Devon Custard

Thats pro for all that, really appreciate you sharing.

Gonna cannibalise an old PC psu and run 12v rails down the side of the cockpit and just attach connectors.

CDU updates, been slow last week or slow. Crown came off my tooth and ive been kinda stressing over the minor fortune the implant is going to cost me. grrr. Anyway back into garage and have been working on the buttons/membrane and the screen fascias. Oh and testing the backlighting. Oh yeah buying a new car as well.....damn this year is becoming very expensive....

Ahh kinda missing what i was after. I wanted the MAX7219 not the led array. As it is im gonna have a bunch of arrays sitting around doing nothing.....

After my venture into lighting LEDs with 595 and 4511 chips i eventually migrated MAX7219. Tried sourcing them cheap in the UK and failed, then this weekend i tried a different tack. Found this on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/MAX7219-matrix-control-Display-Arduino/dp/B00LSG54O2/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1410164606&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=max7219 The chip itself (at 1/3rd price i was finding at RS), the two capacitors, a matrix display (will find something to use it for), headers and a neat little PCB with all the pinouts neatly labelled and organised for me. AWESOME. Gonna make the caution panel a shitload easier to assemble and for a lot less.

Woooop wooop time to start the laser vs cnc debate!!!! Women and children to the lifeboats please :helpsmilie::music_whistling::doh:

Ive got some rustoleum and that was absolute crap. @Mr Burns - ive got some spare white acrylic scraps , probably will run a spare set of of buttons this weekend. Want em?

Also, the reason i redid the CDU and used WAXIs plans is that i needed to make the buttons bigger. The font size i was working with just impractical to engrave with. I worked out the minimum space i could cut acrylic with (about 2mm between cuts gives me 1mm of actually acrylic). I just couldnt cut letters that were readable so i had to make them bigger. Sounds like you have the same issue., maybe go a touch larger? Stick fonts might be a better solution for CNC as well. I was looking at going the stick font route until i finally got things to work

I know your pain, took me ages to sort it out, and in the end the biggest issue was the type of paint. At present my process is this. 3mm thick Acrylic sheet - semi opaque white. Cant see through it but if you use the LED strips (the 5050 type i.e the ones on that come on the reel) it shows through fine. I then airbrush acrylic paint over the top. I apply as many coats as it takes for the backlight strip not to show through the paint . This is always going to differ depending on how you paint, the type of paint etc. I use an air gun thats more suitable for laying down paint over larger areas - for the speed. I then use my laser to engrave through paint and about 1mm into the acrylic. Then i cut. The problem with other paints is that my laser scorches the paint around the area im cutting. I tried using masks but still had problems with scorched paint. I found for my particular laser that reducing the scan gap to .025 mm, uni directional engraving (it only cuts moving top to bottom - doubles the time but smoother more accurate cut) and turning the blower off - i think this stops the superheated air at the engraving point being forced over a wider area. I also reduce the speed that the laser moves at. It took me a good few months of trial and error and various different types of materials. My only concern with using a dremel is that i know the spindle/collet doesnt hold bits very securely. The vibrations loosen the collet and so the bit wobbles and hence your accuracy decreases as the cutting head wobbles. I have the same issue with the laser, too fast and the chassis starts to shake and the beam is striking with ever decreasing accuracy. Again this is all about the equipment and materials you work with. I started another thread about engraving and there were some seriously detailed discussions in there about CNC engraving., have a scan over it, might give you what you are looking for.

Thanks hog, always nice to have good feedback. I found a 3.5 inch display at lcdstore.de VGA connector so will hook direct to PC. As for the grounds I group them into banks of 16 and just link the one half of the tactile. Pins 1 and 2, and pins 3 and 4 are linked so I can easily ground them. Tempted to ditch the brydling in favour of a custom arduino now.....

What did you use for the gauges? Of all the things in the cockpit, its the gauges im nervous about

Yup. i have to, theres not really enough space with WAXIs plans to use the "shoulder" method, well not without a lot of precise shaping of the shoulders and i really dont want to sand and shape that many buttons when i can simply glue onto the transparency. Im loving these LED strips. Cant remember who suggested them (Warhog?) but they are really superb, so easy and prepackaged with resistors. When i think of my first efforts at building this and the pain in soldering that many connections *shudder*.

CDU progress Buttons, lovely buttons Assembling base plate and top face. Sanded, and first coat of paint Annnnd, testing the backlighting

So am i, ive been fiddling with it for months and just need to finish it!!! Im starting to think about building the frame now, well the sides at least.With all the talk about measurements and precision ill probably use y2kiahs plans as his shows the panel outlines.

PMSL. I actually got an agreement with the builder we bought the house from that he would cut a vent hole in the wall for me. Right now the lasers by the door and i just run the hose outside. But yeah it does doesnt it :) Half tempted to drywall it and slap paint on it. maybe when the pit gets close to finishing, will need to dismantle some of the workbenches anyway.

Zip containing fritzing file and copper layouts, normal and mirrored. Have fun toner transferring, took me a couple times. Layout uses these tactile switches, and is designed for exporting the switches out to my brydling 256 board, hence the breakout to blocks of 8/16. Plan was to use another smaller daughterboard with 40 way headers and a 12V connector for the backlight LEDs cdu2.zip

hmmm small coolant emergency this weekend, had the laser working on the the CDU base and it decided to spring a leak on the water pump. Typically i was not watching it at the time, when i got back in the garage floor was covered in steaming coolant. ARSE!! Had to build a new enclosure and sank the entire pump and tube. Wont matter so much if it springs a leak. Anyway heres the new coolant tank And a couple snaps of work on CDU mk2 Designing and etching the board, then tinning the tracks the tracks and finally soldering the tactile switches took about 3-4 hours max. And was a dream compared to the first time around with prototype/matrix board. Etching is the only way to go. JPEG of the circuit if anyones interested, send me a pm if you want the fritzing files(ill get around to posting them here at some point :doh:) Finally a snap of the new man cave. Aka Cockpit workshop.

I think its very easy to have a view or opinion and believe in it. Its a lot harder to be challenged on that view point. There are some very passionate people on this forum, some are passionate about the game aspect whilst some are more interested in the ability to build an accurate replica. Its all too easy to get bent out of shape trying to get your opinion across or defending your own. At the end of the day, it comes down to what each person wants at that point in time. Sometimes you just have to make that journey before you are willing to see someone else point of view. Case in point I make a statement about building a CDU panel some time back, i said i wasnt going to bother with accurate DZUS measurements. This statement drew a comment from someone who was passionate about accuracy, and had spent a lot of time doing dzus measurements. We disagreed and it escalated. blah blah blah etc. This weekend i redid my cdu panel having recently learned how to etch my own pcbs. Wanted to try the CDU again so i used WAXI's CDU plans. More authentic measurements than my attempt and had the DZUS holes in the right place (well i think they are :). At this point in my pit building career it feels right to use the measurements, at the earlier point i couldnt have given two f**ks what someone else thought because my priorities were different. I resented the comments and the approach that was taken and i fell out with the guy. Shame really. I wish i had been a bit more chilled out about it all.:music_whistling: Deadmans comments here make a lot more sense to me now. And if i get the time to build it right i will damn well do it. However newly married and new house make impressive demands on my time (and im not even counting my job) so i know im going to be making some shortcuts.....Again its a shame as i have the tools to build a more precise cockpit but i just dont have the luxury of time.:cry: "Personally I think if your taking the time to make a cockpit your doing it to do several things to feel more like your really flying in a aircraft. To get the tactile sense of being in a cockpit with switches and to create a more realistic over all experience to really get the adrenalin pumping!! Now if you have access to a CNC or a CNC Laser why would you not go for the highest detail possible? I have been so impressed with the KA50 pit makers their attention to even the smallest detail is real incredible. " :thumbup: Id love to offer help building panels for people, but the effort and time involved escalate rapidly especially when people want to just buy a finished product.

Edited :)

Mwuahahahaha:devil_2:

Actually more i think about it, this is a great tutorial for those who want to do it "their way" :) Also having just built my CMSP, and using 3 layers of PCB - Home brew/Arduino/Arduino Shield - it makes complete sense to build the entire stack onto one board and this would be the way to do it. It comes down to whether you want form over function. Something the apple fanbois and PC clone enthusiasts have been warring over for years :)

And btw tiger, really nice looking clean pcb there. Who did you send out to?

Found sainsmart doing Mega clones for £15 on amazon.co.uk. ordered a bunch. just waiting on equally cheap ethershields....

well finally the wife has let me start building again.... so after some tinkering in the new garage, and playing with my first pcb (i stink of ferric chloride right now) a rough prototype of the CMSP... Couple of typos on the fascia, gotta wire the rotary switch in, trim and loom the wire but it works.... Gotta paint the garage floor this weekend and then its full speed ahead for DC Industries :)

Yup, sure will. At the very least knowing to search for rails.7z took me straight to the post. Many thanks for sharing your hard work!:thumbup: DC