Warthog Lights Control

This Python module and command line tool control the lights on Thrustmaster's Warthog HOTAS throttle box.

Largely based on the reverse-engineering work done by mfranz

How to use

Once installed, this tool provides a Python module and a command-line tool, both named whlctl.

Command line tool

whlctl 0        # Turn off backlight
whlctl 5        # Turn backlight up to max brightness
whlctl 3 -l 1,5 # Turn lights 1 and 5 up to brightness 3/5
whlctl 1 -l 0,5 # Turn backlight and light 5 up to brightness 1/5

Omitting the -l flag will default to adjusting the backlight, and turn off all other lights.

Python API

import whlctl

whlctl.find_throttle()  # -> "/dev/hidrawN" or FileNotFoundError
whlctl.write_leds(backlight=True, leds=[True,True,True,True,True], brightness=5)
                        # -> None or FileNotFoundError (see find_throttle)

find_throttle()

Takes no argument and returns the HID node for the Thrustmaster Warthog throttle (044f:0404), or raises a FileNotFoundError if the device isn't found.
This function is cached.

write_leds(backlight: bool, leds: list[bool], brightness: int)

The leds list must contain 5 booleans which designate, in order, the five circular lights from top to bottom. True means the light is to be powered on at the given brightness, False means it should be powered off.
brightness is expressed between 0 and 5.
Returns nothing, implicitly calls find_throttle() and thus can fail with FileNotFoundError as above. It can also hit a permission error if the current user has no write permission to the device node.