rocketeer

There is a DCS flight data wrapper for black shark and FC2 from simmeters. http://www.simmeters.com/?cat=19

Alex, your excellent gave me an idea. Instead of using sandpaper on a curved metal, I used a normal flat metal file and filed a V groove from the center of a flat piece of acrylic. It worked! Now I have a shallow V groove and the exact dimension of a so-called rocker, almost exactly as the one in the picture! Now I just have to work on the support bracket for it to rock sideways and then place two tactile switches on each end.

That'd be a good idea. But I am not sure which is which. Maybe those with big knobs and a collar at the bottom are the locking type. Most should be standard. Some may be momentary but I have no clue which. For those who knows, care to tell us?

Hey obotnapalm thanks for pointing out these. You may be right on all accounts. For the one in the Comp panel, I may have mistaken DG to be part of the toggle at the botton and as part of the one at the top.

Again these are based on my research and some guess work. Please shout if you spot some mistake. :smilewink:

I came across this idea by someone in viperpits.org, giving a color code to each type of switch, eg. pot, encoder, rotary, toggle, rocker etc. Of course he did it for the F-16 panels. So I did one for the A-10C. This is to share with you guys, and also to see if I got every one of them right, which I doubt. For those who are more familiar with the A-10C than me, please point out my mistakes. Once all mistakes corrected, I'd publish one in PDF for everyone's reference. This should come in handy when determining what kind the switches to connect to the I/O cards. Legend

I envy you guys with home CNC. My cheapo solution is to manually saw and drill holes on acrylic and print out on photo paper.

Maybe I don't need to bend anything. Just get a big enough piece of acrylic and saw it diagonally for the V shape!

Hey that's a brillant idea. Sometimes the simplest idea is the best idea. We've been killing ourselves trying to find a 3 way momentary rocker with the perfect actuator size. This solution is so simple and we can make our own desired actuator size. the only problem is I don't have a mill or know how to use one. Maybe use a heat gun and bend it? I've that done to acrylic sheets. maybe this one is too thick to be bent. There must be an easy way to make this slightly bent piece of thick acrylic. Or start with some other material, bend it then fabriate it in acrylic resin.

the most ideal solution is to find an actuator size around 20x8mm that is not panel mount but PCB. This type has a tiny body.

Great find again Alex. The top of the button itself looks like around 20x7mm which is perfect. the size of the body itself is ok. It'd be a bit tight below the panel but I think we can squeeze it in if we shave off the protruding sides and make it flush with the body. Then it won't eat into the tight space of the CDU below deck. I intend to just let the top protrude above the panel by 2mm. I see Light Country. Now that is not the maker right?

Well it won't make sense to buy from abroad for you when China is the cheapest place to get things.

Yes the knobs are nice but expensive at $12.95 compared to what I got for $4 and fabricate six from there. But I guess not everyone bothers to do fabrication and just buys finished products. If you need a lot of knobs buying at this price though will be very costly.

Thanks for the info about tactile swithes. I don't have the luxury of walking up to a shop with tactile switches for feel and touch. Most retail shops here don't carry them. I'd have to drive pretty far to one. You are right the rockers are kinda fat. They'd be very close to the other buttons with the thick body. May have to saw off the protruding sides if it gets to crowded below deck. Great that you found momentary ones. For the rotary switches, usally the same manufacturer makes both 30 and 45 degree types. They are pretty common. And you don't have to guess the degrees. The part numbers in the catalog will say that. Unless you walk into a shop where they sell a bunch of used ones in an open box without packaging then that'd be tricky. Instead of going through the trouble to get the 45 degree, you probably can get it online easily at those chinese websites. They should have it. There are no markings on the switch itself that says explicitly if it's 30 or 45 degree type. But you can tell in two ways. The 30 degree switch has 10 holes in the inner circle at the top that will be covered by a ring with a leg that will be inserted into one of the holes. The 45 degree switch has 6 holes. Another way to tell is if you can try them physically, the 30 degree switch can be turned 11 times. Add one (the initial position) and you have 12 positions, which makes up 360 degress. For the 45 degrees switch you can turn 7 times. Plus one makes 8 turns of 45 degrees again making a full 360 degrees. Just find a switch that is made for 45 degrees instead of going through so much trouble to mod it since it should be common. The 90 degree switch is rare though. I think we'd need one and the site I know that carries it is usually out of stock. Plus I have several spare 45 degree switches. I'm thinking of opening it up, see if I need to cut something or add something to the stops inside to make it skip one stop thus jumping to 90 degree in one turn. Haven't tried that yet. Just an idea for now.

Alex, how do you choose tactile switches besides it's dimension? I looked at catalogs and was overwhelmed by the choices.

Does it come with the option of PC mount? If we use tactile switches for the round and square buttons like push buttons, then we'd need a perf board or pcb. Then might as well make the whole thing all PC type of legs if possible, in case we we go the pcb route. But this is not a must. The rockers can be an exception.

hey this one looks perfect. Good job! 20 x 8 is very close and it's 3 way. As for the cutoff dimension, it doesn't matter if we bury the whole thing beneath the panel and just let the rocker itself protrude out with 1mm clearance, just as in the CDU picture.

I'm not worried that it's black. I can fabricate the top in clear resin. I think it's easier to find something latched but closer to our 20x9 dimension, and modify it to momentary by putting some spring to the sides, then to find something of a different dimension but momentary, coz if it's too big it won't fit into the already crowded CDU space. For a start 3 way type is a must.

Maybe we can use 3D printing if it's difficult to sculp a perfect replica of this knob by hand, provided someone can do a decent 3D rendering in the first place. If sculpting by hand, I think clay would be too soft to work on, probably wood is better, and some dremel tool or routing table stuff. Maybe I'd give wood a try.

Alex, thanks for offering to try out modifying latched rockers to momentary. I suppose it's a 3 way switch in the CDU, resting in neutral position and go either way temporarily when pressed. Personally I've never come across a momentary rocker. It seems so rare.

Wags just confirmed that the rockers in the CDU are momentary just as I guessed. That's great! Now the challenge is to find momentary rockers of that dimension, or somehow make latched rockers into momentary ones. I haven't tried that. Has anyone?

I want to trade places with you!

Still hoping for someone to confirm if the rocker switch in the CDU is latched or momentary type.

You can buy instrument gauges that look like the real thing, from sim kits or flight illusion etc. and then connect to the PC via I/O solutions like Open Cockpits. You don't need to buy real aircraft instruments. As for PM, sure, anyone who has PMed me for the pictures I've sent to them. We are here to share info and help each other.