Simulated Wind using MonsterMoto and ArduinoUno

I tried to download Gamedash and Windows 10 notified it has a trogon in it and stopped the download. Any reason why this happened?

I just uploaded this superfast video on how I got my wind sim with the
great help of SilentChill, ZED, Avenga76, NoorBeast.
Might be informative & very funny for you too - if you like broad bavarian-alpine accent
All stay safe,
Greetings from BAVARiA,
Yours ARTi

Has anyone managed to get this code working with FlyPT Mover, it works perfectly in the arduino IDE but I believe due to the Binary output the S,R or L commands don't seem to be working and cant get it running. I've tried most combinations of "S<WindAxis>" or "[R<WindAxisR>][L<WindAxisL>]" in the output

The input code I wrote won’t work with binary data but it should be easily modified. It’s one byte per character so you see S100 as four chars. In binary it could be two or four values depending if the digits are sent individually or as a single number since a byte can range from 0 to 255. But you need to know the format of the data from FlyPt to rewrite the input routine.

Thanks, So basically Mover is sending the letters as Binary so for example L<WindL> becomes 076 XXX where XXX is 0-255 based on the wind data.

I've tried changing if (bufferArray[0] == S ) //S to if (bufferArray[0] == 255 ) //S and limiting the outputs to less and using <255><Wind> in Mover but that dosen't seem to work

Is FlyPT sending the “S” character? If it is you would want to test if bufferArray[0]=083 for S and not 255.

After it gets the start character (R,L, or S), it gathers the digits and builds the value by multiplying each char by the value of its position (hundreds, tens, ones) and adds them together to get the numerical value to use for the PWM for the fans. If the number is coming as a single byte, that’s already done and you should just bounds check it before using it to set the PWM.

It’s been a while since I looked at the code but it first spins until it gets a valid start char (R,L, or S) and then reads the digit chars. You may need to look at how it does that because if it’s waiting for 3 chars and FlyPT is just sending one byte value, you’ll need to adjust what it’s looking for or it may not appear to complete and progress to setting the PWM.

So when I try that I get a 'invalid digit "8" in octal constant' error

@robjos1 - I am not at my computer to look at the last code revision but was looking at some older code here in other’s posts that looks current (but maybe isn’t so caveat). Anyway, I used int for the input array characters. I don’t remember using any octal variables so if you can post the line throwing the error, variable declarations, and some code ahead of the error. At any rate, octal’s range is 0-7. 8 is invalid in octal. I used int since each digit can have values 0-9 but I had to convert the characters 0-9 to numeric values of 0-9 and that’s why the -48 in the line where I turn the hundreds, tens, and ones into a number value. All outside the range of octal.

if FlyPT is using octal coding, you’ll need to sort that. I don’t have FlyPT so can’t easily troubleshoot actual code. I put lots of hopefully accurate comments in so hopefully that helps with the code troubleshooting.

Thanks for the commenting, was helpful and for the replies here.

The Buffer array is defined at the top as:

int bufferArray[4];

----------------
Code exerpt below:
-----------

void ReadData()
{
// We need 4 characters - the command followed by three digits

bool haveCommand = FALSE;
bool haveStart = FALSE;

while (haveCommand == FALSE) // can't exit until have a full valid cddd command
{
// where c is a valid char and ddd is a valid 3
// character representation of three digits

// Valid command always starts with an S (legacy for both fans), L (left fan), or R (right fan)
while (haveStart == FALSE)
{
while (Serial.available() == 0); // spin and wait for data
bufferArray[0] = Serial.read(); // have data, read it

if (bufferArray[0] == 'S' ) //S
{
whichFan = BOTH;
haveStart = TRUE;
}
else if (bufferArray[0] == 'L' ) //L
{
whichFan = LEFT;
haveStart = TRUE;
}
else if (bufferArray[0] == 'R' ) //R
{
whichFan = RIGHT;
haveStart = TRUE;
}
}

// Now need the numbers - will just read three and throw them away if any don't qualify
// if we unsynchronize, it will fail valid digits and go back to waiting for command char
for (int i = 1; i < 4; i++) // read and label each byte.
{
while (Serial.available() == 0); // spin and wait for each character to arrive
bufferArray = Serial.read(); // store as they come in
}

// Check the numbers for validity
if (isDigit(bufferArray[1]) && isDigit(bufferArray[2]) && isDigit(bufferArray[3]))
// all are numbers - have a full cddd command
haveCommand = TRUE; // otherwise start over looking for a new and valid command
}
// Now turn that into a number and clip to 255 - rely on Game Dash for proper scaling
Speed = ((bufferArray[1]-48)*100) + ((bufferArray[2]-48)*10) + ((bufferArray[3]-48)*1);
//Serial.println(SpeedGameDash);
if (Speed > 253)
Speed = 253;
}

But where did you get the octal error you mentioned? If it was in the compile in the Arduino environment it will give you a line number and we need the instruction in that line with the code around it for context.

The last version I posted compiles clean or at least used to and I wouldn’t expect that to change. The code you posted looks unmodified. Am I missing something?

Yes that's the original code. I tried to change if (bufferArray[0] == 'S' ) //S to if (bufferArray[0] == 083 ) //S and that triggered the octal error on that line.

Ah - that 083, which you mean to be just 83 or character “S” is interpreted by the Arduino compiler as an octal value. You are saying the 83 is an octal by prepending the zero. It may work if you just delete that leading zero.

Check here: https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/language/variables/constants/integerconstants/

@robjos1 , sorry for being late.
Told on discord, but can also add it here.

Added some info about the binary and decimal outputs on the Mover site: https://www.flyptmover.com/outputs/the-binary-output-string
and
https://www.flyptmover.com/outputs/the-decimal-output-string
There's some examples also.
Made it a bit on the fast, so there might be some errors.

@pmvcda - I checked your links and you are already outputting differential wind? What do you think of that? It’s something I’ve wanted for a long time with SimTools plugins but got stalled with other stuff and wasn’t able to do more than put provisions in the code to support that. You’re the first I've seen actually using it.

Hi,
I'm not using it, I still don't have fans.
Someone (zeronilzero in Thanos discord) asked me for some code examples to do it, so I made this.
The idea there, was to use yaw speed to make a difference between fans. I have no idea if that's something worth the trouble.
But I'm curious to test. Need to get some fans.

@pmvcda - I’ll make the firmware slide the fan speed back and forth between my two fans just to feel if it might provide the desired sensations. I’ve never done that but should have I guess. That might be fun and simple to do and if it’s what I think it is, I’ll post the code so others can feel the wind vary from side to side. Won’t help without fans, though.

It may be in actuality it’s not the sensation I imagine, or maybe it is. It wouldn’t be actual code to use in a sim. Just demo code to test the sensation and then folks can reflash back to sim code.

Here it is. This is a TEST/DEMO firmware strictly to let twin fan wind users try out differential wind. The wind is purely fictional/demo and doesn't use any communications with GameDash or SimTools. You have to use the Arduino Monitor utility to send it one valid command (doesn't matter which one but "S000" (cap ess-zero-zero-zero) is an example for those unfamiliar).

To beat this horse thoroughly, this is only a demo of differential wind. Once you program this, to get back in action you will need to program your wind Arduino back with whatever code you loaded originally/last. This firmware is not a replacement for your present firmware for actual sim use and won't work for sim use.

All this code does is wait for a valid command, and once it gets that it starts cycling the right and left fans according to a sine and cosine function - forever. It takes a reset, power off, or downloading new firmware to stop it. One fan will lead the other by 90 degrees in trigonometry speak as they both cycle from 0 to 254 wind speed. That lead/lag bit will let you feel the differential wind but not full on 180 degrees out of phase where one is full speed and the other is off at various times in the cycle. In this routine, when one fan is at max (254), or min (0), the other will be at mid value (127). So the most you will experience with this code is one fan at max and the other fan at half, or half and zero, etc. It will look like this in terms of wind speeds from the two fans:



For anyone interested in the code, it really is just a sine and cosine, corrected for offset and scaled proper for the fan speed PWM signal and it just steps through angle values at an arbitrary rate. I meant to put a 50ms delay in the loop so it would approximately match the GameDash 50ms command spacing but in rechecking the code, I see I left that out. That explains why I had to play with the angle step size. There's also a Serial.println(SpeedL) still in the code but that might be handy to watch the numbers for fan speed scroll by. Those were both mistakes I see now but it runs fine on an Arduino Uno. Anyone running on a different clock might see slightly different behaviors. Sorry about that but only noticed it when writing this stuff. I knew what I wanted to do. It just wasn't what I did entirely.

Curious what you guys think. Close your eyes and see if you can tell what's going on.

@noorbeast and all of You

dears
ivo from italy
i am a complete noob on these wonderful things
i have bought a used kit for simulated wind that was built following this topic
the previous owner used it with simtools

i want to use it with simhub since there i manage already shakers, buttkickers and vibrating pedals
i usually use iracing mainly

BUT..... i am completely ignorant of what to do.....
my pc sees the wind sim as COM7 but i think i must manage the "stetch area"...
but i do not know in which way

Do someone has already done and is able to drive me ???
Obviously i can send paypal for this very helpful help

thx so much