RealityXP integration

[blondejfx]

Hi all,

RealityXP integration is not good. The autopilot is broken.

It is also not linked to the avionics bus. It turns on as soon as the battery is on.

[Cameron]

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out with your concerns about RealityXP integration. In order to assist you more effectively, I would appreciate some further details.

When you mention the autopilot is "broken," could you elaborate on the specific issues you're encountering? For instance, are certain buttons or functions not responding, or are there discrepancies in the autopilot behavior compared to what you expect?

Your feedback is essential, and the more specific you can be, the better positioned we are to assist or look into any potential problems. 

Looking forward to your detailed response.

[tkyler]

29 minutes ago, blondejfx said:

RealityXP integration is not good

OK

29 minutes ago, blondejfx said:

The autopilot is broken

OK.  I don't agree, but OK...you've given nothing else to go on.

29 minutes ago, blondejfx said:

It is also not linked to the avionics bus. It turns on as soon as the battery is on.

That's a RXP "in-sim" setting on the user end.  Not part of the INI file which I provide.  I have no control over that.   ...see below.   RXP chose to limit the power to a small subset of default XP choices, which precludes really customized bus configs.  For example, the Moo has a left/right radio bus, essentially TWO avionics busses. X-Plane doesn't even simulate that.  IMO, RXP should have provided a custom dataref option in the INI file for power.

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by tkyler

[Pils]

23 minutes ago, tkyler said:

Not part of the INI file which I provide.

But it could be, no?

[Cameron]

19 minutes ago, Pils said:

But it could be, no?

Tom furthered that with, "I have no control over that.   ...see below". The customization of numerous buses in the Moo does not allow for the simplified options available on the RXP products. As far as Tom could tell, this is a selection within RealityXP's plugin by the user. It is NOT in the ini file. If you know of a way, by all means, speak away.  

[Pils]

52 minutes ago, Cameron said:

Tom furthered that with, "

I have no control over that.   ...see below"

I was a bit slapdash with my reply, I'll admit I was on my phone at the time.

52 minutes ago, Cameron said:

The customization of numerous buses in the Moo does not allow for the simplified options available on the RXP products.

I certainly agree that RXP plugin definitely should have more customisation options after all this time. The market for add-ons has grown far beyond purely default systems/plane maker after all. May be "fakable" by using one of the unused buses?

52 minutes ago, Cameron said:

It is NOT in the ini file.

If RXP plugin doesn't save this option to the INI when selected via the UI that's definitely a bug, but also not terribly surprising, tbh...

52 minutes ago, Cameron said:

If you know of a way, by all means, speak away.

I had to go look it up when I got to my PC to confirm (not in the documentation because that is also shockingly bad, but examples from some X-Plane 11 add-ons), but this should work as part of the gauge settings, or some variation there of (may require some trial and error to figure out based on the manual quoted above):

; sets device power source: ALWAYS_ON, AVIONICS_BUS, MAIN_BATTERY, etc.
PowerSource = AVIONICS_BUS

Cheers.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Pils

[blondejfx]

The autopilot is not broken after all. Blame user error. Sorry about that.

I can't seem to get it to tie to one of the avionics busses though.

In the plugin you can select which bus to connect it to and none of them seem to be the radio switches.

I understand if this is a limitation of the plugin itself and can't be fixed unless something is done on RealityXP's end.

[daemotron]

When playing around with the RXP GNS units, I noticed that there is indeed a distinction with regards to electrical buses. The 530 (primary unit) is hooked to Bus #1, the 430 (secondary unit) to Bus #2. Now the quirk: The GPU powers only Bus #1, while the battery powers both buses:

The RXP units allow to be hooked up to one of 8 different buses (the default avionics and battery bus plus one of the 6 custom buses):

The MU-2 uses three of X-Plane's buses (not sure what Tom's code does in addition to that, so there might be more):

This would (theoretically) leave 3 potential "spare" buses (understood by the RXP units) which could be used to fake a set of dedicated radio buses for the RXP units - I guess that would require some custom plugin-driven logic (to link bus power to the radio switches), so probably a lot of effort for little effect (in the end, it's just RXPs turn on/off with battery vs. RXP units turn on/off with radio switches).

[tkyler]

Your post is noted @daemotron

Welcome to the world of Austin and (X-Plane evolution)

For the longest time, the electrical system on XP was pretty vanilla, minimal busses, no switching.  SO us develoeprs wrote ALL this code to customize our electrical code.

Then Austin starts ALIA...an electric vehicle.  NOW the electrical system in XPlane gets ALL this attention and next thing you know he's changing everything...our code starts having issues, new datarefs, new switching, etc.   So we now have to re-evaluate the entire X-Plane system because we never know how far Austin's simulation goes.....and this just takes time.

There was two real challenges with the Mu2 electrical setup.  1)  The two radio busses...because Austin only had 1 Avionics bus and all radio functions were tied to that one switch....and 2) The emergency bus, which kills very specific functions.   I had lots of code to handle all this before XP had more than 2 electrical busses....and so to just start using more of XP and less of my code, I have to audit a whole lot of code and do a whole lot of testing and experimenting with XP and even then...I may find something with Austin's model that doesn't work.

For example, for the longest time (and still may not be implemented),  you could not have a simple 3 bus setup (left - Main - right) and isolate the left/right busses.  In that little example, (imagine the dashes being bus ties)...but XP only has ONE bus tie...and when activated, it connects ALL the busses in X-Plane. This is a HUGE headache working around and I know Jim with Laminar (replaced me back in 2012) just recently begged the systems team to fix this...as he's working on the Airbus stuff for Laminar and can't even isolate busses.  Simulating busses and switching is easy...the problem is all the downstream things X-Plane drives off of default XP bus values.  Things we can't code...like the radio functions, or GPS, or generators...which feed even more functions downstream.  So we have this "line" where we have to stop, which is basically "bus is powered".  but with headaches like the bus ties...well...*sigh.  Its not uncommon to be approaching the work .... "well...lets try it this way"....nope...."how about this way".....nope...."A...U..S...T...I...N"!

SO....this is what we deal with and its just a very long process to assess.

Throw in "other developers who NEVER respond to your contact"....yea I'm talking to you Jean-Luc from RealityXP.....then it makes it tougher in cases like this.

ANYWAY...enough blabbering.   as usual.....I'll come across this at some point and poke around and try an improvement.  My whole philosophy now with XP development is "steady as she goes".   XPlane is quite the niche market and hobby.....can't support big teams full time, so I'll just try my best to be that tortoise and keep going

thx for your poking around though @daemotron I do log these posts and when I address them I go back over them thoroughly.

Thx again!

Tom

Edited September 17, 2023 by tkyler

[N602AC]

I just bought the MU2 the other day, as I had the original one for XPlane a looooong time ago. It has come pretty far! Love it.

I'd also messed around trying to get the GTN750 to power on and off with the avionics switches and failed. Then I found this thread.

So I guess you can add me to the list of people concerned about that aspect functioning correctly. I understand what you're saying about XPlane's limitations

Beyond that, wonderful aircraft! Excellent work.

Dan