Buttons, Buttons ALL THE BUTTONS - Control Panel 1 Review 

I applaud your ability to keep cool when finding a mystery Virpil box on the doorstep. If it had been me it would have gone more like: "Squeee!" and I'd have done the snoopy happy dance

How funny, I'm getting my Virpil controller and throttle today! Thank you for this review!

I've added as my Aux Panel. Anything none combat related i.e. Landing gear, cargo scoop, ect. frees up the throttle for pip managment and heat sink, ECM ect.

Love the covered emergency switches, You could map them to cargo dump, shutdown epair or self destruct in Elite.

Me :Ohh nice i need it.. Me *see the price* Me*snort coffee out my nose* Me* keep playing Elite with shortcut on my half dead keyboard*

I have virpil stuff and I would love to see the lights change when they're activated either on/off or different colors.

Hopefully one day ill be able to get back to work if this dumb covid ever ends so I can get some of these fancy toys. Have about two months of savings left before I am screwed. The joys of working for a cruise line when nobody can travel..

I made my own with an Arduino Leonardo and a bunch of switches. It's not as pretty as this but it gets the job done

$300 (shipping not included) is pretty pricey. They are all on backorder too.....

I think its absolutely awesome. But I do agree, having a similar one that was modular would be a definite step up.

Nice to see that in addition to the Virpil VPC Control Panel #1. Virpil have also sent you out, the pre-production new VPC MongoosT-50CM3 Throttle with the adjustable detent system for testing before the official January release. It makes sense since Virpil have now officially announced the CM3 Throttle that they would send out at no charge both the VPC Control Panel # 1 and a pre-production VPC MongoosT-50CM3 Throttle at the same time. So guessing you must be under some kind of NDA with Virpil, so you're unable to show, say or confirm. Hence the slight edited piece from 6:00 with the awkward positioning of your hand covering and hiding the adjustable Finger-Lift Detents from camera view. The newer tapered style of Encoder Dials (not seen on the CM2 Throttle) at the back gives it away. As your previous videos show you having the bigger footprint CM1 Throttle and you've never previously shown or done a review on the smaller footprint CM2 Throttle before. We will just have to wait and see, for you to be released from the Virpil NDA before we see a Review video on the new VPC MongoosT-50CM3 Throttle with the adjustable detent system using the CosmoSim Detents with ED.

This could also be very useful for flight simming too. My only issue is since I fly in VR I would have to memorize what each switch did, not such a bad thing as far as procedures go, but I would also have to “feel” my way through to the switch I want to use. I do like the idea of making it modular though. I would probably put all the lighted buttons together and would like more of the infinity dials for flight simming to assign to radio dials, nav aids, and autopilot controls.

as usual im late to the party... i' m thinking of getting 2 of the control panel #1 instead of 1 #1 and 1 #2, this because i also use my tablet with gameglass on it for some functions like landing gear. So i dont need that very long landing gear stick. Nice review dtea.

I have a set of MFDs but I would so utilise this panel as well. As you say, for more order based functions, or navigation... all I know is I'd enjoy working out the ultimate set up.

I really wish elite would allow us to map buttons to more things like reboot&repair, deploy fighter etc.

I know your video was about the Virpil controller,, but to me, as someone in construction in Canada,, I was more fascinated with your front door,, the double rebate on the door and jamb and where the weather stripping was located,, also the nice Hinges living in a colder climate, and with an ever increasing carbon tax, I am always looking for ways to save money on heating,, any feed back on those question would be so very welcome,, sorry to comment on an off topic ,, but it really intrigues me,, always looking for better and more energy efficient ideas

I think it makes more sense to get this if you have dual sticks. I agree that it's a bit overkill in the number of buttons together with a HOTAS setup.

Love the intro. :) Your wife (I assume) is the one filming when you go through the hallway to the door and then in a second scene films your reaction to the package? There are some places (close up shots) where the focus was a bit off, but overall, it was a good review!

Me: "That's a Virpil box!!! Aren't you excited!?" Him: 00:10

Big issue I bumped into, firmwear. To use the 32 button split the Throttle has to use older ver. In order to chain I had to update. This means messing with Vjoy and Gremlin. But if you run as USB you can use older firmwear version on throttle and just 32 buttons on the Aux panel. Something I hope Odessy fixes.

I have more than enough inputs with my Extreme3DPro + TWCS + G27 + Roccat + Keyboard + X7 mouse + TrackIR5. But I can see it being handy if I needed even more.

Always rom for more...

For that much price, I'd better do my own buttons with Mmjoy ... or even keyboard controller.

Why the hell would they make them stickers thats just dumb, instead of thin card that you can just drop in and hotswitch that gets held down by the cap anyway.

I'd have a hard time finding the right buttons while wearing VR.

Can the light intensity be bound to a toggle? Say you use a button for lights, can it be bright when they're on and dim when they're off?

Physical key button that you need to insert and rotate like in missile silos to unlock certain keys in case you activate them by mistake more ports to daisy chain devices having all of them connected to each other would ease cable menagment when setting up since i understand you use usb port to connect to pc and extra port to connect 1 extra device and if you want throtle stick button pad on left and right and pedals it adds up cables and usb inputs also longer connecton cables would be good so i can hide cables.

Can you setup the buttons to change color when pressed?

I was just playing with a thought of button panel for ED for few days now. This looks great, but i am a maker, and price point of 240$ for basically a box of buttons is something i am simply not willing to pay. I have just placed an order for parts i need to build my own custom control panel and i can tell u one thing: I could add to my order a 3d printer and still be under this price. Of course it is a ready, premium product and it's fine to get one, if someone want to, not everybody have to be a nerdy maker geek XD Still, u wanted to know our thoughts on the product... here u go.

Hi The fun stops after buying a saitek x52 hotas. It seems the hotas is not compatible with ED at least not when I play it with a Oculus Rift S. ED freezes and nothing works. To shut down the game I have to use the task manager on my gaming laptop, nothing else works. The cheap flight hotas for the ps4 works without any such problems but it is what it is a cheap one with not a lot of key binding possibilities. I wonder why people praise that bl..dy hotas from Logitech it is just frustrating and there is not a lot of help for this problem available except such ridiculous solutions like uninstall everything and so forth. Maybe you could talk about the problems with hotas like that in one of your tuts. Would be great. Keep up the great work you do I always enjoy what you're doing.

Maby say something about the price.. I think these virpil devices are very cool but you need deep pockets.

very sneaky trying to hide Dave, but I did see you already have the new throttle too

I love my hotas warthog, it comes with the stick the base and a dual throttle with a bunch of switches for around 600$ Virpil is great quality indeed but they gouge a lot from its customers. For when its not on backorder

That looks awesome

Can we get a keybind setup for ED using CM2-3 along side panel 1 and flight stick

Too bad the switches flip back and don’t stick in the up and down position, other then that this thing looks amazing. I do agree with your modular setup, would it even better. Price tag is a bit above my budget sadly. Then again, this thing looks like something you would put in a cockpit replica, and if you want to do it right, you shouldn’t skimp on it.

Very shiny. Niiiiiiice.

Alright - i gotta ask - as a proud owner of one of these panels, i can't seem to get those button covers off without fear of destroying something. how did you do it?!

Was that a cm2 throttle or was it really a cm3 and you were just hiding the indent lever

can the Square button's be programmed to change color when pressed?

As someone who started playing elite on an Xbox, I'm still getting used to having a keyboard to map controls to (I fly with an Xbox controller connected to my PC) Plus I started using game glass on my PC account. This looks like way overkill for me.

Alternatively, if the caps used e-ink that you could download a B/W pixmap, this would replace the transfers.

My Elite setup is X52 pro, Buttkicker 2 under the racing seat, Farming sim sidepanel, Rift S

I think the button boxes are pretty neat, but I already have more buttons than I can map with my Virpil throttle, Constellation Alpha and Gladiator-K. I see that you have a CM2 throttle. How does it compare with your older CM model? I have the V2 throttle with detents and the CM2 always struck me as a downgrade from mine. The new CM3 with its modular dentent system does look interesting though.

Can you directly program macros into it? i.e. not have to use Auto hotkeys or similar? and how much does it cost?

Very cool product, though not sure how useful the dials are in a space sim.

The Software MUST have a way to emulate keypress and macros, the stickers should be sold seperatly and there should be hats, to give each flip button a unique feeling.

I want to see more about it

In comparison, CH Products has programmable software for almost infinite keystrokes on 24 buttons without removing your hands off the HOTAS. This is what I use, however CH Products has the same products they designed more than 15 years ago. It seems they have found more profit designing joysticks for heavy machinery.

I need all the switch boards and button clusters

Would you also be reviewing the new throttle CM3 as soon as possible?

Can a VPC control panel - #1 be used with no other Virpil equipment

Overpriced got to new dimension.

A bit expensive for a button box

Virpl is nice and all but expensive (which is ok if the quality is commensurate) but mostly it takes a LOOOOONG time to get an order.

As A VR pilot, I don't see a use for it. If I had a larger multiscreen setup I could see this being awesome.

I see way too many buttons, and I don't know the price exchange for pounds to dollars. At the end of the day, in Elite dangerous, I see it all getting in the way, when you get into the ground game. I mean, if

if only they were available...

need a cheaper option

They have not paid for the review, but that is a £240+vat piece of equipment.

do they do surgical implants ? my dog wants me to turn his tail into a stick...