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SpaceX Dragon 2 pad abort test: 5bhW2h08zhY

Ah yes. The Big Bear meet in Apeldoorn. I still was in university at that time. Travelled there using public transportation because of me not having a driver's license. One of the other participants thought that me having no PC was not a good idea. Guy drove me back home to pick up my PC and brought me home after the event. That was a pretty awesome thing to do. Thanks for feeling me an old guy now.

Yes I glued mine because I like my simpit to be quite sturdy. Didn't have too much problems with making mistakes because I dry fitted all the parts before glueing. Hardest part was actually coming up with the right order to glue the pieces. I don't have any panel files for you as I bought them all made. Only thing I did was to add the switches. Still need some panels for the front dash myself.

I'll probably buy an extension. First I want to put it back together and get all the switches working though. Really looking forward to be able to start and fly without touching the keyboard.

Very long time no work done on my simpit project. First of all I moved houses so I was very busy with that. I planned on a seperate room for it, but after moving in it turned out the simpit didn't fit up the stairs. Had it sitting in the living room and planned on modularizing it after I was done with all the stuff I wanted to do on the house. Come spring I was all ready for chopping up the simpit until the doctor called. The wires on my ICD developed a fault and was picking up noise. Two times the noise was bad enough for the ICD to consider it to be my heart rhythm, thought I crashed and started to charge to give therapy. Both times noise went away in time to prevent me from being shocked. Hospital disabled the ICD and I had to walk around with a Zoll Life Vest for almost three months. Couldn't work on the simpit with that thing on my body. Had ICD and wire replacement surgery in June. After that you need to heal for six to eight weeks before you can fully use both arms again. Those passed this weekend so I went chop-chop right away: Simpit finally in modules. Pieces are sitting in the place where I've planned a diner table. Will probably carry them upstairs with some colleagues this week. Vacation in November so I'll finally continue the build :) Some random empty room in my house I guess this will be my sim room.

SpaceX Dragon V2 unveiled and it's a beauty: Webcast Recording: -DYQmvfThnA Pictures: http://www.spacex.com/gallery/dragon-v2 Article with some details and more photos: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/05/spacex-shows-off-dragon-v2-its-brand-new-manned-space-capsule/

Falcon Niner first free flight test: 0UjWqQPWmsY In other exciting news: The splash down test during yesterday's launch was a success!

First footage of T-50 at MAKS 2013: UOnPtDY3cEA

Yes. You want to separate platform movement from head movement. In a good setup not every movement made by the platform corresponds with a movement of you FOV. For example in a racing simulator when you slam on the brakes you can tilt the platform forward to give a sensation of deceleration. In this case the FOV shouldn't move with the platform.

The 270 degree FOV is what I estimate you need to allow for full eye deflection and still not see the edges of the display. If you're doing a flight or race simulator with the Rift I think a motion platform is absolutely necessary. A lot of people having played the racing demo with the Rift are complaining about motion sickness. As far as I understand motion sickness is caused by your visual senses and your inner ear disagreeing about how you're moving. In the case of the Rift your visual senses say you're moving/accelerating but your inner ear says not. A motion platform would allow your inner ear to experience these cues, restoring the immersion. There have been VR helmets in the past and it teaches us good VR is really hard.

I'm getting confused here. Are you guys talking about the motion platform not being able to create fast enough movement or about the platform not reporting it's position fast enough? If it's the latter I don't see a real problem. If the Rift becomes a success I count on all kinds of peripherals being sold with the Rift in mind. I'm quite sceptical about the Rift though. I do think the technology is ready to build a great VR helmet but I can't imagine that playing an FPS with the Rift and using a keyboard to move about will ever feel natural. The thing is that the better the Rift gets the easier it gets to break immersion. Imagine in 15 years time using a 8k, 120Hz and 270 degrees FOV Rift. Putting the thing on your head will feel like really being there, but if the rest isn't perfect your body will tell you something is wrong. I fear that the Rift will feel awesome at first to be followed by a deep plunge into the uncanny valley. Question is: Can the Rift survive the valley?

First thing that pops up in my mind to compensate for the platform movement is to have it communicate it's movement to the Rift API so it can subtract that from what the Rift sensors are seeing.

I think the Rift could actually be the perfect supplement for having a real cockpit. The way I imagine this to work is to build a cockpit that has every switch placed with mm accuracy. On top of this is mm accurate full body tracking. The idea is to have your physical body merge with your virtual body in DCS. This would allow you to merge the physical feedback your body gives with the visual feedback the Rift gives you. When you touch a physical switch you also touch the same switch in DCS. I guess all depends on the Rift becoming popular enough to allow them to bring out a new generation every 12-24 months like what happened with the GPU. Every generation would bring an improvement in resolution, refresh rate, FOV and tracking. One thing I'm a certain of: In 10 to 15 years computers will be powerful enough to do it a level where you hardly can distinguish reality from home simulation.

For all the switches, pots and rotary encoders ? I've got a bunch of Bodnar boards.

Worked on the pit again this afternoon. Copied the work I did on Saturday on the right console to the left console. Ran out of ON-OFF switches though. I'll run past the electronics store to get more parts sometime this week. Pilots view of the left console. Overview of the current state of the pit. I think it's actually starting to look somewhat like a pit. There are some gaps here and there because I only have access to handtools and there's nobody around to help me holding stuff. Thanks to several forum members selling panels it's becoming quite functional though. I think I'm going to be happy with the results because of them.

Just started a two week vacation so some time for more inept tinkering with my pit ;) Today I worked on the right console. Installed the panels from linden's last panel run. Added the big toggle switches and painted the console itself. A pilots view of the right console. Next week I'll do the same for the left console, although I'm still missing one VHF radio as I failed to realize I need two of them while ordering. I also plan on getting some of the smaller switches, push buttons, pots and rotary encoders. After that I want to work on the front console. Need to get a gear and AHCP panel and some more Simmeters stuff for that. Longer term goal for this year: Move to a nicer place to live and get the pit in a flyable state in my fall vacation.

I agree with Flim and Gadroc that you shouldn't sell your stuff but finish the pit some day. The A-10C is too cool not to do so. However if you still decide to sell the panels I would like to have one VHF panel, because while ordering during your last panel run I forgot about the fact that I need two of them. I can fully understand though if you decide to sell a complete set to someone who has no panels at all.

I thought about that and it's actually one of the reasons I placed all the other instruments in front of the panel. With the landing gear panel I think both options aren't optimal, so I guess I'll have to compromise. My pit is a bit of a frankenpit anyway so I guess I can live with that within reasonable limits. How far back would the gauge be when mounted behind the panel ?

The screws in the front don't look too bad to me. Biggest drawback actually with mounting the gauge in front is that the sides are ugly and need a bezel. Thinking about it a bezel around a single gauge won't look too great so it's better to mount the gauge behind the panel. That has one drawback for me though. I would need to line up the gauge, drill the four holes and prevent chipping at the same time. That may be tricky to do with just a handdrill. I guess my question is: How much trouble would it be for you to reprogram the CNC and add the four M4 holes for me like this: http://wiki.simmeters.com/images/2/2c/Layout_60_mm_back.png

Looks great would like to have one package 2 without the gauge. I'm already using a bunch of Simmeters instruments and for ease of control I really prefer to combine your panel with their flap gauge: http://www.simmeters.com/mechanical-and-systems-indicators/127-flap-indicator.html I need to know for sure that it fits though: http://wiki.simmeters.com/index.php/USB_Gauges At the moment I'm using front mounting for all the other instruments.

Mine arrived today as well :)

Already have an engine cluster from Simmeters and I'm quite happy with it. Would really love to have mechanical ADI and HSI as well. So yes, I'm very interested.

Does this mean orders are closed ? I was kinda expecting you to finish prototyping and open a topic in "For Sale" when you were ready for taking orders. If still possible I would like a fully assembled set please.

You're correct that Simmeters instruments won't work out off the box with Helios. Both depend on export.lua, so you somehow need to merge them. I need Helios too for switch programming and to drive the Phidget LED boards. Haven't really looked into it, but I'm quite determined to get it to work. I already got a promise from Simmeters they'll help me getting this to work, so I'll hold them to that.

Decided to honor Gadroc's request and made a short clip of the engine instruments running. Had a problem when I connected all devices at the same time. Devices started to act like a pinball machine with them connecting and disconnecting like crazy. Had this problem before with the TM Warthog. When it disconnects all the devices that are on them same USB hub go with it. I'll have to look into what causes this problem. Because of this problem I'm using just one hub so only the instruments for the engines themselves are connected. sPuah4LLD4Y