircraft, and every Sim itself already calculating data for all forces (changeable “center” stick position and variable load) you just need to check FFB box in the menu. So the key feature is still missing, but I still is going to order this joystick, hoping that they gonna fix it soon. Once it’s working you don’t have to be thinking too much, how to tune every airplane module, cause Sims doing it for you depends on what aircraft type it is. Does it have a hydraulic or does it it have a force-trim.

Also it would be possible to fly in other Sims which are more suitable for flying piston engine airplanes like IL-2, or Condor2- glider simulator.

OH by the way. I’ve heard that in order to let the load rise with the airspeed in DCS, you’ve to uncheck hydraulic box in Brunner software.

 

 

 

 

Right now in FFB games it only emulates ground rumble, and stall buffets and in some games gun rumble. the rest like load rise and spring strength and spring curve is programmed in brunner software. so it wont take the games ffb settings for that kind of data. so you would need a profile setup for each plane if you want. i just use 1 fixed wing profile though.

 

 

 

about hydraulics and force trim is that a question or statement? you can emulate hydraulics and you emulate force trim. The hardware trim is awsome. done in brunner software you can setup buttons for airelon trim, rudder trim, pitch trim and cyclic release trim. even outside of any game you can push the trim hat for instance pitch down and the stick will go forward and stay there. also the cyclic release when pressed lowers the spring strength and you put it in a new position and let go of the cyclic release button and then where you left the stick is your new center with proper spring resistance like it was as if it were in the original center position.

 

 

about the unchecking hydraulics button i was aware but flying the p51-d in dcs without hydraulics and a load rising profile in place i still dont feel it. but i havent really tried after the latest two software updates.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I only had CLS2sim connected to DCS once (with the beta software). Now, even with the newest release version, I keep getting that same error.

 

I never tried helos the one time I had it working, so can't confirm software trim functionality.

 

i9 12900k @ 4.9ghz, 32gb RAM

Nvidia RTX 3090

Windows 11 x64

Valve Index

Brunner CLS-E w/RS F16GRH, Virpil TCS Rotor Plus Collective, BRD F1 Pedals, WH Throttle, FSSB R3 w/WH Grip, PointCTRL v1

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