PS Tools: August 2022

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

PSCockpit Main Board Troubleshooting Guide

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

To properly run the Main Board, take in account these general considerations:

Run PSCockpit software with Admin rights.
Close PSCockpit software, disconnect the USB cable from the PC and turn off the Main Board and wait a few seconds in every test. If there is a leakage in any board, the Main Board chip can go to sleep mode in case of not enough voltage.
Follow this startup sequence: Power on Main Board, connect USB cable to your PC and enter PSCockpit software.
Select one USB port (2.0 preferred) for PSCockpit Main Board and try not to connect any other device on that USB port.
Displays&Gauges and PSCockpit Main Board should have their own USB port and never interchange them.
Power Analogue and Aircore Controller expanders at the same time that the Main Board.

MAIN BOARD DETECTION

If PSCockpit Main Board is not detected in PSCockpit software, check for driver issues. The USB port where PSCockpit Main Board is connected should have only its own driver. You can follow this procedure:

Close PSCockpit Software
Download and install USBDeview USBDeview: Link
Disconnect all USB devices from your computer, including PSCockpit Main board.
Open USBDeview with Administrator rights
Uninstall all the drivers. No worries, as soon as you reconnect your devices the controllers will be loaded again automatically.
Reset PSCockpit Main Board by powering OFF and ON
Connect PSCocktpit Main board to your computer to an USB 2.0 port
Look in to USBDeview for PSCockpit controller
Open PSCockpit Software and check the bottom left LED is green (Main Board Status)
Goto IOLayout and click Detect. All detected expanders must be orange.

EXPANDERS DETECTION

If some expanders are not detected in PSCockpit software, follow this procedure:

Disconnect all the expanders from the Main Board
Check all the expanders one at a time to see if any of them is causing the problem
Double check the hardware addresses of your boards. You can set the expander type you want to test in all the addresses of the I/O Layout page at a given I2C channel, connect the expander at that I2C channel then, and click on “Detect”. The real address of the expander will be painted in orange. Check that the one in orange has the components configured as the expander you have connected. If you test one output where you have connected physically an input, it may damage the board.
If all the expanders are working as expected one by one but when you connect all at a time the system doesn’t work, you may have either a lack of power supply (you will need to add another power supply or change it with a more powerful one) or the wires are excessively long. In this last case you can apply power directly from the power supply to any of your farthest boards.

RANDOM DISCONNECTIONS AND/OR SWITCHES ACTIVATING THEMSELVES

This issue is related with a loss of power in some point of the system.

Check any of these three possible situations:

* Faulty device:
If the loss of power is related with a faulty device means that is draining current to ground.

You can troubleshoot this issue by connecting the I2C channels one by one and test all the devices connected to the boards. If one of them is faulty, either the I2C channel or one of the pcbs will stop working.

Once you have isolated the expander, check the connections and welds of all the devices connected to that expander. Check also that the expander and the screws supporting the expander do not touch any welded part of the board.

* Current requirement exceeds the maximum allowed current in one of the I2C channels:
The I2C channels powered from the Main Board with the pcbs connected in daisy chain have some current constrains depending on the wire (length and thickness) or it might happen that, in a given moment, one or several devices connected to an I2C channel are requiring more power at once, exceeding the maximum current: i.e. the seven segment displays require more power when they show the "8" digit than when they show the "1" digit.

To solve this issue, you can always power any of the pcbs in the daisy chain directly from the power supply using the existing +5V and GND pins. Look for the pcbs with higher power requirement and/or further position in the daisy chain. Take a close look at the 40I/O boards with all their pins configured as outputs.

* Lack of power of your power supply:

If any of the above solutions didn't work, you might think that your power supply is not powerful enough. You can either change the power supply with a powerful one or add another one in parallel. In this case, don't forget to connect both commons with a thick wire.

PSCOCKPIT and DCS

If you are having any issue with DCS, see this post: PSCOCKPIT/DCS TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE

Regards,

Shep

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

HOW TO Configure the TRIM Panel

For TRIM and TRIM INDICATOR pcb description, options and how to configure the expander address, see PSCockpit Quick Guide V.6 – TRIM PCB and TRIM INDICATOR PCB. You can access the Quick Guide from Help/Quick Guide menu in the PSCockpit software.

The TRIM pcb must be configured either the digital expander and the analogue expander.

TRIM Digital Expander

To configure the PSCockpit TRIM panel select the correct option from the Expander pull down list in the IOLayout page of the PS Cockpit Software at the correct I2C channel:

In case of there is some data already in the selected expander, the software will prompt you for continue:

The software will prompt you to setup the TRIM panel in our Airplane model:

If you accept, the Airplane page will show up and the steppers of the TRIM indicator will be configured. You will be reminder to set to zero your steppers. This action has to be done once the process of configuring the TRIM panel is finished.

The software will also prompt you to add the standard BMS commands for the TRIM:

If you accept, the software will prompt you to search for your BMS .key file, typically in ..\Falcon BMS vX.X\User\Config folder, and will automatically search for the keystrokes you have set in your .key file for the TRIM:

If any of the commands hasn't been set, you will see a warning indicating how many commands haven't been set and the Commands page of the PSCockpit software will appear:

Once the TRIM panel is already configured you can modify the list of inputs/outputs as desire as well as the free I/O of the expander:

Be aware that once the configuration is saved, whenever you enter the IOLayout Page you won’t see “TRIM” label on the expander anymore but the “16 I/O” label.

TRIM Analogue Expander

In the same way as the digital expander, to configure the PSCockpit TRIM panel for analogue inputs, select the correct option from the Expander pull down list in the IOLayout page of the PS Cockpit Software at the correct I2C channel in the Main Channel:

In case of there is some data already in the selected expander, the software will prompt you for continue:

The software will prompt you to assign the analogue inputs to VJoy:

If you accept, the software will prompt you to select one of the free available vJoy devices:

The VJoy page will appear. You can select the devices you have previously selected to see the configuration:

Once the analogue inputs of the TRIM panel is already configured you can modify the list of analogue inputs as desire:

For more information about configuring vJoy devices, see: Configuring vJoy

Be aware that once the configuration is saved, whenever you enter the IOLayout Page you won’t see “TRIM Analogue” label on the expander anymore but the “Analogue” label.

You can now set to zero your steppers of the TRIM panel. See X27 Steppers

Your steppers will be shown at 21 and 22 positions:

HOW TO Connect and Configure your OLED V2 256x64 display

Since PSCockpit 11th Run, a new OLED 256x24 display is supplied.

This new display does not need the driver board as it is 5V tolerant.

For connecting the display directly to the Main Board follow this wiring schematic:

Check that the display is configured for 6800 Parallel 8 bit interface. See note 1 in above picture.

You can power the board directly from the power supply separately from the signals cable: pins 1 and 2 of the display.

Before connecting the OLED display turn off the power supply of the Main Pcb and detach the USB cable from the computer.

Be sure you have firmware version 1.5.0 or higher (1.5.1 recommended) in the Main PCB. You can see your firmware version by clicking on Help/About in the PSCockpit Software)

Turn on power and connect the USB cable to your computer.

Run PSCockpit software and go to the LCD page and select the OLED display on the drop down list in the corresponding LCD tab. LCD 1 is used for the LCD connected to the most external connector of the Main Pcb and LCD 2 for the inner connector:

Don’t forget to check “Enable” and the “DED” or “PFL” to use with our sim and the desire brightness of the display with the slider bar.

In “Test” area you have some usual commands for you to try. They are self explanatory.

This display accepts 3 bytes commands. Select the corresponding option button above the commands text box to send one, two or three bytes.

You can also send monochrome bitmaps to the OLED but the horizontal length of the bitmap has to be multiple of 4.

NOTES:
* The OLED display is activated only when you enter PSCockpit software and is deactivated when you exit the program. This is to avoid image persistence on the OLED.

* The OLED display may be light sensitive. Caution should be taken to avoid exposure of this device to any light source during normal operation.

* The OLED display is not radiation protected.