Setup

From the box to a lit dashboard

Four steps, about ten minutes. Each step tells you what you should see, so you never have to guess whether it worked.

  1. 1

    Read the stickers first

    Every connector on your harness carries a sticker naming the part it belongs to. Match each one against the part in front of you before anything goes together.

    A plug that fits is not a plug that works. Connectors of the same family are wired differently behind the shell, and the wrong one can put 12 V where your part expects something else.

    Every plug is matched to a part by name.

  2. 2

    Connect, in this order

    Dashboard first, then the 12 V supply, then USB last. The board powers the dashboard, so it wants to know what is on the end of the cable before it switches anything on.

    The status light on the board comes on.

  3. 3

    Prove the hardware, with no computer

    Unplug USB. Leave the 12 V supply connected. Hold the button on the board for three seconds.

    Both needles cross their whole scale together, hold at the top, drop to zero, and the ignition switches itself off. About fifteen seconds.

    The needles sweep. Your hardware and wiring are fine.

  4. 4

    Give it the game

    Plug USB back in. SimHub is free, runs on Windows, and does the talking to your game: simhubdash.com.

    Open Add/remove features at the bottom of SimHub’s left menu and switch on Custom serial devices. Then Add new device, and fill it in like this.

    Serial port
    The P1LOT one. There is only one, and it carries everything.
    Baud rate
    Anything. The board is USB and ignores it, so whatever SimHub offers is right.
    DTR
    Ticked. Without it the board never hears the port open.
    Update messages
    Set it to Use javascript and paste the template in. Not the other boxes on that screen.
    Update rate
    10 Hz is enough. 60 Hz is smoother if you have SimHub Pro.

    The template is the whole configuration. It is one file and it covers every game SimHub supports.

    p1lot-simhub.zipWindows
    2 files12 KB

    The JavaScript that turns what your game reports into what the instruments show. Paste it into SimHub once. It covers every game SimHub reads, and a signal a game does not report simply stays where it was. Everything worth changing sits at the top of the file with a line saying what it does, and README.txt beside it has the SimHub settings.

    DownloadZipped so your browser does not block it. Unzip, open the .js, copy all of it.

    The needles follow the game.

Step 3 is the one worth remembering

It runs with no computer attached, so whatever it does is the answer to “is it the board or is it my PC?”. That is the question behind almost every problem anybody has with this.

If it did not work

Nothing lights up at all
The 12 V supply is not in, or the dashboard is not seated. Step 3 tells you which.
The needles sweep on the button, but the game does nothing
The hardware is fine. It is SimHub. Check the port is the P1LOT one, DTR is ticked, and the template went into Update messages and not one of the other boxes. SimHub also disables a formula for 30 seconds after an error, and says why under the javascript box.
Some things move and others do not
Not every game feeds every signal. What each one can send is listed in the manual.
It worked, then stopped
The board holds the last picture for half a second, then runs its shutdown five seconds after telemetry stops. It wakes on the next line. Start the game again.

Still stuck, or want to go further than a game? Read the manual · Firmware updates