DC9-50-17 corrupted flap guage?

[atc81]

Hi Guys,

First of all, congratulations and a big "well done" to all concerned for an outstanding set of panels for the DC-9s. I have installed panels for the -30 and the -50 (FS9) without any problems but now I have encountered a problem with the flap selector on the -50. The first detent (5) displays just fine but when I go to 15 all I get is a series of numbers (1-10) stretching down the length of the gauge and then anything below that setting the entire gauge goes "black". Sounds like a corrupted file or gauge to me but wanted to ask which gauge out of which package (core or specific panel files) could be the culprit.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Bill

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

I've never ever heard of such an issue !

I understand you have DC9-30 and DC9-50 panels successfully installed .... but .... only the DC9-50 panel is demonstrating this problem .... right ?

That sounds quite odd to me .... because, so far as I'm aware, the DC9-30 and DC9-50 panels both use precisely the same flap gauge .... as supplied per the DC9 PANELS GAUGES/CORE FILES package.

If your DC9-30 panel is working fine .... then I suggest you remove your current DC9-50 panel installation and then reinstall it completly .... taking care to ensure that you're using the correct DC9-50 panel/engine type file with the correct/corresponding DC9-50 aircraft base pack/engine type file too.

I'd even go so far as to suggest you reinstall/overwrite all original DC9 PANELS GAUGES/CORE FILES too.

Just ensure that all of these do go to their correct FS destination folders.

If I understand you correctly .... then your problem seems to be DC9-50 (only) specific.

It could just be that 1 of your you DC9-50 packages might have corrupted (for what ever reason) during downloading .... it has been known to happen, but again, I've never heard of symptoms such as you're presenting.

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[atc81]

Mark,

Thanks for the quick response. On checking the -30 just to make sure the problem didn't exist I found that it happens with that model as well. I guess I only ran the flap switch down to 5 and didn't go any further. So to summarize the problem exists in both the -30 and -50 panels which if I understood you correctly points at a corrupted file in the core files area. I will re-install that package and see if that clears things up.

Thanks again for your help and again, a great job by everyone responsible for making my old friend (I'm an ex-North Central ramp rat) come alive in today's "glass" cockpit world.

Best,

Bill

[botamern]

Here's what I see. Oddly enough I never noticed it before, but then again I only ever looked at the throttle panel during startup and shutdown and then my flaps are at zero with no errors.

Nick

Flaps 5


Flaps 15


Flaps 25

[atc81]

Nick,

That's exactly what I am seeing.....guess I won't worry about it!

Bill

[skyking]

Well, all I can say is you guys must have a different mechanic than I've got. My Flap Gauge works normal, but the 'handle' on the Throttle Quad pix doesn't move until Flaps Full are selected. Then it goes to the Full Down Position. No numbers like you show in your fotos.

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

With regard to that DC9 panels Center Pedestal sub panel .... nobody should be seeing anything different that "THIS" .... as per the following image ....



In the above image the white tops of the flap lever can be seen (and is all that should be seen of these considering this sub panel effectively represents a birds-eye view of the entire CP section) with the slats extended and flaps set at their approximately 15* (degree) detent .... and with the scale on flap detents/setting appearing as per "THIS" (image) also.

For the life of me .... I can't replicate .... and .... have never, ever, seen anything like what is being described in postings above or represented per 2 of Nick's images posted above .... and that remains the case in respect of all of the different PC's on I've installed these very files on behalf of other folk.

Out of curiosity .... fearing I may have missed something .... I've just rechecked checked this CP in both standard and full screen viewing modes .... BUT NOPE .... I simply can't replicate anything other than what's visible per my own image here .... both on the ground and in the air.

I speculate that what "ATC81" and Nick are seeing "might" simply be the result of graphics cards or driver interactions with the CP gauge .... maybe .... because I have hear of such issues with other panels on some PC's

Using the "F7" keyboard command .... the white tops of the flap lever should be seen to extend all the way down to 50* (degrees .... flap 40* is generally the maximum used on DC9's with the exception of DC9-10's. On some of these panels selecting keyboard command F8 will intentionally cycle the flaps to their 40* degree detente only .... with "F7" being needing to be selected inn order to extend them all the way down to 50* degrees) .... but .... there should never, ever, be a list of large numbers or anything like the black space that is evident in Nick's images above.

I'm sure this's not a contributory factor, but, I want to be sure folk are indeed installing all of their panel related files precisely recommended .... as follows ....

- The contents of the Panel Gauges folder should be installed inside the FS9 GAUGES folder !

- The contents of the Panel Sounds folder should be installed inside the FS9 SOUND folder .... not the default Sound folder inside the Aircraft Base Pack !

- In respect of the Panel Modules folder .... the FSSOUND.DLL file must be installed inside the FS9 MODULES folder with the FS9.CFG file then located and the following edit pasted and saved to this CFG file ....

[OLDMODULES]
FSSound.dll=1

.... and finally .... the GAUGESOUND.DLL file must be installed inside the FLIGHT SIMULATOR 9" folder.

If all that is done correctly .... and provided no corruptions have occurred .... or .... no graphics/driver gauge file interactions are occuring .... then nobody, at all, should have any issues to contend with and "everything" should be appearing and performing (in FS2004) both as appears per my own image and as described by me above.

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[kenwig0556]

What's exceedingly odd is that the gauge, "dc9rpgc!flaplever" is just a two bitmap gauge - one being the handle and the other, the detentes below. The number wheel shown in Nick's second photo is entirely foreign to this gauge (and anything else related to the throttle, as far as I can tell). I wonder if you moved the throttle and resized it a bit, if this issue would repeat? Is it possible that there is something that utilizes a number wheel running behind the throttle on the main panel or behind it that is causing some sort of interference? Also, when they black out like third photo there is often another gauge on the same sub-panel that is encroaching. There are just 5 gauges on the throttle sub-panel. Checking their x,y positioning and sizing against a known panel config without the issue could eliminate that inquiry. Lastly, one of the five gauges on that sub-panel, "d9shspd_test!d9shspd_test" could be interfering. You might try putting it on hold with // in front of it in the panel config and see what happens before you move the throttle from its current position.

[Esa Kaihlanen - HJG Guest]

Those screen captures above reminds me of a very similar looking problem we had with Caravelle panels in the very beginning. The problem was traced back into the way the gauges were programmed. It had something to do with the way the gauge bitmap sizes were defined in the gauge code. Benoit Gaurant then fixed it by reprogramming the affected gauges.

In our case the problem only presented itself when the panel was used in higher resolutions (= more than 1280 pixels wide). If this problem is similar to ours, then reducing the resolution should fix it (resizing the pop-up panel window with mouse may also help). If possible, it might be a good idea to run a few test with a lower resolution to see if the problem persists.

If it indeed seems to be a similar problem, I can contact Mr. Benoit Gaurant and ask for more details about how to fix it. Unfortunately I was not able to find any of our old screen captures for comparison.

-Esa

[jonm]

I've never reported it, but I see the same problem as Bill with the DC-9-30 and DC-9-50 flap selector(I haven't downloaded the 10, 20 or 40 thus far).

[Mike Monce - HJG]

FWIW.... I just tried this and had no problems through the whole range of the flap levers. My resolution is 1280x1024.

Is it me, or are the screen shots where the problem shows up from a widescreen monitor? Maybe that has something to do with it??

Mike

[kenwig0556]

Guess, what guys? Like Nick, I had never had my throttle window open to notice, but I now find that I have the same experience with the middle detentes. I'm flying in FSX with a 1024x768 resolution. Esa's comments are on track, I think, because I noticed similar graphics "smearing" while beta testing Benoit Gaurant's A300 v3 panel recently. And, I've examined the DC-9 panels with FS Panel Studio and everything seems to be in order.

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

The original CP panel gauge was created and programmed by Stellan HILMERBY.

I'm using an FS resolution of 1600X1200X32 .... if that's of any help to anyone !

As depicted above .... I've experienced no problems whatsoever wih any of these panels.

Thanks for your input both Esa and Mike ..... and thanks Ken for taking the time to check also !

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[atc81]

Gents,

Looks like all I had to do was re-size the CP popup window (using mouse) slightly as suggested above and it works great! I am running a GTX-470 card at 1920x1080x32 resolution so that may have been a problem? Anyway, a very minor decrease of the window size resulted in normal indications from 5-40 degrees.

Thanks to all who helped with this....very much appreciated. Now it's on to getting the AP to capture and descend via the glide slope!

Bill

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

Thanks for your feedback "ATC81" .... I'm glad the soluction was "THAT SIMPLE".

This information will undoubtedly be of great assistance to others whom may have experienced the same issue too.

Mark C
AKL/NZ