Alex_rcpilot

I was talking about this screen: I couldn't tell much about its content, just tried imitating with my own 7" screen, please forgive me for all those typos on it. The thing looks like the following pics when programed. The white balance on my camera sucks, I never caught the right color on this shot: This is not a drawing, it's a second picture taken in a dark room with 1/30' shotter. It's the closest color I could catch on cam. The characters appear as pure green to the naked eye, almost a perfect match with the A-10C display. *Edit: TFT screens come in different sizes, I happen to have a small collection: 3.5" 320 x 240 4.3" 480 x 272 7.0" 800 x 480 There're also other choices, like 5.7". Now all I need to know is how big the actual window is. With that data, I'll be able to build an output board with an appropriate TFT component.

Shawn, we should use linear pots. I/O card designers worked hard to ensure minimum non-linearity distortion to the signal coming from the pots, so the pots themselves must be as linear as possible. Audio pots only entertain our ears, and they do us no good when it comes to axis inputs. I need some help too. The two small text display screens in the cockpit, what are they called, and is it possible to find their dimensions? I figured the larger one has 24X11 ASCII characters, which suggests a resolution of 192X176. I searched for display components for this one, but unfortunately there's nothing of such kind available. To have a black background and green texts, this could be an FSTN negative LCD display, or an OLED display. I didn't find anything similar. Now there're too alternatives: a larger single-color LCD in a different color configuration, or a larger TFT configured as if it had black background and green text. Of course it would take a microcontroller to complete either solution. If I had the size, I might be able to decide what type of screen to start with.

Dude! I've got an IDENTICAL dial!! :D

Ouch, typos, I had that coming. I'm too careless, lol Thanks buddy, I'll try a lower resolution. I've always been runing DCS at 5040x1050 at 60Hz, and that's why the typos didn't catch my attention. However, my monitors only support 60Hz refresh rate, so I won't be able to tweak with this parameter. And I'll check out the links you offered. Thank you for the information.

Hi S77th, I'm using SoftTH109b_rc1, and I get occasional blinks on and only on the right monitor, any idea what the problem might be? [config] deviceIDLeft=auto deviceIDright=auto secondaryWidth=auto secondaryHeight=auto secondaryRefresh=auto secondaryFormat=RGB16D uploadMethod=blit forceAffinity=0 borderSize=0 sideExtraWidth=auto noHotkeys=0 noOSD=0 [Direct3D] lensCorrection=0 lensCorrectionEdge=0 hideNondefaultDevices=0 forceHorizontalFOV=0 forceResolutionWidth=0 forceResolutionHeight=0 force16bitDepth=0 sleepBeforeRead=2 useMultihead=1 delayedPresent=0 autoSquash=0 altResetBehaviour=0 d3d8dll=auto [hooks] doHooking=1 doScaleMouseCoordinates=1 doScaleFromLeftScreen=0 doScaleWindowRects=0 doScaleClientRects=1 mouseXoffset=auto [modes] 960x600x60 1228x768x60 1448*900x60 1536*960x60 1680x1050x60 auto By the way, SoftTH never worked with FSX on my computer, and when I tried with GTR2, the left monitor was completely black, yet I could click at where the exit button was supposed to be and shut down the game. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. :thumbup:

Spotted some difference, I don't know whether it's relevant, but my #1 monitor sits in the middle. My monitors are lined up from left to right as #3, #1, #4(#2 is HDMI output on the GTX295 and is disabled). Monitor#1 is physically connected to DVI#1 on the primary graphics card(GTX295) and monitor#4 goes to DVI#2 on the same card. #3 derives signal from DVI#1 on the secondary graphics card. Although I can click "Use this device as the primary monitor" for any other monitor, I've never tried it before.

Thank you so much! I think it will take an 8" or 8.4 inch monitor to fit inside the area. I have the dimensions of an 8" unit here: I'd put put it vertical and expose the area inside the pink box behind a 5*5 frame. :thumbup:

It's kind of difficult for me to figure out the exact size of the MFD's by looking at the snapshot which Wags has released. Does anyone have this data? Thanks.

Ah...interesting. Back to ground zero. This company is headquartered in Shenzhen, China. and they've got distributors all over the world. I was able to find some manufacturers who produce nice 8" and 9" monitors. But I need to actually see the product to buy it, because some panels on such products have really limited viewing angle.

Great class, I'll be focusing on using Solidworks when I have access to a CNC mill.

Yup, it all depends on personal requirements. Buddy, have you got time to log on Windows Live?

I've got an LCD at the same size, 800X480 @ 7", except with a different interface. Judging by the snapshots posted by wags, the A-10C MFD looks much bigger than this LCD, i.e, bigger than Thrustmaster MFD. I think I would go with an 8.4 inch 800x600 display for the MFD. And build my own frame on top of it.

Went digging just now and found a manual for Thrustmaster MFD. Curious! The dazzling image on the "screen" is just a piece of printed plexiglass. I thought it was a lot more than a square LCD monitor. What a disappointment. Now it's just a good looking frame-shaped programmable keyboard to me. No it seems like using lua files to configure multi monitors is the only feasible solution for us gamers. A simulator uses up a lot of system resources to generate graphic output through graphics cards, I wish there would be a way of getting real-time MFD display through high speed USB or ethernet connections, but it sounds really impractical to me.

oops, that can't be acceptable. Anyway, my major concern is how it works with the simulator. Does it generate its built-in GUI to imitate the in-game image, or does it somehow acquire the real-time MFD image from the game?

Thanks Wags, really nice job. Makes me wanna try building it.

Understood, OC solution all the way sounds good. Keep us updated with your progress. I can't help thinking how much trouble there will be when you move again with your pit.....stuff keep accumulating. I've got the same problem here with my rental, keeps me from buying large items all the time. Anyway, I know you'll work it out :D Speaking of MFD, how many MFD DIY solutions are there? I know there are some off-the-shelf models out there already, how do they work in conjunction with DCS?

Dude, you're moving? I could almost smell the new house. lol Good work anyway. Even with an out-dated picture, you may still be able to figure out most of the components that you need in the pit. What solution are you going with for the gauges? Will you simply hide an LCD behind some frames or build a whole bunch of mechanical gauges? BTW, merry christmas.

He seems to have vanished... (-_|||)

I guess that's a negative. Not within my knowledge. :music_whistling: Perhaps it's time to bring in professionals.

They define the viewing angle of the image. Dx and Dy can be decimal fractions. A greater absolute value of Dx makes the image look like it's being panned more sideways. But with that value, you need to physically rotate your left and right monitors more out of alignment with the center monitor to match the visual effect in the game. If this feels unconfortable and you decide to tune the values down, you might end up with something like 0.8 or 0.9(can't remember exactly), and find out that the images on the left and right monitors partially duplicate the center image along the joining edges.

I presume you got my message. I'll be offline till october. I'm gonna start working on it soon as I settle down at the new house. Got kinda messy here.

Funny you should say that, he was talking with me about PCB Gerber files just a couple of days ago. He will do it.

If "M" and "P" are next to each other on the keyboard, there's a good chance it'd happen earlier than expected.:D

oops, I guess I was wrong, 2 replies above, lol.

I just checked my hotmail and didn't see your schematics. What's it about? The amplifier? How long does it take you to order all those components and CNC carve the new PCB? I'm thinking maybe I can fabricate the whole stuff, test it and prepare a dozen additional components and send to Norway altogether.