nobrot

Watching this pit very closely as I am teetering on the edge of ordering a set of Simmeters for my A10. What displays are you using behind the cougars for the MFD's? and any special trick to hooking them up? Also, how are you driving the caution panel?

Looking at the original post, I would love to turn up to a LAN party with one of those.. very cool design...

With the screwing and gluing of y2kiahs parts well under way, I now need to start some high level planning of the pits systems. Getting these laid out will help me to start detailing each system and figuring out how to implement it and what challenges I will be facing. With zero programming experience or electronics knowledge, I am putting off-the-shelf solutions at the top of my list, so here is the first pass at the high level overview of the systems and connections, I would appreciate more experienced eyes looking over the diagram, and offering warnings and advice where appropriate! To maintain portability, each major component needs to be able to be disconnected and packed with the minimum of fuss, so I am planning to connect both consoles and the front panel to the core PC via single USB cables fed from dedicated powered USB hubs. This modular approach should work unless there is a danger of saturating the USB paths? I dont know how easy its going to be to feed the MFD displays (and maybe the engine and flight instruments if I cant find the cash for simmeters), to a network connected Display PC, I would appreciate some guidance on where to start with this. Also, the core PC will be a new build, so if anyone has any advice there, I am looking for max frame-rates pushed to three projectors via TH2GO, hand over your specz! Thanks again to the community for support and interest,

Yea it is bigger than I expected; you can opt out of the front extension if your going to project, I think y2kiah designed that part to support monitors. I have the room so I am gona keep it I think, probably pop the PC's in the front there and fit some PC case fans for cooling.

Or this :) http://www.gadrocsworkshop.com/helios/latest

I could only the imagine the faces of my mates if I were to turn up to a LAN with one of those... very cool... I like the idea of a multi-purpose pit... it makes me wonder if I could plan my build so that I could potentialy mod it for other sims, it would mean pulling side consols and front panel and replace with touchscreens, could work I rekon :), I am thinking Star Citizen!!! A10/Deep Space fighter...

Dam thats a good looking seat, I was thinking of fitting a motorized car seat to my pit.. but may have to reconsider!

WarHog, excellent use of the space you have, and I bet that the night missions are totally immersive, ingenious pit, m8, very inspirational, thanks for your advice. I am quickly realizing that I am unlikely to be flying the pit at Christmas (which was my original goal, in fact I am wondering if it will ever be finnished!! But the journy will be fun, more high-level cruise than low and fast :)

Look great... really good job... I have a feeling I may be asking Santa for a set of this engine guages... so much better than presenting with a monitor behind the front panel... if only they would include the little tertiary needles too!!

Thanks for the feedback guys, I have emailed Glider to get an idea of what the costs would be to just purchase a full set. The jury is still out, but I am leaning towards just buying the lot and being done with it... @WarHog, nice looking panel, and I can see the engraving quality is very good, the material looks like one of the laminates? How well does it do with the back-lighting?

I dont know the distance from the pedals to the front, as I have not decided where the pedals will be, but I can give you the overall foot print, which is 55" wide at the rear, and 90" long with the front extension, if you decide not to use the front extension, you can shorten it by 24"

That kinda space comes at a cost... cooking nice dinners and bottles of wine.... :)

Added the front extrension, I think it looks great, the wife thinks its "too bloody big"! how to screen capture

Loose fit So step one is to see how it all goes together, and in general the fit is very good, I have not used any fasteners here, just pushed it all together. I am having a hard time working out where all the small bits go, particularly on the left flank where the HOTAS throttle mounts are. I cant seem to figure out how those parts work, so anyone that has built this area, any tips or even better pics would be much appreciated.

I have been talking to him, but the costs of getting gliders panels to me are most likely going to be prohibitive, the postal service here is unreliable, so the package needs to be shipped with an express or tracked service, then I have to pay 22% on the cost of the product PLUS shipping. So I am working through my options and costing them, but beleive me, I would love a set of gliders panels!!

OK, so having shelled out a small fortune for CNC cuts at the local favricators, I am seriously thinking about purchasing a desktop CNC rig for my panels. I really like the look of the mydiycnc, link below. I would appreciate any advice on this or other kits, or sub $1000 dolar solutions.... http://www.mydiycnc.com/complete_kit Thanks..

OK, Wood picked up from the CNC shop, I had to tidy it up and square of the inside corners, but it all looks good. It hurt the budget at $600 for the cuts, plus well over $200 for the plywood, so it has me worried when the guy tells me he is happy to do my engraving for the panels, for that kind of cash I am seriously considering purchasing a desktop CNC. Will do that in future, thanks...

Jealous of that stash of instruments... !!! Looking good Jim.

Living on an Island in the Caribbean has its advantages, unless you are trying to build something as complex as an A10 cockpit, where cold beers and clear seas dont help one little bit (although I will do my best to work cold beers into my project). Getting access to parts, materials and services is going to be a big part of the challenge, already I paid $180 in shipping and import duty for my HOTAS... so this pit will be at least 30% more expensive to build, just because of where I live... The only CNC machine I have access to is over fifteen years old!, the cuts are not particularly smooth, so the parts need some TLC when they come off the machine, but beggars cant be choosers. Here is a clip of the ancient goliath in action.... CNC1.MOV I will be trimming all the parts over the next day or so and then hope to dry assemble to see if I can figure out how it all goes together, if that works out, I will upload some pics... if not, I will be on the beach! EDIT: If anyone knows a good way to embed video and images into these posts, I would appreciate a quick guide!

Ahh Flim, its all about timing, I am already cutting y2kiahs, but yours looks great. I am certain there will be lots of interest.

Haha, I completely understand, I left my brand new HOTAS purchased for the pit build in its box for a whole day before I broke down and hooked it up to my PC... but I ...must....not.....fly....must...build.....

So after some time lurking here, and sweating about the costs in cash, time and sanity, in a moment of madness I have jumped in and started my build, and as it seems forum tradition dictates, this will be my build thread. I want to thank members of the community for sharing knowledge and in particular y2kiah for sharing his detailed plans and cad drawings, Gadroc for HELIOS, and those of you who have been answering my questions on the forum as I built up confidence and knowledge, and finally to all pit builders for the inspiration that finally pushed me over the edge! I plan on building from y2kiahs plans, using HELIOS as the main interface driven by USB controllers. I also plan on building a physical hud, and finally 180 degree projected visuals. So far I have had the CNC shop cut out some panels from y2kiahs plans, and I have dry assembled the floor section, its a bit bigger than I expected, but all the parts fit snugly together. The CNC shop made a couple of errors so I am missing one part, and have another extra part. The CNC guy said he had "adjusted" some of the positions because the gap between some of the pieces was too small, I guess during this adjustment he got some parts mixed up, so I will tackle him on that tomorrow, hopefully by the end of the week I will have all CNC cuts done apart from the front panels. I will post photos once I get something to look at.

Thanks metal, looks like 12,, will be in the ballpark, and if its not it will have to be adjusted!! Fingers crossed we cut tomorrow...

OK thanks, any idea what depth?

Question about the throttle supports on ytkiah's plans, The link shows two parts highlighted, but I am confused about the lines running parallel to the vertical edges, do they represent additional cuts? how should these two parts look after the cut? Thanks,