I'm hoping someone here can help with a problem in the pit I'm building.

Background is: Pit is a Comanche pit for use with EECH. I'm using an Opencockpits USBkeys board to interface the switches with the game.

Most of them work fine, but in EECH use is made of the Numpad keys, and they're giving me a headache.

In the encoder.ini file a program the switches as directed in the documentation for the board i.e. #75=/0 that should mean when I press switch 75 attached to the USBkeys board Numpad 0 shoud be passed to the game. It isn't!

I put a key scanner program on and when I press Numpad 0 on the normal keyboard it displays {Num0}. When I press the 75 switch it shows 7.

Hopefully I'm not the only one using Opencockpits boards and somebody will have hit this problem before.

I have put a post on to Opencockpits forum about this, but from past experience it takes them a while to respond.

many thanks in advance,

Andy

With my quick goggling... do you have the / facing the right way? #75=\0

[ Asignación de teclas F]

#25=\E
#31=\F
#32=\G
#30=\H
#28=\I
#26=\J
#16=\K
#14=\L
#12=\M
#10=\N
#13=\O
#15=\P

Hi Falstar,
Thanks for the reply.
In the documentation from Opencockpits site it says to use the "/" key before the number for the Numpad keys. Where did you find the other one ?

Cheers,

Andy

Got that from here... http://mariuscircuits.110mb.com/cdu.htm

Like I said, it was a quick google. I dont' have a Opencockpit board or any experience with one, but thought it might be worth a shot.

Hey Andy - I would be curious to find out if it was just a documentation error.

I use the USBKeys for the switches around my MFD/MPD bezels.
There were a couple of numpad assignments I needed. I don't remember everything I tried? I do remember searching the OC forums for help.....never did get them to work.

I ended up running them through the KE72.

Yo Andy, Any luck? the curiousity is killing me. lol

Hi Falstar,

I don't have a solution yet, but I think I know why it's happening.

When I initially got my USBkeys card none of my systems would recognise it (kept coming up Unknown Device in system manager). Mate of mine downloaded the PIC code from OC's site and compared it to the code in the chip. It was different! He burned me a new PIC which made the board work perfectly.

After searching the web I've come across 2 versions of the user guide for the board. The earlier one DOES NOT have the instructions for the number pad keys. My guess is that my mate has burned me a copy of the old version of the PIC.

Problem now is that OC don't respond to requests on their forum and don't answer emails. If I put the original PIC back in which, I think, would give me the numpad mappings, it won't be recognised again.

Another problem has raised it's head with the OC board. No option to map the spacebar (which is the weapons fire key in EECH).

I tried remapping the spacebar to # in the registry and mapping # to the fire key in OC.

Tried in notepad, # key on keyboard does produce a space but hitting the fire key produces a #.

It's as if the HID device output doesn't go through the keyboard buffer and can't be remapped.

Hair is getting thinner by the day ..........

Andy

Thanks for the info. Please keep us informed if you find the solution.

Had been thinking of going the Opencockpits route, so thanks for the heade up.

Don't be put off Opencockpit's cards because of the USBkeys. I'm using a Mastercard for all the indicator outputs, a USBlcd card for the upfront display and a 7 segment card for the chaff and flares counters in the pit and they all work fine. And programming in SIOC is a breeze once you get your head around it.

The USB keys seems to be the weak link in their setup.

If you do decide to go OC route, feel free to email me if you get stuck and I'll try and help.

You can get me through the webmaster email address on my site below.

Cheers,

Andy

A step further on with this:

I did get an email back from Opencockpits to say that you can designate the following special keys despite it not being in their latest documentation:

/A = Multiply (this is the last entry in the current docs)
/B = Add
/C = Seperator (?)
/D = Subtract
/E = Decimal (I assume this means decimal point)
/F = Divide
/G = Space

I presume that all the above keys are the Number Pad ones.

Haven't been able to test this out yet as I can't find the original PIC chip or it's contents. Have asked OC for a copy of the hex code for the PIC they currently use.

GrizzlyT:
Could be that you have an earlier version as well. That would explain why you couldn't get the numpad keys to work.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Andy

Are there any of you guys out there are using an OpenCockpits USBkeys encoder board which works with the number pad definitions ? i.e using the '/'

If so, could you possibly extract the hex code from the PIC chip and send me a copy please ?

Alternatively, if anyone has a copy of the PIC code I'd very much appreciate a copy.

The first line of the older code I have already is:

:020000040000FA

email address is andyb(AT)uk8.net replace the (AT) with the @ sign.

I'm tearing my hair out here (and there's not a lot left .....).

Many thanks in advance,

Andy

Hi Guys,

An update to my problem.

Got an email back from Opencockpits. They say the code in the PIC is low level code and doesn't have anything to do with the key generation, that is done by the associated program (encoder_keys.exe or IOCKeys.exe).

They suggest installing SIOC on my main PC and using it to generate the keys from the switch inputs on the USBkeys board. It seems that the update to SIOC does include the new numpad designations but no update to encoder_keys program.

I'll report back when tested in case anybody else has a similar problem in the future.

Cheers,

Andy

Hi Guys,

I finally got all my switches working.

After contacting Opencockpits, their solution was to run SIOC on the Game PC as well and use the keyboard emulator built in to it. That didn't work either.

After scanning manu forums I found a script for AutoHotKey called AHKHID. This registered HID devices and displayed the data coming from them. Modified it severly and all the switches in the pit do what they're supposed to do - except the fire button (Hmmmmm). Think I may have had two problems.

Finally realised that when I'd been testing previously I'd had the controls in EECH set to keyboard. Since then I'd hooked up the BU8036 and and changed the controls option to that. I connected my trigger switch to the first button input on the BU8036 and can now blast away to my heart's content !!!!!!

Next stop - windscreen and projection.

Cheers,

Andy

PS if anybody want's a copy of the scripts for AutoHot Key, let me know.