Warhog

Clay, the encoder at a he bottom left does not need to be the standard rotary encoder we all use. The link below is for an encoder that I am going to use. It's smalll and has less detents than the large footprint ones we all know and love. But you will need to make your own shaft for it and a custom knob. That's pretty easy stuff. Lay it on its side with a PCB to attach on to and your golden. It's only 9 mm x 5mm. http://www.ebay.com/itm/5PCS-9MM-Mouse-Encoder-Wheel-Encoder-Repair-Parts-Switch-/282380488389?hash=item41bf304ec5:g:CNUAAOSw~AVYts5K

That is a cockpit to be proud of. Your detailing is quite excellent and it really brings home the feeling of a real warbird. And it has so much character. :thumbup: You may have actually steered me into a new build once the A10 and Huey are complete. It presents a whole new type of detailing which is quite appealing for some strange reason. This may also be a signal that it's time more therapy. :crazy: Crap! I thought I had this under control.:pilotfly:

Well done Hans. This was by no means an easy feat and I applaud your efforts. I haven't decided whether I will use magnetic switches yet. It's more of a cost consideration now that I am 95% retired. But time will tell. Meanwhile, I am looking forward to seeing more of your cockpit as it unfolds.

I think a google search "wiring rotary encoders to Arduino" will answer the question in excellent detail.

Excellent work Callum and yes that is exactly the same plate I use.

Quest. 1. .27" dia mounting hole. Quest. 2. I don't know how you are planning to interface with DCS so I can't really say. I use DCS-BIOS/Arduino for everything. that means providing a ground for the centre pin and the A and B pins go to the Arduino board. No power needed for this setup except to the board of course. John

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-USB-2-0-to-TTL-UART-5PIN-Module-Serial-Converter-CP2102-STC-PRGMR-Free-cable-/310511987503?hash=item484bf4eb2f I purchased 5 so I could have several boards running at the same time until I got the RS485 bus up and running.

Excellent work and your making great progress. Keep posting those pics.:thumbup: I never included the VID69 motor in my list for the very reason you mentioned...how do I zero it. That's a real problem and I don't know the answer to it. I did try sourcing the VID60 motors on AliExpress but with little success. I recently placed a large order from their site. I hope I don,t see the same problems. This past spring I ordered some TLE 5051...twice. Neither showed up and I did ultimately get refunds. No idea what's going on there. Your EMI looks great. What Driver board are you using. Have you written code for the motors yet. You might look at a different stepper motor for the altimeter. I'll post some pics of what I ended up doing in place of the VID 60 motor. Keep up the great work.

Probably. But coding it is very much over my head. If you have to use pots, I understand there are some smoothing routines that help reduce the noise. I can't offer much more than that as I never took the time to investigate.

Thank you for your offer Trip. I've actually been to Scranton as well as Harrisburg on my way to Gettysburg. I'm a bit of a civil war enthusiast. I love Pennsylvania. Some of the prettiest country I have ever toured. The rotary encoders (I'm referring to the blue ones) have a 20mm long shaft. The shaft also acts as a momentary on push button. I believe the shaft dia. is 6mm which is the standard dia for most knobs. The pots you linked are interesting but I can,t comment on them as I don't use pots in my cockpit. I use rotary encoders instead of pots. The noise that is often generated by pots cause a great deal of jitter in the signal line. To avoid dealing with that problem I just use rotary encoders. They produce a much cleaner signal. And yes, I know first hand just how quickly ones cart can fill up. :lol:

Search store for toggle switch. Go to second last page and you will see them Or http://stores.ebay.com/MobileV-Eletronics-Shop/_i.html?rt=nc&_nkw=Toggle&_sid=214999698&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14.l1513&_pgn=3 Scroll halfway down page.

Thank you Trip. I got a lot of help from the people here and all their contributions in terms of tutorials, photos of their work, etc. I use a CNC mill to engrave the labels onto engraving plastic. My panels are actually made up of three layers: two layers of .125" clear acrylic and one layer (the top) of engraving plastic which is .06" thick. The acrylic is really easy to work with and being clear, it helps with backlighting. But regardless of the backlighting, the acrylic is quite strong and will easily support anything you wish to use in a panel such as gauges, toggle switches, displays, etc. The key here is having a quality CNC machine to do the engraving for you. Unfortunately they are expensive and then there is a rather long learning curve for the associated software you would need to use to design the panels, create the engraving and cut out the details. The upside is you can fabricate virtually any part you need for a cockpit from knobs to labels, to circuit boards. I use, almost exclusively, the Arduino Pro Mini. I buy them from this seller and I have never had a single issue with them. http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Pro-Mini-atmega328-5V-16M-Replace-ATmega128-Arduino-Compatible-Nano-/200957063666?hash=item2ec9f971f2 I use the 5v version as apposed to the 3.3v Pro Mini except when I want to use an OLED. The OLED displays and some other displays are normally 3.3v. You need to match board voltage to display voltage so you need to buy the 3.3v board in those situations. One more caveat... the Pro Mini does not have a built in USB to serial chip on the board so you need to buy a separate serial to USB adapter to program them. Very inexpensive... http://www.ebay.com/itm/6pin-FTDI-FT232RL-USB-to-Serial-adapter-module-USB-TO-TTL-RS232-Arduino-Cable-/401090868113?tfrom=180953299346&tpos=top&ttype=price&talgo=undefined or http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-USB-2-0-to-TTL-UART-5PIN-Module-Serial-Converter-CP2102-STC-PRGMR-Free-cable-/310511987503?tfrom=180953299346&tpos=top&ttype=price&talgo=undefined I bought a handful of USB to serial adapters for use with the Pro Mini so I don't really bother with the Nano that much. I also started my cockpit using the Pro Mini. Back then I designed a boiler plate circuit board layout specifically for the pin outs on a Pro Mini. That way I could easily adapt my circuit layout to the requirements of the panel I was building without having to start each design from scratch. However, there are a lot of people that prefer the Nano. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-USB-Nano-V3-0-ATmega328-16M-5V-Micro-controller-CH340G-board-Arduino-Cable-/201539955347?hash=item2eecb7aa93 I have several of these in my cockpit as well as a couple of Mega's. The Nano has a USB to serial chip on board and mini jack for a USB cable thats normally included with the board. That eliminates the need for a separate USB to Serial adapter. As to rotary encoders, these have been a staple in my cockpit. I have only had 2 out of maybe 50 fail on me. So for the price I am not complaining. http://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-Rotary-encoder-switch-EC11-Audio-digital-potentiometer-20mm-handle-/311425031956?hash=item488260df14 As to Chinese sellers, these are a short list of the ones I deal with on a regular basis: http://stores.ebay.com/TxHang-Electronic http://stores.ebay.com/Czb-Electronic http://stores.ebay.com/MobileV-Eletronics-Shop?_rdc=1 (excellent place for toggle switches of any configuration you might need in the A10 cockpit. I have purchased around 70 toggle switches from these people and they have all been 100% satisfactory) And my favourite store is: http://stores.ebay.com/Satisfy-Electronics Good prices, fast delivery (relatively:smilewink:) good selection of whatever you need. Hope that helps. John

Virtually all of my parts are from Chinese sellers on eBay. Toggle switches around $2.75. Rotary encoders around $1.70 and Arduino boards for $2.75 (Nano's). The parts are good quality, free shipping and no sales tax. The flight sim stores, and this is just my personal opinion, are a huge rip off when it cones to selling electronic components. How they stay in business is beyond me. They buy the same parts as I do and then mark them up for resale. Just buy direct from China and you will save a lot of money...or not. It's only money.:smilewink:

Congratulations Foxhoundcn. That's wonderful news. As to the cockpit project, rather than postpone, an alternate strategy could be to spread it out over a longer period of time. Your no longer building this for yourself, but for your newest little pilot for when he or she is ready to learn and start flying missions. :smilewink: Regardless, I wish your family well. Being a new dad is a very special time in your life. Enjoy it. :thumbup: Time goes by far too quickly. John

Thank you Foxhoundcn for the compliment as well as your offer to teach me how to build this beautiful clock. Your efforts will be very much appreciated, not only by myself but also by this great cockpit building community we have here on the EDforum.:thumbup:

The quality of your work is quite impressive Foxhoundcn. I think you are probably the first person on this forum to replicate the clock. I would be most interested in looking at your PCB and component list for it. I have already built my cockpit clock but it's nowhere near as accurate a rendition as yours is. I would like to try and build a replica clock at some point especially if you could provide some details of your build. Thanks for posting Foxhoundcn. Looking forward to seeing more of you work.

Arduino Nano. Buy several from Chinese sellers on eBay. They are $2.50 approx.:thumbup:

When you start to make PCB's Calum, there are two ways to design them and I have tried both. The first one is the single line between traces method. You draw your traces and then use "engrave" to cut them. Its a fast way to produce a PCB. But there is a problem with this method. Tiny pieces of copper, almost dust like, hides in the lines you just cut. You can't see them but they are there. And sometimes when you plug something in "there is a short". I started examining all of my boards with a good dissecting microscope. Sure enough, the little bastards are hiding in the grooves. Not always, but enough times I found problems that I started inspecting the PCBs before I soldered them up with components. It was taking a bit of time to clean the crap out of the grooves or to at least ensure there was no crap so I tried another method. AFter drawing the traces as I always did, I started doing an offset of .006" for each trace. The result filled in the spaces between the traces with additional lines to engrave. Its still all one engraving operation but now it removes all of the material between traces. Its like pocketing but you don't need to make any tool changes for a larger dia bit. Eventually I used the BPoly command in AutoCAD to create and outline between traces and then offset this outline. That was an even faster way of doing it.

The first order of business is to purchase "REAL" engraving cutters. 60 degree, 0.01" tip, .125" dia shank. You will find them wherever engraving products and accessories are sold. Second, choose an Arial font to cut. Third, start by practicing on engraving plastic. Acrylic for engraving will always yield less than great results. If you want to cut acrylic, as a appposed to just trying to engrave it, purchase HSS single or 2 flute .125" dia. end mills. I also cut acrylic with 1/16" dia. end mills. They need to be good quality. Not cheap Chinese end mills or they will melt the acrylic. Buy several as you will most likely break a few as you learn not to take heavy cuts. Those are the most important points other than the accuracy of your machine. I don't expect it will be able to provide the precision required to engrave small sized fonts regardless of your cutters though. A good test is to cut a 1" dia. circle and measure its diameter with calipers in two directions 90 degrees apart and see if they are the same. Then try a 1/2" circle etc. I hope that gets you some better results.

Send me an email Wayne.

Don't be embarrassed Wayne because that's how all the PRO's do it... :music_whistling: Not that I'm a PRO by any means but I do like to pretend. :animals_bunny: So this is my desk... :lol: IMG_0955 by John Wall, on Flickr ... and BTW Sven, you really need to organize your desktop. Way to messy if you ask me. I mean, just look at mine. :hehe: Neat, tidy, everything in its spot. I offer this photo as an example so the newer builders to our forum start off on the right foot. :music_whistling: :pilotfly:

Looks great Calum. Just what I would have expected. With a finer tip you can get 6pt. lettering. I use Arial as my basic font. It engraves better than most others fonts as single line fonts are hard to fine. Don't forget that when you are using engraving plastic you will need to flip it over and pocket beneath where the engraving is located so you get the light penetration you need for backlighting. My depth of cut for engraving is .004" deep into 0.06" thick plastic. Then I flip it and pocket the backside to a depth of .035" wherever engraving exists. It provides for a very nice backlighting. I believe Anton uses the same technique. If I might make a recommendation, find a 4" wide ground plate (flat with even thickness) the length of your bed. Mount it to your existing bed. This will be your new work surface. Why? It gives you more width. The extra inch you get by doing this makes it much easier to handle larger panels. You can actually go a little further than that but be careful when you see how far you can go. You don't want to push the bed into the column.:doh: (new bearings required if you do :music_whistling: ) @forum... This is one guy to keep an eye on. He's now equipped to do some rather amazing things. Looking forward to your progress.:thumbup:

You should check the DCS A10C manual for a description of that panel. As I recall several switches/buttons are non functional in the sim so there is no need to wire them to the Arduino Mega. You could also get by with a smaller board such as a Nano which is only a $2.55 purchase from China. Good luck on your project. Please post some pictures when it's done.

If I might make a suggestion regarding the motor you are using, before you go to much further you really should verify whether that motor will be fast enough to keep up to the cockpit altimeter when you are in a dive. From past experimenting I was unable to get that motor to turn fast enough.

Hi Nick, as to your questions... 1. ...most of my buttons are now made from styrene (plastic). I tried different materials and different techniques but in the end the styrene button was easiest to make and it did have a softer feel than acrylic buttons. Also, "Easy to make" is good when you have almost 100 buttons throughout the entire cockpit to deal with. I guess I could have developed a technique using a rubber type of button. I certainly have all of the mold making equipment and chemicals. But spending months trying to develop a reliable system of embedded contacts for a solderless solution didn't seem worth the time it would take. Besides, I'm not an engineer so I have to rely on more primitive methods. :smilewink: 2. The backlighting PCB has to be closest to the front panel to ensure nothing else blocks the light. This makes it very difficult to use the same PCB for buttons due to the depth they need to be place to properly sit in the panel. There are some instances where I have used double sided copper board where the traces are much more complex and as such they need to be on both sides of the board. Now a days I shy away from double sided board. If I can use a couple of jumpers on the board as a means of removing the need for double sided, I will do that. I have learned, over the last three years of building, that the simple solution is almost always the better solution. If you look carefully at the next few pics you will see why I couldn't place everything on the backlight PCB. Notice there are several different layers of PCB. I set the "PRI, SEP and UKN" buttons on a single PCB. The menu select buttons on the side are on a separate PCB as well. All of the buttons, because of their design, need to sit further back from the face of the panel. I also wanted to adjust their depth quite precisely independent of the other components that make up the CMSC. You can see the one set of three buttons is already screwed down. The other two are off to the side with some cabling plugged into them. I do try and maximize what I pace on my PCB's. Notice the LED indicator that is part of the three button PCB. There is also an LED indicator on the display module PCB. Then there are the display modules. They too sit at a different level from everything else. Here we have all of the PCBs that make this panel work. The only thing left to do is to paint the sides of the acrylic flat black, add the extension pieces to the rotary encoders and add the engraved faceplate to the front of this mess. And to your last question... That second link was a faux pas on my part. There should only be one link. It was meant to take you to Tores thread where he was having difficulty getting his machine to perform properly. I am glad you found this enlightening :smilewink: (pun) I hope you enjoyed the pics and maybe gave you some ideas on different ways to build stuff.