Warhog

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned CamBam for CNC. I use AutoCAD to design my panels and then import them into CamBam as a dxf file. CamBam lets me tweek my drawing if need be but after that i can use it to profile, pocket or engrave whatever i need to in the drawing and then it makes the G-code. That gets sent to MachIII and consequently my mill where the panels are cut/engraved. I have used this for 10 years and it works very well. CamBam can be purchased for $150 but it also has 40 uses before you need to buy it. So far I have not needed to purchase it but I do plan on it as it works so well for me. MachIII is the only CNC that I would use. Nothing else comes close to it and it's only $200 I think. I would suggest that compared to laser my panels would be as good as but maybe not as easy to make compared to laser cutters. But quality wise, the engraving is superb and consistent. You also need either a vacume table or another means of holding your work. I have experimented with double sided tape and the 3m poster tape (mega expensive) works best. I use .125" dia profile cutters 30 degree, .020" and the same in an engraving cutter except .010 for finer detail. I also use proper engraving plastic .060 thick for all my panel faces and .125 diameter carbide end mills for cutting my lexan light and back plates. You need a slow spindle speed for the lexan or acrylic otherwise it will melt around the bit. Trial and error will be necessary. Once you have your speed and feeds rates established for your various material types you are all set to rock and roll. Engraving plastic has a thin black top layer and a milky white base layer. When using engraving plastic, once the front is engraved I flip it over and pocket out everywhere there is engraving. I pocket .030" deep for .060" plastic. That way the thickness of plastic where engraving is located is no more then .020" thick...just enough to let green LEDs beautifully highlight the engraving. The other parts of the panel are too thick to let any light through. It really looks amazing at night. Good luck. It's a lot fun making panels. If have any questions, feel free. I would be happy to help if I can.

If you would like to use a very easy way to make this all work without having to go into your monitor file, use EMC. Easy Monitor Configurator is a great little program that lets you drag, stretch and/or just drop things into place. It also handles the centering of the GUI which is what you are looking for. Search ED Forums for it. Made by "Icemaker" I believe. BTW, either of you fly MP or looking for a squadron to join?

Back in January 20, 2011, TigersharkBAS wrote a sticky on panel building. and I would like to thank him so much for his effort. His post caused a huge upsurge in cockpit building. He provided the "How To" information at a basic level that allowed novices, like myself, to build something that, at the time, seemed totally impossible or cost prohibitive to build. Tigershark also explained panel building in terms we novices could not only understand but it allowed us to actually begin building our own panels and hence our own simple cockpits. Here is such an example. I started flying with only a mouse, keyboard and a G13 Game Pad. Anything beyond that was WAY over my head. This is what his thread allowed me to accomplish. Which grew into this: And that was the beginning of a new relationship with DCS and my A10. I am so grateful for his help. But now another hurtle is before me and I expect a good number of others who are building panels. I am referring to the display portion of panel building. Yes there are plenty of posts in this forum about displays, types, exports of data, Arduino boards etc. But it is either extremely fragmented or beyond my present abilities to extrapolate a means of adding a display. What we desperately need is a basic "How To" add a display to my Tacan panel... my radio panel... my CMSP... (you get the idea) in such terms that would allow a novice to successfully complete a CDU or ILS panel. I would like to invite the masters of cockpit building to create a sticky in this forum on Adding Displays to the Tacan, ILS, VHF/UHF Radio's, the CDU panel etc. It would allow so many of us noobies to take our simple builds to the next level which at the moment appears unachievable. Thank you all for taking the time to read this plea for help. I sincerely hope a few of our very talented individuals will share their expertise in such a way that will help us novices reach a new level of immersion. :)

I think you will find that it will be a complete waste of time and resources. I speak from experience as I have a 55" Toshiba rear projection. The quality of the image is poor and the resolution and dot pitch will cause the gauges/instruments to be very hard to read as was already pointed out by dispatchgeek. Its just not worth the effort from my perspective. I know what your reaction will be when you try it...:doh: Also as dispatchgeek mentioned, I too have a free rear projection TV if you want to haul it out of my basement.;) Sorry John, but they really aren't of any use for what you and I would expect for our cockpits.

Gadget... Curious if you fixed the performance issues you've been having. I sympathize as I too have had major issues with the latest versions of both Helios and DCS. My setup is very similar except I use an i5 processor. I use the LOZ profile unmodified. One problem I did fix was issues with several OSB switches in Helios getting stuck and not turning off. It appears that an antivirus program may have caused this. I stopped running it when I fly and the problem, so far, has disappeared. The other thing I did was to use nvidia Inspector to help set my GTX780 settings. Performance did increase but it didn't solve my biggest problem. And that is the occassional latency issues in Helios that sometimes makes flying almost impossible. It's not always present in game but it when it does show up it's a game stopper and I don't know how to prevent or eliminate it. Unfortunately, it has been extremely difficult to get help. Sorry I can't provide much help but I will be monitoring this thread in hopes somebody with the knownledge needed to fix this will step up and assist. Best of luck.

But this IS a completely new install of DCS and Helios using all of the latest versions of everything on a brand new, clean, never been used before, PC.:unsure::unsure:

I've been using Helios for a year now and it has been great. I recently went with a dedicated PC for DCS as I was having conflicts on my previous machine which was running many other non related applications. This is my setup: i5-4670k 16GB ram Win7 64 GTX 770 2 monitors, one of which is a touch screen running the LOZ profile for the A10 2 hid panels with over 60 multi type switches, 2 Phidgets board for 110 LEDS and 6 pots in each panel for volume control on the radios and dimmers for the panel/console lights. Aero is on. Running DCS 1.2.7 So here's the problem. When I use my pots they start to go wild in the simulation. Panel lights flickering all over the place and won't simmer down. Then all of a sudden one of my OSB buttons (usually Left OSB 14) gets stuck. I cannot unstick it no matter what I do. I get a large message on both MFCD's "Left OSB Button Stuck" and since it covers 1/3 of the display I usually have to shut down at that point. I have had the pots act up before on my last PC but I changed the trigger from "return TriggerValue/65536" to "return TriggerValue/65535" and that seamed to work but this time it made no difference. I have also tried picking the cascading trigger box on each binding and that made no difference either. I have never had this stuck button issue before. I attribute it to the pots going wild and that Helios is not receiving a release on that OSB button. Unfortunately I know very little (read:NOTHING):( about manipulating code in Helios and as such would really like someone to help me find a solution to the problem. The alternative is to remove the pots from the equation assuming if they aren't there to go crazy then my OSB buttons won't get stuck. I do hate to loose this part of my cockpit though. Any assistance would be most appreciated.

:doh::doh::doh: Thank you for pointing that out airdog. I now have the screen pointing to the correct location. Sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees.

Yes, thank you.:) It didn't help at all.:( I am still scouring the internet and have come across some posts regarding the type of cable connections you may need to use. I don't know how relevant it is but I'm willing to try anything at this point. I have been using DVI and HDMI and I think I need to try using all HDMI. That means a DVI to HDMI adapter for my graphics card as it has only one HDMI, 2 DVI and one Display port. That is unless someone else has had this same issue and has a known fix. BTW, the monitor is a T252HL.

Nope. Been through everything I can find to tell the monitor to direct its command inputs to the screen I actually touch instead of the main screen. This is really frustrating. :( I am starting to think it can't be done with this monitor. I mean it is really stupid to direct command inputs to a different screen. How does that make any sense.:mad:

I didn't see anything in that setup that alters what my problem is. Even when I did the calibration setting it started on the OTHER monitor. The setup allows you to choose what monitor you want to set up and I couldn't even select the Touchscreen monitor.

I just purchased an Acer 23" Touchscreen monitor for my cockpit but its not reacting properly. I have a JVC projector and a 10' screen as my main display. I added the touchscreen so I could have Helios display the cockpit and I could access all of the switches. Problem is...when I touch the Acer Touchscreen the reaction to that touch shows up on the main screen and nowhere else. As a result none of the Helios switches are accessible by touch, only by mouse. :( The only way the touchscreen works the way it should is when IT IS the main screen. But if it has to be the main screen then I can't use it for Helios as that's where DCS has to start. I see touchscreens used like I want to use it so there must be something I am not aware of. Please advise if you know how to resolve this. I run a GTX 780, WIN 7 64 Pro and my display is "extended" to 3840 x 1080.

I just put in a GTX780 card and with one monitor and max settings I'm getting 85 fps without doing any tweaking yet.:) I expect your fps drop will still give you excellent performance. I am adding 2 additional monitors as well. Please post your results so we can use it to compare.

When you clear your desk of all loose items and equipment in preparation for an emergency landing.:pilotfly:

Thank you. That did the trick. Everything is now working 100%.:)

I guess you haven't installed 1.2.7 yet because if you did you would see that the names of the main directory are DIFFERENT than the 1.2.6 install. And it doesn't matter where it's installed because the point is ...will Helios allow itself to be directed to 2 separate locations of DCS. I would really appreciate productive reply's to my query. Thanks

I am running Helios with DCS 1.2.6. I would like to set up Helios to work with 1.2.7 which is in a different folder on a different drive. If I tell Helios where to look for the DCS 1.2.7 folder, will it stop working with 1.2.6? Also does anyone know if the EMC program is going to be reconfigured to point to the new DCS 1.2.7 when one wants to setup new exports since the folder names are now different from the old DCS 1.2.6 install. Thanks.

1.2.7 Update Will there be a new version that will work with ED's release of 1.2.7 Open Beta?

This is a very basic description of what to do to run LEDS. First get Helios set up. You need Helios to intercept, so to speak, the command from DCS to turn on an LED. Helios then sends a command to a Phidgets64 board (go to their web site to find out more) which in turn will illuminate an LED that you have attached to it. http://www.robotshop.com/ca/en/phidgetled-64-advanced-led-controller-board.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=GoogleCanada I have a caution panel for example which has a crap load of LEDs and each LED is attached to my Phidgets64 board. Helios runs the Phidgets board when my A10 is started and whenever a LED on the Caution Panel is turned on or off in DCS, Helios turns on or off the same LED on my Caution Panel. Its rather easy to set up but expensive to implement. $125.00 for the board, a bunch of LEDs = ??$$ and whatever you plan on displaying them in ie Caution Panel. BTW, the RWR isn't LED driven. Its a video display so you need another monitor to display it. Hope that gives you a general understanding of the basic setup. Read all of the "make you own Panels" type of posts and it will give you more information as it sounds like your starting to think of building a cockpit of sorts. A lot of people get disillusioned when they see what a cockpit, or a simpit can cost. I spent easily $1000.00 on my setup and I only have 10 panels out of I don't know how many the A10 has altogether. Add up the cost of switches, potentiometers, rotary switches, several boards to run it all, engraved panels, tons of LEDs and enclosures for all of it and the price rises dramatically. This is a labour of love and dedication so if money is at all an issue then its time to do a cost estimate of what you want to accomplish right at the beginning so you know what you are in for... a penny or a pound?

Glenn, what you need to do is get the correct material to engrave on. Check the internet for engraving plastic and see whats close to you. There are several plastics that are matt black and have a milky white core. You engrave and cut thru the black (which no light gets through BTW) and this gives you nice white lettering when the lights are on. You mount this on 2 sheets of clear plexiglass sheet cut exactly the same as the panel. One sheet (the middle one) acts as a spacer and the back sheet is what the switches are mounted on. That's it. Then use some super bright LED strips behind this and you now have a lighted panel. When you first look at the panel it won't seam all that bright. But turn the lights of with only your monitor on and all of a sudden its comes to life. What you don't realize is that you only need panel lighting when its dark. With the lights out it takes very little back light to light up your panels. Any more and it becomes annoying and distracting. Like driving home on a dark road and somebody turns on the dome light and it almost blinds you. Same thing. You don't need very much light to see these panels at night. So that's my storey and I'm stickin to it.:thumbup: BTW, these are some of my panels and with the lights out it's perfect. Any brighter and it would be blinding at night.

How do you adjust the HUD field of view? I assumed the only correction you had for rockets was the elevation knob which you had to set each time you changed from guns to rockets and vise versa...unless that's what you mean by adjusting field of view.:huh: If not, could you elaborate on how you set up for each weapon.

I too would like to have the HUD with a much higher resolution of lettering and line work. If you have seen the HUD in BMS Falcon, it is crisp, clear, ultra fine and super easy to read regardless of size. Some talented programmer out there must be able to tweak this graphic to a higher standard. You would have my undying gratitude.:thumbup:

The backlighting started out as not so good but it's fine now. I had to remove a bit of material on the backside of each panel where ever there was lettering on the front side. It was too thick for the LED's to shine through so I just did a mirror image of each panel and used that to create pockets of removal and I think all I did was remove .025" worth of material and "voila" excellent backlighting. I use three LED strips inside each panel box and that was enough light to have everything shine through without it being too bright when the room lights are off. I must say it is really cool to do a night mission with the room black and only the monitor and the panel lights on. The sense of emersion is fabulous. As I didn't have enough room to build a full size cockpit (I wish:() I had to resort to a more flexible type of operation so this is what I ended up with: They're a little more portable so I can change my setup easily. I'm also planning another panel for my radios and ILS and TACAN. I find it a real pain to make quick changes to frequencies etc. on the fly (pun:music_whistling:) in the middle of combat or some other issue that requires your full attention. BTW, the cost of material for both of these boxes was surprising. 50 odd switches $150 70 LEDs $100 LED strip lights $50 4 interface boards $450 11 potentiometers $25 10 push buttons $20 two rotary switches $25 Two panel boxes $180 Misc hardware $??? That's $1,000. My time own time for design, fabrication, wiring, testing...more testing etc. and if I had to purchase each panel as well... the cost would be prohibitively expensive. Good thing I REALLY like my A10.:lol: As I said before... don't get scared off but rather plan for what you really need and then it will be money well spent.

Its not so much the price of the machine as it's all of the other things you haven't considered. You need to buy software to draw up the panels and you have to learn how to use it. Then you have to buy software to create your G-coding for the CNC machine to act on and of course then you have to learn how to use it. Then there's the tooling. My first good machine cost me $2000.00. Then I spent $6000.00 just on tooling. You won't need as much as I did as I also do a lot of metal work but good end mills and engraving cutters aren't cheap. And of course you will break a lot at the beginning as you don't know what your doing. And finally (not really:P) you need the material to make the panels. I'm not trying to discourage you but rather give you some insight into all the other odds and ends to make this idea work. I spent a year bringing myself up to speed on doing CNC work and I already had 20 years using AutoCAD so I wasn't a complete newbie. A laser engraver might have a much shorter learning curve. Although I have no experience with using them I look at them being much the same as a laser printer in that you don't need as complicated a setup to print your image so to speak. You might want to spend some time on CNCZone. Its a forum for CNC (obviously) and they can provide assistance if you choose to go this route. BTW, the quality you can get with a CNC machine is perfectly fine. Yes a laser is better for different reasons and you probably couldn't tell the difference from 18" away as you can see from my panels. Best of luck with your endeavour.

After three months of running my Warthog without incident I finally encountered lubrication issues from all the use this thing has received. It started to stick on me all the time even to the point where I pulled the stick all the way back and it just stayed there.:shocking: So after going through all the threads about disassembly and grease types I finally went out and bought some plastic friendly grease and after an hour of farting around I finally got it back together and... it was still awful. Even with loads of grease. I tried another grease and same thing. The stickshin was getting even more pronounced. :angry: I resigned myself to ordering some of that Molycote stuff and wait a week for it but who can go a week without flying. :sad_2: So I tried one more time and this time I used something I had left over from my RC tank days...CERAMIC Grease. This is "apparently" specially formulated for plastic to cut sticking by 50% so I gave it a try. I can't say WOW loud enough:clap_2:. It is so smooth I almost had an accident in my pants. Would you like to know what it is??? Tamiaya Ceramic Grease. Yes, the same people who make plastic model kits. All hobby stores carry Tamiya products so it will be really easy to find. I just wanted to pass this alone in hopes that others won't have to go through the same crap as I did to get my stick back to normal. BTW, you don't need to use gobs of it either. Just a nice film over the ball joints, o-ring and those four posts.