Mobiflight Getting Started XPlane Parking Brake switch and led

If you just got your arduino set up with the MobiFlight firmware, and are excited to get your first interaction going with the flight simulator, this is the place to start!

• This tutorial is about X-Plane - if you are starting with MobiFlight but have Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, please see this tutorial instead (TODO!).

• This tutorial covers the new, direct X-Plane support introduced in MobiFlight version 9.5, which does not require the use of xpuipc plug-in anymore. If you still use an older version for some reason, you are suggested to upgrade.

• This tutorial expects that you have installed MobiFlight and configured and wired your switch and indicator led for the parking brake. If you need to check that part again, please do so here (TODO!).

With your switch defined, and visible in the debug log like we did in the previous tutorial, it is time to look up some X-Plane datarefs and make your switch actually operate the simulated parking brake. Open the Windows File Explorer (the file manager app) and locate your X-plane installation folder (like C:\X-Plane 12 for example). When you look into Resources\Plugins\ you should find two text files - Datarefs.txt and Commands.txt.

We will be using the Datarefs.txt in this example. Searching inside the document for "parking brake" we find this line:

sim/flightmodel/controls/parkbrake float y [0..1] Parking Brake, 1 = max

Let's note this down and open MobiFlight. The same dataref will be useful for both the parking brake switch and also for the indicator light.

Parking Brake Switch

We first click the "Inputs" tab on the top of the MobiFlight Connector window to select the inputs list, and add an entry for "Parking brake" and click the "Active" checkbox so it also works when we try it.

Click the button with three dots on the right side, and we can define more detailed settings in the Input Config wizard dialog. Here, we first select the "Input" tab, and pick our Arduino from the list, and select the "Parking Brake" switch we defined earlier.

On the Action Type we want to select "X-Plane - DataRef / Command", select DataRef and insert our parking brake ref there. The button input has actually two events that are shown as tabs here: OnPress and OnRelease. We want to use both, so put the same dataref on both (you can use the "copy" button to copy and paste the same config to the OnRelease page, but set Value as follows:

• OnPress: 1
• OnRelease: 0

This way the brake will release when you return the switch to the OFF position.

Set the same dataref and Value: 0 to the OnRelease page, and we are done. You can close the ConfigWizard window and press "Run" to test it.

Parking Brake indicator light. (TBD)