Thick8

you're doing a great job!:thumbup: I particularly like your idea for the fire pulls panel. John

If they are just audio files you could use one of the free audio manipulation programs to make them sound female. I use audacity (it's free) to record and alter audio files sometimes. John

I had a pair and sold them when i switched to Helios. Now I'm building a pit and will be reaquiring a pair. I downloaded the tech drawing from Thrustmaster and it seems that the screen size is 4.25" square. Is this right? I was thinking it was bigger. John

Great idea. I'm gonna cut mine this weekend.

Cool chair. Try checking for a car seat at a body shop.

that's all I do. just drag and drop.

Rowmark will make you the black on translucent white vinyl. The cost was the same as regular black on white. I did have to buy two full sheets of it but it only cost $185. I posted the part # here somewhere In the last month or so. No painting required.

Different online retailers run specials on different switches. I was able to get my switches from 3 different sources. I got 50 on/off switches for $1.99 each and on/off/on for $2.12 each. the pots were only $.82. Here's a list of the switches I used. they are not the mac daddy exact replica switches but they serve the purpose.

An answer for an easy caution panel. I cut the bottom plate to accommodate a small VGA monitor from ebay. There is no middle plate. Using Helios, I program a green square to display on the screen for each caution indicator. There is no bleed through between panel elements and there is no need to interface any additional hardware. here is a pic of me testing it out before ordering the monitor.

I'm using clear bottom and middle plates with a black on translucent white laserable vinyl top plate. The lettering is a brite white that glows green when backlit. I'm backlighting the whole thing with led strips mounted in the bottom of the consoles. I skinned the consoles with 1/8" thick, white sided, MDF board. I'm not done yet but I've tested everything and the results look great. John

It's funny that my wife was just sitting with me as I was putting terminal ends on my 150+ switches and such. She said that when I started looking at the cockpit displayed here she thought "those guys are nuts". Now she's sure of it. John

It works very well for me. It also plays nice with Helios.

My wife reminded me that there is a TV repair shop about a mile from my house. I was in there a couple of years ago and he had so many TV's that people just left there. I'm going to stop by and see if he has a small (30"-40") 1080i(p) unit I can try out. I'm using 39" TVs for the main view and can see the gauges just fine. So it should look OK on a smaller screen of the same resolution. there might even be a focus adjustment used at initial manufacturing that will allow me to get the perfect picture size. John

It's starting to take shape. I decided to draw up my own side consoles. I like dimebugs but don't have a CNC router available to me at this time. It's drawn up in SAE as I live in the US. I'm not using DZUS rails so I just made the top rails out of wood. everything was glued together and brad nailed. the rest of the switches came in and I'm in the process of installing them. Still have to make another VHF radio and the UHF radio. Once I get everything wired up I'll see about learning Ardiuno to put in some segmented displays. Here's a couple of pics of the progress made the last couple of days. John

I would keep it encased. Probably a metal or plastic framework with matte black foam-board walls to keep out any ambient light.

While I'm waiting on the rest of my switches to arrive and the rain to stop so I can cut out Dimebug's side consoles, I've been thinking about the front panel. I've tried numerous configurations of monitors to cover the whole panel. There doesn't seem to be a good way of doing that. I looked into 1080p projectors that could give me a 37" screen with a 1.5 to 2 foot throw. No good solutions on that front either. What I've come up with is to use a 40" 1080i rear projection TV. specifically the Toshiba 40H80. The TV portion of the unit is just the top part. I could cut the screen material to allow for switches and such; as well as match the shape of the panel. I know I would have to keep the measurements very precise so as not to muck up the focus but I think it could work. I found one on Ebay but it's local pickup only. Hell, for $125 it would be worth it to try and see if it would work. What do you guys think? John

I use facetrack (updated freetrack) with a self made 3 point cap mount design IR LED emitter. The camera is an old Logitek quickcam. It works very well. I have a 3 screen setup with a fairly wide yaw deadzone and a narrow pitch deadzone. I'm only using 3 motions, yaw, pitch, and side to side. I mapped zoom to the "friction" slider of the TMWH. I can post pics of my settings if you would like. John

Way cool. Do you need/have special software/hardware to compensate for the curve? How many 1080p projectors would you use to fill the view? I'm currently running 3 39" TV's for a 180 degree FOV. John HOLY CRAP! I just went to your website. Time to trash the TV's... Anyone have a bucket of cash I can borrow?

Well here they are. All three layers cut out and 75 switches installed. i still need to make a VHF and a UHF radio. I'm using my old Ipad2 with Icontrol installed as my CDU so I don't have to do that just yet.. The rest of the switches should be here by the weekend so I can get them installed. I will probably cut out dimebugs side consoles next week over spring break and start assembly. BTW, the green leds work great. Haven't decided if I'm going to glue them to each individual panel or just run them the length of the console. I'll decide that later.

Start with no armament. Concentrate on your breathing. smooth semi deep in and out. Don't strangle the stick. take your feet off the pedal. Keep breathing. Your throttle hand will be dancing up and down while gently guiding the aircraft with the stick to the boom. Don't look at the boom. Take in the whole scene, don't focus on any one spot. You want the belly of the 135 about two fingers above the hud frame. BREATH! Quit strangling the stick; it's not your wee wee. tiny throttle up, down ,up down. Like your trying to tailgate the guy going 10 mph in a 25 mph zone. Did I mention breath???

found out that the PO for the plastic didn't get sent until last monday. So it will probably be another week before it shows up. The switches came last week so I cut a bottom and middle plate. the bottom is .220" and the middle one is .080". I've got the LED strip and 2 dimmers coming from Amazon later this week. I had forgotten that I had made the outline of the top panel a little smaller so it would fit on the sample plastic. here's a few pics of my test panel assembled . I should have the middle and bottom panels cut out by friday and the top panels done as soon as the plastic arrives.

You have 2 choices. The first is to install Helios and use it to program your toggles. I have heard that some folks are having some input lag issues using Helios. The second choice is to program your toggle directly in the device LUA files. I've started to do this with help from HMA. If you check pages 5 and 6 of this thread http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=96522&page=6 you can follow our discussion of how to do it. Hope this helps. John

JOHNSON PLASTICS No Carolina 6210-B HACKERS BEND CRT WINSTON-SALEM,NC 27103-9501 United States of America Sent By: Ginger Moss, Ph 800-869-7870, Fax 770-236-9625, Email gingerm@johnsonplasti Description____________________________________________________________ 2.00 ENGPLAS EA 91.6800 183.36 ENGRAVING PLASTIC ** PART NUMBR: LM922401 COLOR : BLACK/TRANSLUCENT WHITE ** PLY : TWO PLY THICKNESS : 1/16 ** COMMENT 1 : MFG TIME 5-10 DAYS ARO ** GA WAREHOUSE TO CUT MATERIAL ** ** DOWN INTO 8 "12 X 24 SHEETS" ** ** MATERIAL TO RIDE FROM MFG TO ** ** GA WAREHOUSE. ** Est Material Tot: 183.36 Est Handling: 2.50 Actual Freight Will Be Billed Est Total Quote: 185.86

I'm cutting out Reactorone's panels (backlit) but I would be interested in knobs if the price is reasonable.

if you have a laser you can buy 2 layer, black on translucent white, vinyl plastic. You can get .060 or .125. The cost was $90 for a 24x48 inch sheet. I'll pull my receipt to get you the item #. Here's a link to some pictures of the material. http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=120156&page=5