After five minutes all my gauges die!?
From FlightSim
Q:
"After about five minutes all my gauges die" - "After about five minutes all my gauges stop working."
A:
In FS98, gauges, flap motors, etc., did not actually require any electricity to operate! Consequently, many panels, both default and add-on variety did not include an avionics switch, battery switch, generator switch, etc.
With the advent of FS2K, a touch of realism was added. All the gauges, and any device on the aircraft requiring electricity, will actually draw current from the "battery." There are sometimes specific voltages and currents required to run some of the devices. Consequently, if the panel you're using doesn't have switches to activate the battery, avionics, generator, etc., the battery will quickly run out of juice!
There are three known solutions (actually there are four, but option number four is to avoid use of the panel and that's not a practical alternative!):
- Add the appropriate switches to the panel. A panel editor or direct editing of the panel.cfg file can do this. This provides the most "realistic" approach, but the most difficult and/or time consuming.
- Start a default FS2K aircraft, then switch to the plane with the "problem" panel.
- Edit the aircraft.cfg file and add the following entry:
[electrical] max_battery_voltage=0
Why does this work? Since, in FS2K, everything electric "uses" current at a designed rate (the .cfg file can identify this - for further info, see the Aircraft Container SDK by Microsoft). This statement in effect says, "The electrical equipment in this aircraft will operate on zero volts." Zero volts can be provided by a dead (or non-existent!) battery!
Art Burke
