bnepethomas

nice - I hadn't thought of the laser

Been banging away at the Ardunio and LUA code for the Compass and Clock, one little learning, unless you really really want to emulate a wet compass don't use that as a source for aircraft heading. Was sitting there scratching my head as to why things seemed to be sticky and jumping around whilst altering the course of the aircraft. Finally zoomed back to watch the Wet Compass only to find that it does stick and jump around in DCS. I love the attention that DCS have put into this Sim, but it can sure trip you up when you least expect it!

that is truly amazing work, especially when hand made. I can't cut a straight edge to save myself. Well done cheers Peter

Cold comfort I know, but if you are in the market for a Laser do have the budget I can recommend these guys for Lasers - this is the one I scored. http://fslaser.com/products/lasers/hobby-lasers/newhobby Cheers Peter

nice work, its a big undertaking, and seeing it come together is awesome.

It did my head in until I worked out it was a USB limitation, and yeap siree I using powered USB hubs. Had to install a second USB card in the PCI slot to fully operational. On addressing, with the Ethershields, yes you could look at multicast or broadcast, I'm planning to run with fixed addresses, that will enable me to throw data at the right IO (more O than I) card, and reduce the amount of error handing to deal with. I must admit I haven't followed all the posts in the thread, so these points could have already been discussed, but here's some learnings I'm applying after building a few pits. 1: Open Source Software and Hardware is a real good thing. It does mean you aren't stuck with a pit that you can't go forward with. My F16 was built around the Beta Innovations I/O infrastructure. Quality of both Hardware and S/W is very good, but when they shut their doors, development stops, which is a real bummer. If I can get the same component from different vendors I'll choose that over a card that only comes from one supplier. 2: Where possible on input side of things emulate a joystick. Its relatively easy to convert a joystick button press to a bunch of things, harder to do it the other way. This way you can more easily move between sims. It may be that you break he pit into zones so you have several controllers. 3: Dedicate Arduinos (or whatever you choose) to given functions. Hardware is relatively cheap, and compared to the fun found when troubleshooting 'last mile stuff' (like I2C), it really nice to not destroy existing working code for other instrument functions. I've got one Arduino supporting OLED displays, another one driving steppers, and yet another driving steppers that need a zero position sensing. A second benefit is if something goes wrong electrically, hopefully(!) you have a smaller damage domain. For reasons that still puzzle me, I had an I2C device do something completely funky to a card, fortunately it only impacted a single mux card and not the entire pit. Some random thoughts :) Cheers Peter

Something interesting is the Max number of USB devices, I hit the limit well below 30 devices, for an onboard controller. I hit when with a Simmeters gauges stack and a couple of Open Cockpits card. Had to install a second USB card to get to a happy place. I'm increasingly looking to using UDP as my output transport, whilst it does mean some address assignment and management, it does allow you to test stuff insituation from another computer if you so wish. It also is a little easier to debug, I did purchase some nice I2C troubleshooting tools/hardware, which definitely helps, but it still can be 'fun' to troubleshoot which something doesn't work as advertised. Don't get me wrong this is an awesome project, but I thought its worth sharing some pain that I've run into with stuff I least expected to cause me pain. Cheers Peter

Hi Pallace I've just used plain old monitors for the MFDs, it does chew up video card ports, but does the job nicely. I'm also currently doing the same for the CDU, but with Ian's discoveries on data exporting the approach to the CDU may change. Cheers Peter

Really nice work John Cheers Peter

Please be a module... Please be a module

Thanks for sharing the plans, I'm revisiting my CDU, and these plans will save hours. Cheers Peter

Hi John I'm thinking about revisiting my CDU and UFC, the approach you've already taken is where I'm landing as well. whereabouts did you score the lighted push buttons from? Cheers Peter

Thanks John That is a good trick, will aluminium tubing do the same sort of job, or does it really need to be brass? Cheers Peter

Thats a great tip, thanks for that John, I need to lock in the needles for the env panel and the AOA, so I'll give it a go. Cheers Peter

:) thanks for the pointers - this gives more of an. Understanding do Plan B. Cheers Peter

Hi OverPro I managed to loose myself in the wonderful world of Linux makefiles, while looking for the step that I missed after making the first binaries I found this on the AMTEL site: /* Atmel Studio 6.2 sp1 (build 1502) Installer – with .NET Atmel Studio 6.2 sp1 (build 1502) Installer – with .NET (721 MB, updated October 2014) This installer contains Atmel Studio 6.2 service pack 1 with Atmel Software Framework 3.19 and Atmel Toolchain. This installer also contains MS Visual Studio Shell and .NET 4.0. Select this installer if you need to install Atmel Studio on a computer not connected to the internet. /* Could I use this to compile the firmware or is GCC under linux needed? I'll apologise if its a numpty question, I've been spoilt with c# :) Update - looks like I may have approached this the wrong way - is downloading the 8 bit tool chain from here the best way to get the right compiler loaded? http://www.atmel.com/tools/ATMELAVRTOOLCHAINFORLINUX.aspx Cheers Peter

Thanks for the offer Overpro, I'll build a Ubuntu VM up. Cheers Peter

HI OverPro Would it be a huge ask to get you to compile the USB firmware so the Joystick presents some different names? Reason behind the ask it I'm thinking I'm going to need at least two of them in a pit, especially now the rotarys are working. If I rightly remember it presents itself in windows as CVP, could you generate two new sets of firmware where one presents itself as CVP-1, and the other as CVP-2, or something like that so its easier to identify which board I'm working on. Thanks Peter

Sorry - I missed the second question, yes I do laser directly from Visio. The laser came from Full Spectrum Laser, initially Levinsky and myself got a cheaper model which did the job, but occasionally did random things in wrong places, especially when raster engraving which was hugely frustrating as that is the last step in making the panel. Last summer during a hot panel building day, it looks like we may have exceeded the Laser power supplies duty cycle, which meant the laser couldn't complete vector cutting a panel. So while a new PSU was being sourced I went out and grabbed this model: http://fslaser.com/products/lasers/hobby-lasers/newhobby The frame is assembled in the USA, and is a bunch better built than the first entry level laser we'd purchased (which I don't think they sell any more). what really makes the laser hum is the software driver. Its basically a windows printer driver and it works an absolute treat. So you are able to vector cut, and raster directly from Visio. Cheers Peter

:) have to admit while testing the assembled compass I did spent a bit of time watching it roll backwards and forwards (wanted to make sure the darn glue didn't flow down the shaft from the rose and gum the motor up). The gearing dwn does slow the maximum turn rate of the compass, but it also makes it very smooth. But then it was onto the clock :) The thing I really like about what the DCS team have done with the A10 is export just about everything, its very cool watching all of the gauges bounce around and magnetic switches automatically throw off when shutting the aircraft done, now just need to get to head out of the pit and learn to avoid the bad things thrown at the A10 from the ground :) cheers Peter

:) Thanks John - and yes I'm planning to sync it to the sim, one of the nice little touches that really completes the sim. re the LED clock - never say never, the analog clock was something I've always wanted to do since starting the f16 SIM, now thats done, I'm also tempted to give the led clock a go. Found a couple of places that so small runs of PCBs and don't charge a lot for shipping, so its almost worth the giggle. Re the compass, I'll update the Visio I've posted up to googlecode, it will have all the panels I've built (including a couple of random ones from the Jet Ranger), it will be as wildly inaccurate as all my panels but could help anyone interested in building things like the compass. On the loss of torque, I'm really not sure, was a little bummed when I reassembled them, they turn in the right direction, but the slightest obstacle has them reversing direction. I tried it twice, then decided that I busted enough things for the day and moved on as I had the VID60's floating around. Turns out that that was a good thing as the zero position sensor with the vid60s is very very accurate and repeatable. I'm feeding it into one of the A/D ports on the Ardunio, and there is an unmistakable zero point, something that would have been have to do with my own mechanical assembly. I think the only thing worth noting is the zero position is a step or two different based on the direction you are turning, its very consistent but different if you know what I mean :) I've found the VID60 draws very little current, I don't think I've hit 40mA, but haven't been closely measuring it. It spent a bit of time scratching my heat on our to reduce the weight of the rose to reduce the workload of the motor. Its now quite light, even when compare to real automotive needles. Sadly the modified Vid29s still wouldn't touch it, but again having the zero position sensor built into the VID60 is a good thing. cheers Peter

For the VID29 and VID28 OverPro originally came up with the answer which is basically step the needles the equivalent of a full turn backwards. These little motors don't have a lot of torque so that approach does work. Been stewing on options going forward, one thing which is a little bit of a challenge is mounting the needle exactly in the zero position, which is a little harder than it looks. I also was struggling with how to deal with the right hand side needle on the fuel gauge given its zero position is fully clockwise. Initially had just reversed logic in code, but then had an aha moment, simply changed the wiring in the connector to the motor, so the code is now exactly the same, and when I reduce the value in code the needle turns clockwise.. QED :) For the remaining gauges have another plan. 1: When the flight ends, as part of the LUA end of flight script is send the needles to home position (Clock to noon, and compass to North, G force to 0, VSI to 0 etc etc). That way when power is removed the needles point to something sensible. When the sim starts again I assume they in the right position. This worked for me with the Simmeters gauges, so I know its sound. 2: The bit I haven't yet done is to mount the needles beyond the zero position and then store position in the Arduino EPROM, so if there is uncommanded exit from DCS (read crash), then I can still send a force all needles to a hard zero point in software and then do a few incremental steps to get to the exact zero position if needed. 3: The other thing I've done is simplify the gauge lighting but lighting from the side of the gauge as opposed to backlight (the stepper motor gets in the way). The down side is the side-lighting does flow over to the clear 'glass' in front of the gauge. Because of that I've removed the 'glass' to stop light flooding onto it. It also means if the needle slips of its zero position I can easily reposition it ;), although I've now successfully glued a needle to the shat without it completely gluing the entire stepper in one place, always slightly scary after investing a few hours making the gauge. Bit of a ramble, so I hope it helps. Still learning. Cheers Peter

Finished the assembly of the clock and AOA indicator. Given this pit originally was going to be a bit of a 'quick and dirty', didn't allocate space for these, so had to mount them on the top left of the main panel. The blank spot at the bottom of the clock is actually the seconds display, couldn't easily find a stepper assembly that supports hours, minutes and seconds.

Thanks for the review, I was tossing up whether to get a kit to trial, definitely sounds like its worth waiting a bit longer. Cheers Peter

Been working on my nemesis, a functional compass and clock. Ever since building the viper I've wanted to build an 'analog' compass and clock that is synched to the sim, pretty close to ticking that off the bucket list (yeap tragic I know :)) While using OverPro's stepper project, I tried removing the stops from the Vid 29 steppers, however after open heart surgery, the steppers lost a lot of torque. While looking for options found these bad boys, Vid60 360 degree with zero detection. http://www.vid.wellgain.com/product.aspx?sortid=31 So off to the local OfficeWorks to get the compass rose printed as a photo (so it will last a little longer), only thing it printed it a little larger than I hoped, so things get tight! First discovery was it doesn't use the same chip to drive it as the VID 29s, but it can driven directly from the Arduino\ So off to Visio, and then the laser cutter, a bit of assembly Installation of the compass rose With backlighting on: And backlighting off