For the last three years my home made flap gauge has worked perfectly. Using stepper motor and only single pointer, and P3D. What has now suddenly happened is that when I start the sim the needle is in a random position. I have calibrated using the sliders in Prosim and can set it correctly through the range but when I exit the calibration page and run the flaps through the settings the needle position never matches the lever position. It will also never return to the zero. I have changed the pins used on the Arduino, changed the stepper driver, changed the stepper but nothing fixes the problem. In Mobiflight I can see the Raw value and Final value change with different lever positions and the changes are consistent at every position. Does anyone have any ideas because I'm stuck on this.
#Flap gauge on Prosim B737
quiet junco
ripe lily
I’m having issues with steppers too,
I’ll try with an older oficial MF to confirm if is an update problem, I’ll keep you posted (I’ll try to test it tonight)…
quiet junco
Thanks for the response. Yeah, I'm thinking about reverting back to an earlier version for troubleshooting. Will let you know how it goes but will be a couple of days before I can do that.
hardy ravine
Stepper code has not been changed AFAIK. The beta has new support for Winwing devices and the new UI.
Stepper motors have always needed to be set to their zero position in Mobiflight.
hardy ravine
Did you set the zero position in the Mobiflight output config?
crimson jetty
I tested this with the latest beta, and my stepper has no auto zero switch defined, so I used "set zero" in the display config, and it seems to work normally. Whenever I press stop on MobiFlight, or if simulator connection is lost and it goes to "stop" mode automatically, the stepper returns to zero.
@quiet junco can you test this with a new configuration file that has only the stepper config, so that we can rule out any possible conflicting output configs or whatever else? Basically trying to rule out anything that could cause the issue.
If the raw value and final value fields show proper values, then it must be something else, either hardware or software.
quiet junco
Here is the latest update. I rolled back to an earlier version of Mobiflight but that made no difference. Then I moved the flap gauge to a different Mega 2560. I calibrated the gauge using the sliders on Prosim and all looks good there. When I come out of calibration and move the lever the results are still not correct but at least now the indicator is consistently returning to zero and consistently goes to the same position for the different lever positions except the indications do not match the lever position. If you refer to the attached table you will understand what I mean.
Appologies, I pressed "enter" and the last message was posted before I finished. I use a HALL sensor for the flap lever position and using DIView I can see the movement is smooth and complete through the entire range. I'm sure this is telling me something but I can't see what it is. Any thoughts?
hardy ravine
You didn't answer if you set the zero position in the Mobiflight output config. It seems you did not.
hardy ravine
Stepper motor positions in Mobiflight are a number of steps counted from the zero position. So it is critical that the stepper is set to its zero position in Mobiflight.
This has always been the case.
quiet junco
Hi Jaime, I didn't mention it but yes, zero was set in the config. Tonight, when I started the sim and ran the flaps they are behaving normally. Nothing has been done or changed since my last post. Perhaps the reboot was necessary after the calibrations - who knows. Hopefully I can close this issue now.