Boltz

Wow! Looking great. Enjoy that beer, you deserve it!

Hi Duckling. I have read many times that pilots who go from sims to rl don't look out the cockpit enough but focus on their instruments, now I hardly look at my instruments! In the shop I looked at smaller 32" and other makes but then I saw this one and the picture quality was amazing. At first I thought it has 4k or something but it turned out just to be 1920*1080 like all the others, I was astounded by it! I had a 19-22-19" setup for a while before I started building the pit, but this is entirely different. I could have gone larger and less quantity but I felt I needed that "actually in there" feeling that I could only achieve by wrapping myself in screens. I haven't tried SoftTH as I thought it was for touchscreens but I may look into it. Got them fired up and just been flying all day. Here's a photo of the setup, but please forgive the F16 style side stick. My extension is still in pieces and I'm waiting for a new cable. It's difficult to capture the setup well, you've really got to be in it to understand it. A new graphics card is definitely at the top of my list at the moment along with a TIR.

Sorry, your reply didn't show up as being new so I missed it. I've also got a fourth monitor running at 1366x768 which has the MFCDs on and soon CDU, CMSP, RWR etc. I've not used bezel correction yet as I haven't decided on the final position. I then run a piece of software that gremlin77 designed along with another member, sorry I don't remember your name. :( It exports them to my second computer running helios on 2 screens (and another for A2DCS.) What I don't like with using a single centre viewport across the 3 screens is that if I fly with a target out to the right and then roll in hot as it moves between the centre and side screen it jumps which means I then spend a few seconds re aligning. I much prefer having a viewport for each screen but the frame rate is ridiculously low. I'm not sure what you mean by "the viewports are disabled on the main screen." Is that the MFCDs? If you could post up your monitor lua file that would help a lot. I'm don't know much about tweaking stuff to increase frame rates so something to start me off would be great. Also I had a lot of problems with DCS and when they were fixed I found my stick extension was playing up so I spent most the day fixing these problems and only got it up and running late in the evening with no stick extension. Boltz

Yeah they are big! Found some tables from around the house and with a few books got them lined up close enough for a couple of test flights. A couple of pics for now. I will get more later today with everything running. I just need to write the monitorsetup.lua. I've tried the 3 screen preset and it looks good, but I get a very low frame rate. With the 1 screen preset spread over 3 screens I get much higher frame rates but the image is distorted because it should have the 3 screens flat and in front of you. I've only got a GT640 graphics card so thinking of using the 1 screen preset on 3 screens and then upgrading the graphics card at some point so I can render all 3 viewports. Does anyone have any suggestions for what I should do?

I went out today to have a look around some electrical shops in the Boxing Day sales and I found three large boxes that I thought may be of use. Three 42" LG TVs. I haven't even opened the boxes yet as I'm still making space for them but that'll be a project for tonight and tomorrow as well as working out how to mount them. They look a lot bigger now than they did in the shop and I've got a couple of not so happy faces around the house now due to the new additions.

Nice Christmas presents, they look great! :thumbup: Can't wait to get my hands on some

Good to have another venturing into the madness of pit building. Best of luck in building your pit and make sure those "other home projects" get done or you won't be building anything else when the wife discovers why you really bought a CNC.

Looks very nice indeed and great work on the magnetic switches!

I didn't really understand it even though I published it! Reading what you've said now makes perfect sense to me and now that I think about it that is what I had to do for the UFC buttons. I wasn't expecting that for the toggles either. The first argument is for pushing the switch (pressing mouse button) and another for you releasing the button (releasing mouse button). I guess that means you can "hold" the switch when the magnet is released. It all just seems to be so obvious to me now. Hope you get them working nicely now! :thumbup:

I did a quick test for you. A flight and log check (Saved Games/DCS/Logs/CockpitCommandsLog.log.) I switched the Left and Right AC Gens off but that outputted a lot of stuff in a different way than normal. When I switched the SAS channels back on here's what I got (reformatted without all the other stuff, the three at the end don't have a time because I thought it could be understood from the rest): (Time=137.328) Yaw SAS Engage Left {C38, 3003, 1.000000} (Time=137.408) Yaw SAS Engage Left {C38, 3004, 0.000000} (Time=138.09) Yaw SAS Engage Right {C38, 3005, 1.000000} (Time=138.228) Yaw SAS Engage Right {C38, 3006, 0.000000} (Time=139.236) Pitch SAS Engage Left {C38, 3007, 1.000000} Pitch SAS Engage Left {C38, 3008, 0.000000} Pitch SAS Engage Left {C38, 3009, 1.000000} Pitch SAS Engage Left {C38, 3010, 0.000000} What that shows is that to switch one of the magnetic switches on two arguments must be made and they were 1/10 second apart. I included the time so you can see that I did not trigger both events independently. What doesn't make much sense to me is that when I turned each channel on one at a time by clicking on it, the log showed exactly the same i.e. C38, 3003, 1.000000 and C38, 3004, 0.000000 etc. I've got a test function in my A2DCS program that lets me type commands directly into DCS so I will try different combinations for input and when my friend gets back we can add the state of the magnetic switch into the exports to see what it looks like.

I have not tried it with the magnetic switches yet. Also try a flight and click the switches, disable them and all other functions and situations you can on them then check the dcs log file. Thats what I did to find the clickables for the UFC so as long as you write a list of what order you did the stuff you should be able to find what the sim did and what it outputs etc when tripped.

The panels look amazing Peter! :thumbup: Wish I had ones like those. On the software side how are you inputing the switch commands? Through the export.lua? That's what I'm doing but all the switches, so far at least, use a "clickable" command argument and a "value" of "1" for on/pressed and "0" for off/released. The three position switches use values 0.1, 0 and -0.1. That's certainly how I'm doing it anyway but I'm not sure what your controller for the switches is and whether you are using the export.lua for input as well.

I looked at using laptop screens a while back and I know a few people have done it including some 737NG cockpit builders for their upper and lower EICAS displays. From what I read it can be done with certain screens that have available schematics and those that people have worked out. Here is an instructable that I'm sure you've already looked at http://www.instructables.com/id/Laptop-Converted-to-2nd-Monitor/step1/Laptop-Modification/ A quick look on ebay shows that laptop for $1.00 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Compaq-Presario-F700-Series-No-Power-Cord-/251399025507?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item3a888cb363 I have never actually done this but would be very interested if anyone tried it.

I've got three Arduinos running on a powered USB hub no problem though I don't have any GP-wz so I'm not sure how they will perform. I don't see why they would be any differenec just make sure that your USB hub has enough power. Mine has 7 ports and can output 3A. Another I have is a 4 port and outputs 0.5A. It doesn't allow anything other than a mouse, keyboard and external HDD.

I've got the Saitek Pro Flight Comabt Rudder Pedals and they are great. Tough, heavy duty and made from metal. They've got adjustable angle and also adjustable resistance. They can be screwed down which is what I have done and it makes them rock solid. I went for the Combat pedals rather than just the Pro Flight ones because they are metal and last for years compared with a lot of reviews talking of the pro flight ones lasting just a few months. Excellent quality but I have never had any other rudders before so I don't have anything to compare them to but they fit perfectly with my TMWH. I would highly recommend them. When I've been flying a couple of times I've always been told to keep heels on the floor and just push gently. Avoids you pushing toe brakes, keeps the movement smoother, prevents you using too much force and it's also much more relaxing resting your feet on the floor.

I just love that time of year. Great excuse for some long needed parts. The instruments look great and I hope you get them working soon.

A small update. Today I realised that I needed something to handle all the common ground connections. It had to be something that made good connections and secure ones but still be simple to remove each panel's ground separately. I had some 13A terminal block in my drawers so I put this together and mounted to the left side of the centre console. I know the 13A is a bit excessive but its all I had. Now a pic of it up close so you can see the writing that I quickly did in CorelDraw. I am using DB15 (VGA) connectors for my electronics so I included a small label showing the pinout of one to help with wiring. What you can see at the bottom is terminal block for any signal wires that did not fit on a VGA connector. For example if I had 17 connections then using an extra two VGA connectors and cable for two connections isn't worth it. The next photos show the VGA connection system I use. The first image shows it for the Fuel panel. You can also see that I had two extra connections that didn't fit on the VGA connector so I used a 2.1mm power connector and socket for the RCVR potentiometer and the common ground which are both connected to the terminal block construction above. At the other end, next to the Arduino I used another VGA connector as you can see below. The other ones are for some of the other panels. The wires are then soldered to 2.54mm pitch pin strip which plugs directly into the Arduino, again filling my design constraints of something that is a solid connection but can also be removed. Sadly I can't work outside or in the garage on the woodwork, simply because of the cold here :mad: which leaves me doing the electronics but now I have done all the panels I have so far and will probably change to getting all the panels laser cut to allow me to backlight them. Not much to do except fly, which is main reason we do this mad hobby! Supposedly anyway, I still prefer building the pit than flying it.

I better start saving. But I know it'll all be worth every penny.

Thanks DM. I just can't stop myself from endlessly flying pressing buttons and flicking switches! My excitement does stop when I get shot down by a SAM. :music_whistling:

Looks like my build is about to drop off the first page so I better update. Finally today I had a major breakthrough... my first panel working perfectly with DCS and it runs very reliably. I finished the UFC by labeling the buttons using a Dymo LabelManager 210D with "White on Clear" labels on the buttons and face plate. All the buttons were then painted with a clear gloss model paint and the face plate sprayed with clear satin. The caps were then glued to the tactile switches with poly cement. Now even better, it works! A friend rewrote a lot of my code for A2DCS and we managed to get it working along with the AHCP, Fuel Panel, Fuel Select Panel and HARS Fast Erect. To accomplish this two Ardunio Megas were used. One for the UFC and one for the other panels. The Receiver Light potentiometer can be read by the Arduino and sent to A2DCS but its implementation is still to be done. Here's a screenshot of it working. The string in the Output Values From DCS World is the state of the lights in the warning panel which will soon be implemented in the pit. At the top you can see that it is setup for three Arduinos (MIP1,UFC and Various Stuff.) When we were programming today we spent a lot of time looking in the Scripts folder of DCSW for the "clickable actions" of the UFC. No matter what folder or file we tried we just couldn't find them anywhere so we started up a flight and clicked all the buttons and then spent a while going through the generated log files to find the arguments and values needed. In case anyone else is looking for this same stuff I have attached it as a PDF below. Also attached is a PDF of a diagram showing how A2DCS works. UFC Clickables.pdf A2DCS High Level Design.pdf

Looks excellent. Looks like to me like it's plans for an entire pit... from metal. Definitely interested in this as about a week ago I was thinking that there were no plans for a metal pit.

Thanks tacno that setup is probably the way to go. The SAI fooled me. I thought it was a small screen or something which shows the excellent quality of your work. I think I'm running out of words to describe it. Incredible!

I see for the MIP you used a 10" 16:9 and a 19" 4:3 screen but how did you display the AOA, Clock, SAI and UHF repeater?

Incredible cockpit and great photos tacno!

Yesterday and today have been my wiring days for 6 panels. They've been long but well worth it. Have fun and show us some more pics!