Devon Custard

IDC 40 way PCB Headers - the 2.54 mm through hole mounting type. Works well with the matrix board im using. Then i use a number of 8 way crimp connectors. 5 of those can fit the 40 way and they are fairly snug/tight fitting. Plus allows me to break out relatively easy. As with everything, find something that works for you and stick with it. Working on the UFC right now as i royally cocked up the wiring for my CDU matrix. 60 odd tactiles down the drain but its only a few quid i suppose. Have replacements on order. Gonna start on the radio panel designs tomorrow, so its research and hunt the measurements time. Anyone got any plans they are willing to share before i completely do a jackanory on this panel?

if youre talking about D-sub connectors like the old style 25 RS232/Parallel ones, shudder. I still remember sodlering those buggers as an engineer MANY years ago.

hehe i still cant picture what you mean by a DB connector.

FN, next on my list of panels to do, will post my sketchup/dxf/plt output files when i complete them. Cant guarantee when that is tho :) Getting married in 3 weeks so there will be a minor pause....

@HMA Oh man youre going to laugh when i post the pics of my CDU, ive done almost exactly the same as you, 40 way PCB header and those exact same terminal blocks. The diodes i placed between the terminal block and the pcb header (easy way to connect the various pin, just bend the legs) Only diff is that im probably going to use 5 4x2 headers with standard cable rather than flat cable with a 40 way header

@Mr Burns - Yup that thought had occurred to me, im building this in the garage at the moment and am anticipating moving house later this year so the sides and front panel (if i get that far) must be modular and separate. Im trialing using 40way IDC PCB headers at present. Thinking that a common hub for each major section i.e. left console, centre console , right console is the way to go, almost certainly going to use a number of old PC PSUs to provide the power that the arduino's and LED's will need. Managed to bolt the CDU keyboard to the baseplate last night, now i just have 50 odd leds and 67 tactile switches to wire up. CAnt believe how much effort to hand solder a single one of these panels takes.

Yeah if eos was complete I'd be happy to adopt it but it's not. If the code was open source I'd adapt it but as it's not its a roll your own project I fear

Im loving his camo/fatigues. Is that urban nursery?

Anyone out there got any good tips for a wiring harness? Im looking at that now BEFORE i start building the panel interfaces. Im assuming im going to be running a shedload of cable

Brilliant!!! Thanks H!

No probs Mac, happy to assist. Did make me realise that i really dont want to use the EOS bus right now, and thats mainly because im probably late to the party and you cant expect Gadroc to continue supporting Helios forever. Ive got Brydlings 256 input board so i think ill just lua script it myself. As for the panel, Im redoing it, and cutting the holes for the screws this time :doh: Spacing of cutouts for the buttons i can be a little more precise with now that ive got the power of the cutting beam tuned. I was warping the acrylic and had to jiggle the spacing to avoid it. I keep reminding myself that this is going to be what i call in my trade as "functionally equivalent" not a precise replica. I know too well what obsessing over details can lead to. Im starting to realise that building the cockpit is actually more fun that flying it!

Now to look at Macs arduino sketch :)

Fabrication has started! One burnt finger (hot glue gun - ouch!), one repaired laser cutter - nearly cried that it broke in the first week of use. Anyway after much playing with settings im now getting reasonable cutting results and have started work on the CDU. And yes i broke the top bit off, thank god for glue.... Painting next. Thanks to Mac i have a guide on airbrushing techniques...

Well Mac that would be easy. Id just add the extra 4 DZUS positions. All i was ever saying was that i didnt see the need to do 8 when 4 should do. I totally get DMs point. The problem with all this lovely information is that its in so many different posts and some of its contradictory. Everyone has their favourite set and says to use that. And to be fair my first comment was about not worrying where a text label or component might sit. ANYWAY. Lets put a pin in it :)

Thats one nice looking piece of design work!!! Yes to the arduino, seems so obvious a fit considering its versatility and ease of use. And of course its relatively cheap tooo

I think maybe you're missing the emphasis of my post. What I was trying to say was that I don't feel the need to try and be picture perfect with my panel. I'm not going for 100% accuracy. The comment about dzus was that I don't want or need to make 8 dzus fittings for the cmsp panel so I'll just do 4 and that's half the cost. Plus it's also less holes to drill on whatever I use to replace the rails. given that this is a one off cockpit and I'm not planning on mass producing any of my work it's not a great problem how I do it. I know you're trying to make a point about using the existing standards, that's cool. Appreciate the effort if you post the work. And trust me I'm not making it out as a pain in the arse just looking at ways of making it easier for me.

Nope, dimensions for me are pretty important, for the panel externals that is. What im not worrying about for example, is the placing of the holes for DZUS - or actually whatever im going to use instead of DZUS. Spending the time i did on the sketchup work with the CMSP panel and trying to find realistic measurements for just one panel taught me that im not that fussed if the part im going to use to replace the milspec one isnt the same size etc. As long as it does the job. For example when i went looking the two versions of the CMSP i found, reactorones and gadrocs, differed by 5mm in one dimension. I was looking at the amount of DZUS fixings for the CMSP panel and 8 seemed a little overkill, this pit isnt actually going to fly and therefore isnt subject to the same vibration and gravity affects that a real pit would exert on its components. so in the interests of my sanity and time (and of course COST) im not replicating every single curve,hole,nut and bolt. Hence function over form. When i get to the end of my first build and i have the inclination i can work on more accurate details. I know you are a details focused pit builder DM and i have the greatest respect for your work. I however am not so details driven and if it looks vaguely like a duck and quacks vaguely like a duck then damnit its a duck. And thats good enough for me. As for the last month and a half most of that has been about proving i can do the electronics and mechanical stuff. So nothing wasted from my side. I was looking at the amount of DZUS fixings for the CMSP panel and 8 seemed a little overkill, this pit isnt actually going to fly and therefore isnt subject to the same vibration and gravity affects that a real pit would exert on its components. so in the interests of my sanity and time (and of course COST) im not replicating every single curve,hole,nut and bolt. Hence function over form. When i get to the end of my first build and i have the inclination i can work on more accurate details.

Well its been a fun weekend. Laser unpacked. Built a small reservoir for it out of a storage box n lid. Spent hours trying to get the damn thing to work and cursing liberally and finally managed to get it do its thang! After cracking that, i went back and had another go at the futaba VFDs i bough and hey presto got those to work so no more worrying about buying OLEDs (you have no idea how annoyed i was that they wouldnt work....) Then i got to play some more with sketchup and finally getting somewhere with an idea for how im going to build my panels. piccies below, as i know threads get boring with something to look at.... First the beast as the pit wife calls it... And i think you can tell by the time i got it working i was starting to feel a little ornery (gotta love that word) The VFD finally working... For some reason it would not work in 4 bit mode (except that very first attempt which i could not replicate), oh well another 4 wires isnt a great deal of pain. And finally some screenies of my sketchup progress.... Aptly named this shot.. Ooops, put that component too near the edge i think.. better move it. Finally the exploded view of the layers so far. Still needs a lot of editing. Still really impressed with sketchup and how easy it is to mock something up quickly. That representation of my VFD took about 3 mins to put together. What takes time is merging them all together but its great to see the parts and how they interact before you cut them. Waiting on my delivery of acrylic this week. Cant wait. Did make one decision about pit. Whilst i want it to look as realistic as possible. Getting exact parts and perfect dimensions is silly, i could waste forever moving stuff around but millimeter accuracy on the placing of a label just doesnt seem worth it. I want to fly damnit! So function over form. And some stuff is just easier to do digital than analog...

Right, its actually time to start building panels. I think im going to wait a few months til things warm up before i get into constructing the frame. Anyway I downloaded sketchup this evening and started working on the CMSP panel. Heres the results of a couple of hours flailing around trying to learn the interface. Do we have any common reference for panel dimensions? Looking for each panel individually is going to be a MAJOR pain in the ass.... If not i guess ill start to gather them all up in a git repo for everyone to share.

My day job has me looking at some many different languages its hard to stay on track. C# is what i know best so i always go back to it, mainly because i have so many years experience with it it just feels comfortable. Supposedly i should be learning ruby and/or coffeescript on top of powershell. Javascript and c# are bread and butter for our developers so i need to stay current with those. However i can honestly say, whatever you choose Mac, stick with it. Eventually experience will make you feel more at home. Also if you choose something someone else knows theres a good chance they can help you, especially if they have a common interest like this cockpit building thingumajiggy we're all hooked on. Interestingly enough my serious development started with Access and AccessVB back when it first shipped as a 1.0 product. Oh my, those were the days :) Cant argue with donbinator views on coding with c#, if you grew up as a microsoft dev, you know where you are with it, if not then you shake your head and say "WHY!!!!!????!!!!" However tinkering with APIs means you can do some funky shit and most of the time someone else has already done it (GOOOOOOGGGGLLLEEEEE!!!!!!). oh and C++ not that hard if you stay away from the OO aspects of it, which is basically what youre doing with the arduino.

Might just be at that pete. Ive got a futaba VFD that just wont play ball. I got it working once which i think was some complete fluke. I need displays for the CMSP and CMSC panels.

Finally.... An afternoon worth of tinkering with settings and number formats and finally ive got DCS to sync VHF AM/FM, UHF, TACAN and last but not least ILS at mission start. As i plan to use LEDs only i dont need to worry about resetting dials.

I found your other post and downloaded your export.lua(at least i think it was yours). After scannign through that i noticed i was reading the wrong button value. Played with that and all is well now. So actually youve solved this twice for me. Champion! :megalol:

Hmmm, ok been looking at the VHF dials and they DONT sync up, im almost certainly repeating what others have found but they dont output values at start that are representative of their actual state. Subsequently any value they throw out during the game is an offset of the actual value. IF the dial starts the game at position 3, it outputs value 0. Change the dial to position 4 and it outputs 1... hence the offset is 3. Ok Thats annoying, except the first dial on the VHF panels is 2-15 and the dial only outputs 0-9 . And if you pass past 15 then the values shift by 3. So 15 might start at 0 but next time its 3 and after that its 6. So this is one of those situations where you need to work on increments only. Wondering if i can do an OCR on the display..... Or i might look into working out what the presets are to do the initial sync. Anyone else out there cracked this?

@ Extranajero Im pretty certain BS1 works the same way, you export values via lua. HELIOS has an interface for DCS Black Shark (not sure if thats 1 or 2) so good chance you just need to follow my tutorial for configuring HELOIS for A10 and just substitute Black Shark instead. After which my tutorial does what you need, you just need to identify what you want to export. Save yourself a headache and dont try and replicate what HELIOS does. Just work out what it doesnt do and use my method (well not mine at all) or something similar to do it. However you do it tho you will be exporting via lua to start with, after that you either write to a file (bad idea), tcp or udp packets, or serial if lua supports it. Id go with UDP. At that point you have the data and can do what you want with it. Rest is up to you.