Condor Joystick/Rudder

On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 1:01:39 PM UTC-5, soartech wrote:
I use a Sidewinder 2 Force Feedback stick and Saitek Pro Flight Rudder

Pedals. The Sidewinder has been the best stick I have ever used and gives

the most "feel" to the glider. They haven't been made in almost 10 years,

but are pretty cheap on Ebay.



Daniel Sazhin



Daniel,

What does Force Feeback mean? Does it have little motors inside the

stick?

Is this feature supported by Condor?

Yes and yes. Force feedback tries to make the stick respond to stick forces in the plane. It is usually pretty good, however I have not found it to really make a huge difference. I prefer the Saitek X-52 Pro because it is very smooth and has a good bit more stick travel (Vs. the Logitech joystick) which makes it feel more precise to me. Try some out and find what you think feels right and remember to join us on US Nightly Soaring every day (except Monday) at 9PM eastern. http://gliderracing.com/pub/

JP

I have a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick. Unfortunately, after upgrading to Windows 7, the force feedback part doesn't work anymore. Now it just slops around with no tactile center. I haven't been able to give ground instruction on a flight simulator since this upgrade. This is terribly disappointing since the operating system upgrade was done by Microsoft, and the hardware made obsolete by the same company now makes it more or less useless.

What I would really like is a force feedback joystick that closely represents the style of control column you see in real life gliders. Something that doesn't sit on a table, but is positioned on a chair, and be grabbed in the customary fashion that a normal flight control stick is grasped. And something with a mini-throttle built in that I could use as a trim-tab. I don't need all those 85 buttons and control hat that all the modern joysticks have.

On Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:05:34 -0800, Piet Barber wrote:

What I would really like is a force feedback joystick that closely
represents the style of control column you see in real life gliders.
Something that doesn't sit on a table, but is positioned on a chair, and
be grabbed in the customary fashion that a normal flight control stick
is grasped. And something with a mini-throttle built in that I could
use as a trim-tab. I don't need all those 85 buttons and control hat
that all the modern joysticks have.

If you can find something like an old CH Pro gaming stick (two buttons on
the stick, throttle wheel and X and Y trim pots it shouldn't be too hard
to adapt it. Make a stick of the right length from alloy tube and mount
it on a box or whatever so it has the right relationship to your chair.
Fit a mechanical link from your stick to the the CH Pro stick so it will
follow your stick's movements. Take the handle off the CH Pro and put it
on the top of your stick and wit up its two buttons in case you find a
use for them. Lengths of bicycle brake cable can be used to connect home
made brake and trim levers to the throttle and trim pots on the CH base
or use that sort of linkage to make the throttle into an airbrake and
build a mechanical trim setup with springs on the stick (would be more
realistic since the CH trim pots don't physically affect the position of
its stick).

Of course, the CH Pro is an old-style stick that plugs into a game port
and it may be hard to find a game port adapter to fit a modern PC.
However, I bet you could do a similar butcher job on a cheap modern USB
stick and simply discard all the buttons etc you don't need.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On 01/08/2013 03:05 PM, Piet Barber wrote:
I have a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick.
Unfortunately, after upgrading to Windows 7, the force feedback part
doesn't work anymore. Now it just slops around with no tactile
center. I haven't been able to give ground instruction on a flight
simulator since this upgrade. This is terribly disappointing since
the operating system upgrade was done by Microsoft, and the hardware
made obsolete by the same company now makes it more or less useless.

Over in a Linux group, someone found a partial fix for the floppy stick.
http://scribblette.livejournal.com/643709.html

On Jan 8, 3:05*pm, Piet Barber wrote:
I have a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick. *Unfortunately, after upgrading to Windows 7, the force feedback part doesn't work anymore. *Now it just slops around with no tactile center. I haven't been able to give ground instruction on a flight simulator since this upgrade. *This is terribly disappointing since the operating system upgrade was done by Microsoft, and the hardware made obsolete by the same company now makes it more or less useless.

Apparently, it does work for some: http://forum.condorsoaring.com/viewt...p?f=15&t=14804

I have W7 64 bit and am planning to get Condor and MSFF2. I hope that
the combination will work fine. If it does not, then I will simply run
Condor in a virtual machine under WinXP.

Bart

On 1/13/2013 12:01 AM, Bart wrote:

I have W7 64 bit and am planning to get Condor and MSFF2. I hope that
the combination will work fine. If it does not, then I will simply run
Condor in a virtual machine under WinXP.

You may be disappointed with the VM. On my machine, the response time to
mouse and keyboard inputs is noticeable slower than normal. Whether or
not it's too slow for Condor, I don't know.

Tony "6N"

On Jan 20, 10:59*am, Tony V wrote:
You may be disappointed with the VM. On my machine, the response time to
mouse and keyboard inputs is noticeable slower than normal. Whether or
not it's too slow for Condor, I don't know.

I have not experienced anything like this (I use VMware Workstation/
Player). What do you use?

Bart

Bart -

I have (and use) Condor on Win7 64-bit. It works fine, just make sure
you have at _least_ 2GB of RAM (that's for Win7, more than Condor)!

--Noel

On Jan 21, 11:55*am, "noel.wade" wrote:
I have (and use) Condor on Win7 64-bit. *It works fine, just make sure
you have at _least_ 2GB of RAM (that's for Win7, more than Condor)!

Noel,

I am sure Condor works fine under Win7 - it's a supported product
after all. CPU/RAM will not be an issue; I have plenty.
It is the Microsoft force feedback joystick that worries me a bit.

Bart