Warhog

I think Chic has found an excellent solution now that I see what it looks like. The VR thing just won't work for me after spending several thousand dollars and three years building a 95% working replica of the actual A10C cockpit. I will however invest in VR for the Huey as one real cockpit in the house is enough. The Icarus project was also a good possibility. But after careful review, it had issues I didn’t want to deal with such as the cost of replacement lamps for three projectors every 2000 hours. Each lamp is around $450.00. I can fly over 2000 hours without trying to hard. In the end I can buy a 65inch TV for roughly the same amount as three projectors but the TV will last much longer than 2000 hours and when you have your face 30” from the screen the emersion is almost the same as Icarus.

Loose the HD 1TB Western Digital in favor of an SSD or an M.2 NVMe. You will be extremely unhappy with DCS load times using a HD 1TB Western Digital. The difference is huge.

Well done Hans. You really are doing some amazing work. But I need to ask... where do you find this stuff. As you probably know, I made all of my panels right from scratch. I tried very hard to create accurate replicas whenever possible but that was mainly due to a lack of alternatives. I tried to find A10 parts on eBay but, as always, there was nothing to be found. I did find lots of parts and avionics for various airframes but never for an A10.:( I was also concerned with costs but since I never found any A10 parts, I had no point of reference for what I might have to pay for any particular panel. So, if its not too classified Hans... whats your secret? :smilewink:

Ray, switches that randomly act on their own may be the result of a floating pin that’s being influenced by external electrical noise. I'm not familiar with how you wired your panels but maybe the pull-up resistors on the Arduino are insufficient for the job and need some help, especially if you have any long runs of wire connecting switch to mcu. This is a very short read but it might be of help in diagnosing the problem. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/DigitalPins Hope it helps. Good luck and let us know what you find to be the cause/solution.

My 2 cents... the T50 is any excellent product and I haven't found anything to take issue with. The order was processed quickly and I received it in Canada in a timely fashion. I only have one comment for Virpil. Please build a high end set of pedals with toe brakes. I will be one of your first orders. :thumbup:

Absolute GREATNESS Ray. Your work on the seat is unparalleled. Now that I have almost settled in to my new house (and shop) I'm finally starting to make some progress. I hope I will be catching up to you fairly soon. We will definitely have to do some flying together. That will certainly be a flight to remember ... two pilots flying in real (well almost) cockpits.:thumbup:

In my opinion VIRPIL has made an excellent product. I just received the T50 and base. Took a couple of weeks to arrive in Canada. Their stick is very nice but I prefer my TM Warthog stick as I fly the A10 almost 100% of the time. Regardless it’s an easy switch between sticks. So now I use my Warthog stick on a VIRPIL base and the accuracy, smoothness and adjustability is excellent. It’s also Far better than the TM Warthog base. I do believe my flying will improve dramatically because of the new VIRPIL base.:thumbup:

As stated in the very first post... What to post where This thread is for the announcement of new software releases only. If you want to announce a new version of your DCS-BIOS-related software, post in this thread, including a link to your project's discussion thread. The preferred way to report bugs is to open a new issue on GitHub. Questions belong in a new thread. Let's avoid creating another 35-page monster. For anything else, you can use the DCS-BIOS Discussion Thread.

Thanks for the update Hans. Actually, I have the IFF panel already built although its not been wired. I expect getting it fully functional (you know, just in case :smilewink:) won't be a large effort. I must say Hans, you are doing some very impressive work these REAL A10 panels and thanks for posting your results.

I had the same thing happen to me Hans. I bought 25 RS487 IC's from a company in China. Not a single one worked. They did exactly the same thing... got really hot. I asked them to check their inventory and resend me good chips. The new ones worked fine. Sometimes these Chinese stores can be a real pain in the ass. I spent hours trying to figure out what was causing the problem. With Ian's help I finally realized the chips were bad after we ran a test sketch on each one. I thought it was the KY-58 panel that they were using. Crap, thats what they were using for encryption not IFF.:doh: Oh well, I wanted to build a new panel anyways:smilewink:

You do know that with less effort from a programming point of view, you can buy a board (Arduino MEGA) for less than $11.00 and generate 256 inputs (Overpro's thread) instead of paying $170.00 to Hagstromelectronics.com for 108 inputs. Also, I just discovered that the BBI-32 that sells for $28.00 has a big brother, the BBI-64 that sells for $50.00. The cost per input for the BBI-32 is $0.87 compared to $0.78 for the BBI-64. Both boards are an excellent cost/input compared to...

I see Ian's been busy:lol: Looking good my friend. BTW, that was an excellent summary of the various approaches available to new cockpit builders. @ jusromaine If you want a very easy start to this whole business of cockpit building, I would recommend you purchase a BB-32 board from Leo Bodnars web site. This is the simplest and most straight forward way to get you feet wet. This board will give you 32 inputs to use toggle switches, push buttons and/or rotary encoders. It is extremely easy to use. No programming needed and just a rudimentary knowledge of electronics is all that's required. You bind the inputs (switches) in the DCS control options pages for whichever airframe you want just as you would for any flight controller (rudder pedals/stick). I would consider this board as an entry level start to cockpit building. The cost of the board is more than reasonable. But if you do find it expensive, you might want to re-assess your commitment to cockpit building as the costs can and will grow substantially as you move toward more complex solutions. One way to mediate costs is by purchasing your electronic components on eBaY from Chinese sources. It will reduce your costs dramatically. Good luck.

I too was using a projector and trackIR. There was no impact from the projectors light. The camera was mounted 4 feet away just to one side of centre so it didn't directly interfere with my view of the screen. If you need more info on the projector for gaming you could try "Projector Central". Its an excellent resource. http://www.projectorcentral.com/

So how would you be able to see the caution panel lights or the mfcd's or the fire indicators when wearing VR goggles. How do you know where your hands are since they're not seen on VR? With a real cockpit all you need to display is the external view. That's why selecting the best possible display is so important.

That's not really an option when you have a fully functional real cockpit.:smilewink:

My A10C cockpit is getting close to being finished so I have to start thinking about external displays. My only experience is using a 42" HD TV which was barely adequate. I also have a 120" screen with a JVC projector. That is a VERY nice way to fly. But a full sized cockpit just won't fit in the home theater room. Actually it will, but my better half says NO it won't.:music_whistling: I am considering a single 75" 4k TV or maybe a triple 50" monitor setup. I have a 1080ti to drive everything. I also ruled out projectors even if they do provide a great view of the sky. Its mostly because of the cost of replacing bulbs. 3 projectors can give you 270 degrees of view but every 2000 hours the bulbs start to blow and they are expensive to replace. So I would like to get some opinions from those who have experience with, lets us say, "the more exotic display setups". Pro's, con's, do's and don'ts are all appreciated. Thanks for your input guys.

I had similar problem with mine. There was a loose wire in the connector that joins stick and base. You could also have an intermittent short in that same location. That’s where I would start looking.

0.1uf ceramic cap 10uf electrolytic cap See page 10 of the MAX7219 data sheet.

I think Hans hit the nail on the head. The fellow who created the Acelstepper Library warned me about trying to run more than a couple of steppers from one Arduino board. They just don't have the processing power. Nowhere in my cockpit do I run more than 2 motors from one board. Because the cost of Arduino boards are very inexpensive I decided to do one motor, one board wherever I could. The EMI is my only exception. If your intent on running the entire EMI with one board, consider the more powerful 32bit ARM Cortex boards. They should be able to run 12 motors without breaking a sweat. I see Arduino has a board called the TIAN. Runs at 530 MHz. Probably overkill but it sure is impressive. I purchased a ChipKit Uno32 on the advise of the Acelstepper Author who was adiment that this board could do the job. Unfortunately I cannot vouch for its ability to run the EMI as I haven't done any testing yet. However, Failing that I will do the one board/one motor thing as I’ve done everywhere else in the cockpit. Whatever direction you choose, please post your results as I am sure others will benifit from your testing. Good luck.

If I am understanding you correctly, you want the rotation to be continuous through 360 degrees. Look carefully at the code that was posted and compare it to yours. It appears you not only omitted the IR section which was an error correction routine which does a reset to zero every 360 degrees to correct for stepping errors but you also removed the section that causes the continuous rotation. if (hasUpdatedData()) { // convert data from DCS to a target position expressed as a number of steps long targetPosition = (long)map_function(getData()); updateCurrentStepperPosition(); long delta = targetPosition - currentStepperPosition; [b]// if we would move more than 180 degree counterclockwise, move clockwise instead[/b] if (delta < -((long)(stepperConfig.maxSteps/2))) delta += stepperConfig.maxSteps; [b] // if we would move more than 180 degree clockwise, move counterclockwise instead[/b] if (delta > (stepperConfig.maxSteps/2)) delta -= (long)stepperConfig.maxSteps; movingForward = (delta >= 0); // tell AccelStepper to move relative to the current position stepper.move(delta); I am be wrong here but my interpretation of the code posted above is that it causes the pointer (for a gauge) or sphere (for an ADI) to rotate continuously through 360 degrees instead of running backwards to the zero point and then starting over. On the other hand I may be totally out to lunch as I am still learning how to write code and understand the logic that drives it.

I would just like to clarify that I am not the author of the code shown above. Ian wrote this code to help me and teach me how to control stepper motors. I passed copies to others who apparently assumed that I wrote it. That, of course, is incorrect. I expect one day to be able to write code at this level but I still have a lot to learn before I am that skilled. Kudos go to Ian for some great code. :thumbup:

I am so impressed by the level of creativity on this forum. Draken, that is a marvelous little systerm you developed to zero that stepper motor. Well done. I must say, necessity is very much the mother of invention. And I love those little IR detection boards. I have several of them for zeroing my ADI, HSI and my standby ADI. I originally made a couple of them from scratch but when I saw them on eBay... well its no longer worth my while to make my own. I must have purchased around 10 of them in various forms/formats. I'm also playing with another zero detection system that uses a Hall sensors. It uses the switch type hall sensor. The detector itself is extremely tiny and the magnets that are available come in a variety of sizes depending on your requirements. If the IR system doesn't fit the available space I am sure the Hall sensors system could be adapted to fit.

I can already see a number of applications for this product in my own build. I just need to access an inexpensive source to order from. It will be interesting to see how clean the output will be. Great find Sokol1. Thanks for posting this.

Very Nice work indeed. Did you also build the gimbal? If so, I sure would like to see how you designed it. I'm almost ready to start building my own flight controls so I'm always looking for new ideas.

Nicely done. :thumbup: And the price is quite reasonable. Could you provide some dimensions such as height, inside to inside width as well as overall width.