Modify carb heat calculation in a payware ac (P3DV4.5)

[mallan157]

I have a payware aircraft with a carb heat gauge in the vc which is calibrated 32 - 160 deg.F and the needle never moves. Hovering over the gauge gives a tooltip showing that the carb heat is being calculated in deg.C so that even with carb heat applied it is rarely going above 32 (typically 2 deg.C with no heat and 29 deg.C with heat on in a 10 deg.C ambient at tickover). I have submitted a support request to the supplier a couple of times but they never seem to release updates other than just after a new model has been launched. ( I'll let you guess which supplier I'm talking about!).

I'd like to modify the ac model so that carb heat is converted to deg.F and hence shows on the gauge. (I'm assuming this is easier than changing the gauge to read in deg.C over a suitable range.)

The gauge does not seem to be referenced in any of the .CAB files pointed to by panel.cfg so I guess its code is in a DLL somewhere.

I have never used the P3D SDK, but I have developed real-time s/w professionally in the past (40 years ago!), so I might be able to reactivate my very rusty coding skills. Can anyone (a) tell me if what I want to do is feasible with a bought-out aircraft model, and (b) give tips, advice, things to avoid for a newbie?

Many thanks
Mark

[mpni]

Hi
If you think it is a bug, contact the support of your payware aircraft.
Regards
Michel

[mallan157]

Yes its a bug. Yes I've reported it several times to the supplier. They're not interested. ("We've informed the developer" is their only response.). As I mentioned, they only seem to address issues when the aircraft is a new release. Its Alabeo by the way, and the aircraft is the D17 Staggerwing, though the issue also applies to the C195 Businessliner.

I appreciate this is not a showstopper, but its an annoyance which I'd like to fix. In the absence of supplier support I have fixed other payware issues such as font sizes, or in one instance the wrong radio being called up, by modifying .cfg files and xml/CAB file gauges, but as the carb heat seems to be a built-in variable I need a different approach.

I notice that the 'RECIP CARBURETOR TEMPERATURE:index' variable in the learning centre list is in Celsius units, so I guess they forgot to add a conversion.

I'm thinking I may have to add a new gauge in the VC to sit over the top of the existing one, and code it myself. Is this the best approach?

Mark

[mpni]

Hi mallan157
You sayed:
"... I'm thinking I may have to add a new gauge in the VC to sit over the top of the existing one, and code it myself. Is this the best approach? ..."
That would be the best approach if you have the code source. If the code source is an xml file, you can do that. If the code source is not a xml file (dll, ...) and without the source, it is totally impossible to make any correction. Only the developer can modify a dll file.
Regards
Michel