PMDG Honeycomb Interface utility now available

[highflyer525 40]

Hi all,

 

I've developed a freeware utility that allows you to assign all of the switches and buttons on the Honeycomb Alpha Yoke to PMDG's 737 NGX, NGXu and 777X aircraft in Prepar3D.  It does this directly using each aircrafts SDK.

 

I don't own any of the other aircraft, so at this stage, I'm unable to extend the functionality out to other PMDG aircraft, as I don't have access to their SDKs which comes from procuring the aircraft. However, I will contact PMDG and ask for their permission to utilise the SDK's of the other aircraft if possible.

 

In the meantime, please enjoy this free utility for the 737 & 777 range of aircraft. I thought this would be a great forum to provide it in as it compliments the great Honeycomb driver already provided by Aerosoft for other aircraft.

 

Happy to hear any feedback you have or bugs you've found in the comments below.

 

I should point out that I'm not affiliated with PMDG, Honeycomb or Aerosoft in anyway. This is a private project and due to PMDG's EULA, MUST ONLY BE USED for personal entertainment as per the EULA that I'm obligated to initially display for acceptance before you are able to use this utility.

 

You can download a copy from my OneDrive here.

 

There's a small manual included but it should hopefully be intuitive for you to use. Apologies, I only speak English and basic Spanish and so everything is in English.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark.

 

V1.1.1.0 - 29/11/2020

• Initial public release

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51561]

Thanks!

[gaab 39]

Hi Mark,

 

Thanks for this utility !

 

I read carefully your manual, but I still have few questions.

 

- I own only the DC6 (still waiting for V5 version...), is there a SDK for her, and where should I look on PMDG site (at least to know if...)

- I use the "official" Yoke Interface for all my aircrafts. Should I still keep it running for PMDG aircraft or are they conflicting ?

 

And the BIG one : as I should receive my Bravo TQ before the end of THIS year ;), do you intent to include support for it in the future ?

 

Cheers

 

Gérard

[highflyer525 40]

Hi Gérard,

 

You are welcome thank you. Here's a few answers.

 

32 minutes ago, gaab said:

I own only the DC6 (still waiting for V5 version...), is there a SDK for her, and where should I look on PMDG site (at least to know if...)

 

The SDKs come with the products and are normally found in {Flight Sim Root}/PMDG/{PMDG aircraft name}/SDK. I've no experience with this aircraft, however, as far as I'm aware all PMDG aircraft do come with an SDK. It's not something you would be able to include yourself as I have to include it in the code base where I make a .DLL from it so I can use it within the main config tool. I'm currently in the process of seeing whether I can get the other SDKs without having ownership of the aircraft, and if I do, I will include it for sure for you.

 

32 minutes ago, gaab said:

I use the "official" Yoke Interface for all my aircrafts. Should I still keep it running for PMDG aircraft or are they conflicting ?

 

It could potentially conflict if you have the buttons mapping actions that aren't specific to a particular aircraft.

 

Eg. if there's a unique command you've mapped that only causes the AP to disengage on the specific Airbus XXX, and this command isn't recognised by any other aircraft, it will be fine. It will still send the command but be ignored by PMDG and my tool as PMDGs actions are unique to PMDG.

 

However, if it's a generic command that belongs to the sim itself, like Zoom in or out, which works across all aircraft regardless, then yes if you map the same button to something else in my tool, you will see two things happen at once.

 

To play it safe, I would create a blank profile in the official tool and load/apply this if you wish to fly a PMDG with mine for now. This will guarantee no interference.

 

32 minutes ago, gaab said:

as I should receive my Bravo TQ before the end of THIS year ;), do you intent to include support for it in the future ?

 

I will also be receiving mine before the end of this year! I will be making an effort to include it in the tool. But this is also dependant on what Aerosoft provide as well. I don't want to end up doubling up with them and getting in their way.

 

Thanks for the comments,

 

Mark. 

[gaab 39]

Mark,

 

I crossed check : no SDK folder for the DC6 on my installation; I just run again the installer - no option and no SDK folder...

 

Let's wait the V5 version. As usual "will be ready when it will be ready"....

 

Thanks for your answer.

 

Gérard

[highflyer525 40]

Hi Gérard,

 

Right, that's a shame. Having a quick look around, I can see a few other comments inferring there isn't an SDK available for it. 

 

However, PMDG may provide us with something in the background and if not, assuming the SDK is still there in the background and just not documented as some posts are implying, then maybe there is still a way. Let's see what happens over the next couple of weeks.

 

I'll let you know as soon as I do.

 

Thanks, 

 

Mark.

[highflyer525 40]

@gaab, just a quick thought actually as I did a bit of reading on the DC-6.

 

It may already be possible with the official tool. It's a stab in the dark as I don't have the aircraft to try it out on. But see if this allows you to turn the landing lights on and off with the landing light switch.

 

TURN ON

 

Please login to display this image.

 

TURN OFF

 

Please login to display this image.

[gaab 39]

Thanks,

 

It works fine.

 

I hope PMDG could publish the varaibles names for the most usefull function (specially with the new coming Bravo TQ).

 

Gérard

[highflyer525 40]

1 hour ago, gaab said:

Thanks,

 

It works fine.

 

I hope PMDG could publish the varaibles names for the most usefull function (specially with the new coming Bravo TQ).

 

Gérard

 

Good news, for some reason, PMDG went with LVARS for the DC-6 rather than their bespoke SDK, but that does actually make life easier.

 

Someone has kindly done the leg work for us. See here. A working Drop Box for a link to his pictures is here:

 

If you download their .ZIP from Drop Box, it's full of pictures like this:

 

Please login to display this image.

 

 

So all you have to do is put the number of the relevant switch, button or knob in the correct syntax which is always >L:dc6_XXX_obj and replace XXX with the correct switch/button or knob number, you should be able to create mappings for everything you need. There is a picture for every part of the aircraft in his .ZIP file. 

 

Good luck, I think you're set!  

 

[gaab 39]

Mark,

 

Great finding - I will start to think about what make sense be connected to the  Alpha and Bravo numerous switches

 

I am really impatient to discover how the new Alpha/Bravo driver works !

I dream of an evolution which would give the possibility to write scripts attached to buttons (in lua or javascript which are now introduced by P3D V5.1).

 

Gérard

[wrap23 0]

Mark,

Thank goodness there are folks like you in the community! Why couldn't Aerosoft provide a basic manual with the configurator software? 

Thank you very much!

Don

[LN-OSS 87]

Hi Mark!

 

im really Trying to find out about the L1011 by Captainsim and so on.

but no luck, what to do?

 

cheers

Stian

[highflyer525 40]

On 2/2/2021 at 9:24 PM, LN-OSS said:

Hi Mark!

 

im really Trying to find out about the L1011 by Captainsim and so on.

but no luck, what to do?

 

cheers

Stian

Hi Stian,

 

The best thing to do would be to start using the Aerosoft configuration utility: Honeycomb Profiles - AEROSOFT COMMUNITY SERVICES 

 

Then you only have two options. Create a profile yourself based on documentation supplied with the aircraft, or hope someone else in the community does.

 

Unfortunately, because I don't own it, I can't help. It can be quite involved depending on the aircraft documentation and would be impossible to do without sitting in the aircraft, powered on, and sniffing around with an LVAR viewer and some trial and error.

 

Sorry I can't help,

 

Mark.

[skyymann 13]

Is there anyway to completely delete all honeycomb inputs and just assign from P3D?

 

Scott

[Bert Laverman 39]

On 2/19/2021 at 7:29 AM, skyymann said:

Is there anyway to completely delete all honeycomb inputs and just assign from P3D?

Scott,

As an argument against: Prepar3D does not support profiles, so if you fly with different aircraft you'll be unable to easily change the assignments, and the LEDs in the Bravo will not work. 

 

However, if you want to really do this, you have several options:

1. To keep the LEDs working, simply remove all assignments.
2. The "lightest" change, so it becomes a temporary test, is to manually change the "add-on.xml" file in the installation directory of the configurator. You can just rename the file, or put a "<!--" at the start of line 3 (in front of the first "<AddOn.xxx>" tag) and a "-->" at the start of line 12. (just before the "</SimBase.Document>") This makes the entry a comment and will cause the AFC_Brdige.DLL file not to be loaded.
3. That said, doing this manually is not recommended due to the renumbering needed, so you should preferably use the "Disable Simulator Defaults" action in the configurator. This should remove all configurator settings.

 

Cheers,

Bert

[Eduardo Passos 14]

Mark, really a terrific contribution to simmers, as some others too.

I'm a newbie and maybe will ask for help.

Anyway many tks

[highflyer525 40]

Hi all,

 

Please find a new version of this tool here: 

 

Thanks,

[SimWare 747]

Hi,

 

As a general appreciation : thanks for sharing knowledge.

 

Have a great day.

[highflyer525 40]

6 minutes ago, SimWare said:

Hi,

 

As a general appreciation : thanks for sharing knowledge.

 

Have a great day.

Thanks @SimWare  

[C Schaffhausen 2]

Hello Mark, great work! I'm trying to get this to work with the MSFS PMDG 737, I have only the Bravo and when I click start, it always tell me to start the simulator. I have modified the ini to enable SDK broadcast, and I have simconnect installed. What is missing? Thank you Mark!

 

C Schaffhausen 

[highflyer525 40]

2 hours ago, C Schaffhausen said:

Hello Mark, great work! I'm trying to get this to work with the MSFS PMDG 737, I have only the Bravo and when I click start, it always tell me to start the simulator. I have modified the ini to enable SDK broadcast, and I have simconnect installed. What is missing? Thank you Mark!

 

C Schaffhausen 

Hi,

 

It could be that you have simconnect setup for networking? I've noticed this has some strange effects with MSFS and you need to include a simconnect.cfg file in with the application.

 

Please put the attached .cfg file in with the application files in the root folder of the utility. Also, you may need to change the IP address and port to match your computer settings, although it you're running it on the same machine as MSFS is running, it should work as is.

 

Let me know how it goes, 

 

Thanks,

SimConnect.cfg

[C Schaffhausen 2]

On 9/28/2022 at 2:15 AM, highflyer525 said:

Hi,

 

It could be that you have simconnect setup for networking? I've noticed this has some strange effects with MSFS and you need to include a simconnect.cfg file in with the application.

 

Please put the attached .cfg file in with the application files in the root folder of the utility. Also, you may need to change the IP address and port to match your computer settings, although it you're running it on the same machine as MSFS is running, it should work as is.

 

Let me know how it goes, 

 

Thanks,

SimConnect.cfg 94 B · 2 downloads

I tried but it still didn't work, already changed the ip to match my computer's setting.

[highflyer525 40]

12 minutes ago, C Schaffhausen said:

I tried but it still didn't work, already changed the ip to match my computer's setting.

Do you have Simconnect installed? MSFS doesn’t technically need it but because it’s backwards compatible with P3D I had to include it.

 

I included it with the utility 

[C Schaffhausen 2]

7 minutes ago, highflyer525 said:

Do you have Simconnect installed? MSFS doesn’t technically need it but because it’s backwards compatible with P3D I had to include it.

 

I included it with the utility 

Yes sir, I installed all of them.

[highflyer525 40]

Just now, C Schaffhausen said:

Yes sir, I installed all of them.

Hmm, the only things that blocked me during development were:

 

A: Firewall, when I was testing it from my development laptop across the network. Assuming that you are on the same machine though. 
B:BT (UK ISP) free Symantec based Antivirus didn’t seem to like it

C The missing .CFG file

D Simconnect froze and I had to restart my computer

E: Simconnect wasn’t installed

 

Thats about all that could block it. 
 

I will send you a very very basic app that  will help us diagnose the connection issue if that’s ok?  Just need a small window to create it.