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Crosshairs

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Everything posted by Crosshairs

  1. Hi, I had been attempting to upload the schematic and board file but have been running into issues around the file size being slightly too big for github! i have opted to use google drive instead and here is the link to the .f3z file, I dont know how or if this can be imported into eagle so as a precation have uploaded the .sch and . brd files too as an alternative which should work with eagle, I hope this helps! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1j6Nblgo-qeFOnvCmw2uVO9uAvHit3B9d?usp=sharing
  2. Hi Sharkfin61, Thank you and a happy new year to you also, Glad to hear you have it working! Yes that is an unusual error which I never would of guessed so I really appreciate you figuring it out, it may indeed help someone with a similar problem in the future, Cheers Also, I might be wrong on this but I do remember reading somewhere that there is an error in the actual DCS export which causes the issue with the DIM/BRT rocker, so there isnt much that can be done about it yet unfortunately.
  3. Hi Hawgmech, Yes v66 is the latest. The link at the top of the page goes to the same place, I just coped it yesterday to make it easier to access so its not buried within the thread. I can see how this could be confusing though so I'll try to edit it, and cheers
  4. Hi Smerlin, Happy to see you got your panels! You are the pinoneer of this new PCB design but I am 99% sure it will work fine, without any physical testing there is always that nagging uncertainty, let me know of any issues or help you may need This may be a challenge for beginners to soldering due to the use of many SMT parts (surface mounted), make sure to double check the polarity of the diodes AND the tactile switches, the pack of tactile switches I got had the LED anode pin denoted by a small green dot which was hard to spot! I have attached an example of what I mean, you can only just make out a red mark on the anode lead which is red in this case since it will be a red LED; Another important note to repeat from earlier, VCC is NOT 5V, I did some experiments with my bench power supply and found that in my case it lit up brightly at around 1.9-2V at 20mA, I would not want to take it any higher than this for risk of burning out the LEDs, I hope this makes sense
  5. Thanks, and that's a chip I had never heard of until now, looks very promising! Also looks like there are some arduino libraries already made for it, so it hopefully should be a lot simpler to get working with DCSBios, let me know how it goes . On another note, I have hit somewhat of a brick wall with the display side of things, it is looking like ill need the help of an actual programmer friend to make an ethernet based comms link for the display terminal, something I wouldnt know where to start at designing. It's either that or go back to square one and waste my graphics card time exporting to a tiny 320x480 display, decisions...
  6. Haha interesting, I was hoping this would bring back memories for some students who studied this material, hopefully positive ones but who knows!
  7. PCB 2 - Electric boogaloo I have redone the PCB traces manually. It uses substantially less vias all of which are all checked for best placement. It should be okay to solder and has passed DRC runs, though I must say that it is built at your own risk, I am no expert at PCB design! Also added/changed: - Added polygon pour to PCB top and bottom copper to make it more rigid. - Added silkscreen pinout annotations on top and bottom layer. - Changed key annotation from “SLASH” to “/“ to avoid confusion The design uses x67 1N4148WS diodes (which are SMT so will be hard to solder for beginners!), x67 6x6x7mm Green LED illuminated momentary tactile switches, as well as a dual header 20 position connector on the back of the PCB which can be cut to size or built from 2 rows of single header strips. Builders of this project should pay close attention to the polarity of both the diodes AND the tactile switches, remember, the LEDs are diodes too! Connector pinout: (NOTE: VCC is NOT 5V, it needs only about 1.8V to illuminate the panel, I am most likely going to add some resistors on the board to protect the LEDs in the not too distant future) Front: Back: The PCB and Arduino code are published to the following GitHub link: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ https://github.com/crosshairs2230/A10C-CDU-PANEL.git ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note: The zip file provided should be able to directly import into JLCPCB fabrication service, I am unsure about other fabrication services but would imagine them to be very similar. Let me know of any issues no matter how small
  8. Just discovered dark mode here, that is so much better!
  9. Hello all, I recently did some searching for some military based aircraft flight training material and came across a heafty and very well illustrated 14 volume set of books from the Central Flying School (CFS), used to train RAF Qualified Flight Instructors. It covers the most basic principles of flight to more complicated topics such as different radar types and how to use and interperate them, it may be of help to some of you guys or hopfully at least be an interesting read. The publiction (AP3456) was released through a fairly recent FOI request and is free for personal studies and reference, here are the links to each volume. Volume 01 - Principles of Flight Volume 02 - Aircraft Performance Volume 03 - Propulsion Volume 04 - Aircraft Systems Volume 05 - Flight Instruments Volume 06 - Aviation Medicine Volume 07 - Avionics Volume 08 - Aircraft Operations Volume 09 - Navigation Volume 10 - Meteorology Volume 11 - Radar Volume 12 - Helicopters Volume 13 - Maths and Physics Volume 14 - Electronics
  10. Small update, the AAP panel has been fully programmed and tested. I powered the screen up using the raspberry pi and installed the necessary drivers to get it working, the problem now is getting a reliable setup to display the data on the CDU, I have been following y2kiah's GitHub guide but have run into lots of problems with the pi-blaster-mqtt installation stage when trying to execute the make command, for now this is as far as I can get. The display itself is somewhat of a disappointment, from the angle that it the CDU meant to be viewed at you get some crazy colour distortion to an unacceptable degree, I just hope this is less obvious when it is not drawing any other colour than the green and black of the CDU terminal... Still todo: - Get a reliable CDU picture on the display - Add AAP panel backlighting - Design and build power supply and backlight dimming circuit - Clean up CDU keypad code - Redraw PCB traces and fix other PCB problems - Tidy up the enclosure with 3D printed back cover
  11. After a fair bit of troubleshooting, I have found the problem and a fine example of why you should NEVER trust the auto-router... As this picture shows, it has placed a via on the circuit board which is way too close to the LSK2 diode anode, the signal it was carrying is from column 1, after my manual soldering job meant that column 1 and column 2 were shorted together, a quick reflow fixed this and now the board is working fully as intended! this will have to be designed out and I intend to completely redo the PCB traces manually as there are several more places where this kind of error could happen. Besides this, I have been working on the coding side of things and have successfully made the keypad matrix interface with DCSbios on my test rig! Still need to interface the AAP though this should be pretty easy, and then theres the display module and power supply and intensity control for the backlighting, still a long way to go. There are a few examples floating around of people using these Rasberry Pis and an ethernet connection to send the CDU display data to a mini screen, I too want to investigate this further but know very little about networking or RPis, lol.
  12. Any further news on this? I am simply blown away by the quality of the textures in this pit even compared to A-10C II, would love to see this project come to fruition one day! :pilotfly:
  13. Okay so I think I have run into my first issue :shocking: I have been trying to get the code working in Arduino using the keypad library, I have it 95% working apart from column 1 which is really confusing me. After doing the first obvious step of checking the physical components for errors in soldering, I was convinced that the error was to do with a diode soldered the wrong way around as in the picture below, yet the error persists after fixing the polarity! The code is just a modified sketch of one of the keypad examples and is still quite a way from being augmented into DCSbios, my test code is below; any input from someone more adept at Arduino coding would be very helpful :) On a more positive note, I have managed to find a perfect-fitting screen designed for the raspberry pi, which I eventually want to use to control the screen text, the only thing I had to do to make it fit was extend the GPIO pins as pictured: ​ Note: Unfortunately no front pics because without the PCB installed, all the keys fall out when tipped upright as I've tragically found out a few times! Now to get back to problem solving :D
  14. Hi Smerlin, I would be happy to share the files after some issues have been resolved, just be aware that the PCB is designed around my own personal setup but it should be able to work with yours. Initially I had some extra surface mount LEDs on the board to illuminate the lines, though had some issues getting them to work with the LEDs within the switches, in the end I decided to just remove them. After I can get mine working as intended I'll publish the Gerber files, wouldn't want to waste peoples time and money with a broken PCB! For the controller, it is just an Arduino mega and DCSbios, going this route will restrict the usage exclusively to DCS world though I don't see myself using such a unique item in any other sim. I have seen some examples of people using the micro controllers from USB keyboards which would also work though you would need to figure out the pins.
  15. Hi zippoa, the panels come as kits from the following link, though it is left up to the user to make all the electronics and enclosures etc. They are really high quality :) A-10C CDU PANEL | Thunderbolt Cockpit Panels | Warthog Cockpit Panels
  16. Thanks for all the replies already! :idiot: I have spent some time creating a mount for an Arduino mega, and connecting the wiring harness from the AAP. The standoffs from the PCB shown below serve as both a mounting plate for the Arduino, and to make the PCB flex less when the middle keypad buttons are pressed. One slight oversight was the lack of clearance for the usb connector. Rather than change the position of the Arduino I desolderered the bulky old USB connector and replaced it with a panel mounted usb socket on the rear of the unit: Very interesting that you can use DCS BIOS for the display as well, that will be something to investigate further, it would definitely be preferable and a more elegant solution as opposed to screen exports. Let me know how it goes! I have plenty of space to mount a raspberry pi though I do have a question regarding it. Can the DCS-RPi interfacing program be set to automatically run on power up (much like an Arduino), or is it a program you would need to execute from the Pi desktop space? as you can probably tell I don't know much about them.
  17. Hello all, With the exciting new release/update of the new A-10c II, I have decided it is time to build a functional CDU with an AAP as a single unit to place on my desk. I have long been interested in building a home cockpit but as of now lack the time to take on such an ambitious project, maybe one day! To kick start this project, I decided to purchase a set of the brilliant acrylic backlit panels and buttons available from pcflights.com for the CDU, AAP and also the new ARC-210 radio panel (which will be a future project!). The first task was to make a sloped enclosure for the CDU and AAP which was quickly made from scraps of aluminium I had laying around and sprayed black, next was to acquire all the switches and things needed for the job. Perhaps the biggest challenge for this project is finding a way to mount all the 67 pushbuttons on the CDU to a rigid surface and then wiring it all up. after some thought I decided the best and only practical way to do this would be to have a custom PCB made for it. I took many precise measurements of the panel and made an accurate drawing for laying out the PCB and when I was happy, sent the files off to be manufactured a minimum quantity of 5 for £15 total, bargain!. It took some time but when they eventually arrived I was very impressed at the quality of manufacturing and quickly got on with the long process of soldering everything together with close observation of polarities!, the result: And a test of the lamps: (note: the V key isn't lit in this image but it turned out to be a single missed solder joint, always one!) I plan to use DCSBios to interface with the module, as for the screen.. I am still figuring that one out More updates soon!, feel free to ask questions/give suggestions! The latest redrawn PCB and Arduino code (version 66) are published to the following GitHub link: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ https://github.com/crosshairs2230/A10C-CDU-PANEL.git ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note: The zip file provided should be able to directly import into JLCPCB fabrication service, I am unsure about other fabrication services but would imagine them to be very similar. Let me know of any issues no matter how small
  18. Amazing, thanks guys! have fun everyone :)
  19. Interesting responses, thanks guys.. sounds a lot like the open beta has morphed into the stable version :lol:, it wasn't always the case. When the idea first came to release an open beta version of the sim it used to crash for me regularly and also required twice the disc space... I seriously regretted using it at the time. :doh:
  20. Hi all, So happy to see this aircraft revisited and upgraded, and the generous price for previous buyers of the A-10c :thumbup: Based on past exeperience and woes, I am a strict user of the stable version only and as such I am willing to wait for most things to come out of early access to enjoy them free of crashes (of the desktop type!) and other torments. I am wondering when it will be released to the stable version of DCS, if anyone knows. :D Cheers
  21. Nailed it! I bought a stream deck for this mod... not disappointed :D Thanks a ton
  22. Hello all, I am having an issue with changing key bindings, here is a quick overview; First thing I wanted to do was to change the zoom in/ zoom out to the back/forward buttons on the mouse to make clicking things easier, but when going into the key assignment menu the options to do this are greyed out for some reason. I ran into this same issue when trying to rebind some of the rocker keys on the TM MFD pack to other functions, such as to change the HSI course and heading bugs. I don't see why there would be an issue with this but DCS seems to think otherwise! :joystick: I would really prefer to do this without the use of external programs since I already have around 4 background apps running at all times playing DCS, I really dont need any more! :helpsmilie:
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