LASooner

Here's the 3D printed pieces as they came from Shapeways after I cut them off the sprews Here you see the VDI, the center button hole was too small so I had drilled it out a little, I also thought that was the case with the hole for the hud filter pull, but It was too close to the wall. Also the holes for the caution lights were too small. So I've adjusted that in the 3d models. HSD was pretty much good to go as it's pretty simple over all. Really like the way this turned out, the screw holes are too small and have been adjusted in the 3D object. This was the VR only caution light blocks, but when they showed up, I realized the mount holes were too small and if I was going to all this trouble, why not make the lights work? So this is the revised version designed to hold LEDs. The holes were just a little too small, so I made the holes bigger with an exacto knife and will fix it in the model. I also may make the fake screws look more like fake screws.

The VDI and HSD were modeled in Maya and 3D printed Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

I want to take care of some of the issues I ran into and had to manually fix, but the plan is to upload them all to Shapeways and make them downloadable, currently the HUD filter handle is already there as it worked exactly as expected. I'm not putting any markup on these so if you have them print them you're paying the price they charge. The quality was really good though. For that price it better be. All of them will show up here, and if you click on the Handle that's already there you can see at the bottom of the page you can download it. https://www.shapeways.com/shops/lasooner-3d-junk

So this happened. You can see what all it replaced here

So I finally got tired of waiting for someone else to make and sell the thing I wanted and finally got around to 3D printing my own design. I got motivated to do this when I bought a used Tekcreations ACM panel, and needed to reconfigure the other VDI and HSD controls pictured above, so I figured why not make it look like the real thing. It needed to work with my Virpil long desk mount so I set about modelling a VDI and HSD in Maya, and make it fit and work with it. I'll jump straight to the end result I play in VR, so you may be asking yourself, "why go to all the trouble?", and my answer is .. Because I have to look at it when I'm not playing, and it's more satisfying. The button above the VDI screen is for toggling the night filter. It also gave me a reason to learn a little about Arduinos, LED's and DCS-Bios sketches. Since I don't have a large format printer I just printed them through Shapeways, and it allowed me to print the filter handle in steel. I really had fun working on this stuff, so I have jumped in on the Ankermake M5 printer on kickstarter and plan on making the rest of my pit more realistic and maybe a little more visual bling like the radio freq LED, bit test LEDS, etc. I really haven't given the new setup a run though yet, but that is my plan tomorrow. There might be space for a small LCD monitor, but I don't intend on doing that. Currently I have my GearFalcon board and my Arduino attached to the opaque plexi. I miss judged on a few things, like the mounting holes on the top to attach the ACM panel so it's kinda mangled up there. Also screwed up the hole position for the filter switch, so I had to fill in the hole with some plastic putty and re drill a little further over. I fixed it in the 3D model. I plan on making a new housing for the Tekcreation ACM panel to more closely resemble the real thing and adjust for the angle that I'm currently using washers to get. If I had cheaper L brackets I could have bent them, but I tried standing on them and they didn't budge. The button is for the Jettison cover, the ACM cover automatically goes up. I also want the ACM panel to have the same level of "wear" and I want to make a functioning jettison cover and more to scale and shape of the real thing. If it works out good enough, maybe I'll have Shapeways print it in metal. I will also probably make the fire lights at that time as well. The holes on the back are spaced to work with the Virpil mount and it holds the 2 panels together, There are also screw holes in between the 2 panels with a pass through hole for the wires but I didn't need to use the screw holes.

Does anyone have the dimensions of the pilot cockpit front panel?

I'm having an issue, I can't figure out how to get the blank light to be controlled in DCS Bios, it illuminates during the startup test, even if it doesn't do anything while flying. Mine is getting light spill, but the led is not illuminated because I don't know how to control that particular one as it is not listed in the F-14 plugin reference I know it doesn't matter much, but I would like it to function as it does. Any idea what that light is called? DcsBios::LED pltVdiLightWaveoff(0x12de, 0x4000, A1); DcsBios::LED pltVdiLightWingsweep(0x12de, 0x8000, A2); DcsBios::LED pltVdiLightReducespd(0x12e0, 0x0001, A3); DcsBios::LED pltVdiLightAltLow(0x12e0, 0x0008, A5);

Is that the metal hand grip version? Last year, I got the mostly resin version with hall effect sensors for something close to $900. Others I've spoken to, who got one as well, seem to have gotten different functionality. My wing sweep lever is microswitches for the various positions, which actually worked out ok as I adjusted the controls LUA to recognize when I lift the lever, then put it back down when I put it in a specific position. Others got an axis for their wing sweep, but you still need to bind the lift to something with that and add the axis to the LUA as well. You could create an input that would reconize the cover lift to also lift the lever and put it down when you close it. As I have said to others, I like it, it's not worth it at these prices, and for that I can't recommend it, but I'm like you I will stupidly pay to have fun the way I want to. I know other have had issues with Roberto, but he was helpful when I had an issue with the hat switches, and after figuring out the problem sent me a new set of hat switches. It's a hobbyiest item at professional prices. Take it for what you will. Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

Third parties still make scenery for MSFS2020, It wouldn't be any different for DCS. ED will have to come up with some procedural way of generating an earth, It probably means licensing from either google or bing and overlay scenery and functionality over the considerably low fidelity map geo. Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

Tell Jester to select stations 2 and 7 and you can jettison them yourself whenever you feel like it using the acm jett button Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

I would recommend getting Viacom Pro plugin for voice attack with AI RIO add on for communicating with Jester. Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

This link is F-16 side panels Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

I tried it out and have a couple thoughts: As silly as it may seem, it would be nice to have the option to disable interaction and just render hands so those with sim pits can just visualize hand position without inadvertently blowing the canopy when I'm trying to lower the hook. Those with 1:1 pits would benefit the most as you wouldn't have to feel around for a switch if you can see where your hand is going. Having an option for the hands to cast shadows in the cockpit would be great, so I could block the glare from the sun on a critical MFD or dial that I'm having trouble seeing otherwise. A keybind for turning them on and off like the control stick or pilot body would nice and super useful. As I mentioned above, if you move the joystick or throttle axis the hands should snap to that control and stay there. Be able to set an adjustable dead zone to keep micro axis movement from snapping your hands inadvertently, also to set how far your hands move before they become unlocked from the control stick If you have the stereo parser set to TRUE in autoexec.cfg, the hands don't render at all. Aiming at switches and buttons is kinda difficult to hold still, it would be nice if what your targeting would auto aim assist a little. Still not really clear as to what causes it to register a click, sometimes when I turn my wrist, sometimes just moving the thumb. I notice if my finger was directly on a switch and I move my finger it would press a button or throw the switch. Kinda dangerous. setting the aim point to the tip of the index finger and not a laser pointer, make it so it's only "active" when the index finger is extended and the other fingers are curled. I'll continue to monkey around with it, it's not there yet, but it could be good. Separate from DCS, Leap almost needs a second stationary sensor to track the hands when they're out of your viewing cone.

I think if you move the joystick or throttle axis the hands should snap to that control, this would eliminate the need to get your controls exact to the cockpit. Maybe set a adjustable deadzone range so micromovements won't cause the hands to inadvertantly snap to the controls. Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

I recommend Gear Falcon's boards, they're really easy to use. https://www.etsy.com/listing/794934352/gear-falcon-joystick-controller-micro?ref=shop_home_recs_8&frs=1 He also makes these interface boards for rotary switches that makes setting those up really easy too https://www.etsy.com/listing/969109964/encoder-board?ref=shop_home_recs_11 Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

I use one, but only for the buttons and scroll wheel. The mouse aspect of it is pointless. I use my head to point at what I want to press, and just use the mouse to press the button. It works out well. They sell these on Amazon too btw. I use it on my left hand since I can rest my hand on the throttle and still hit the buttons. Using it on my stick hand didn't feel good especially when you need to hit something mid dogfight. It was cheap so I was surprised at how well it worked for my purposes. Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

Your axis command doesn't have a cockpit device id, so it's not sending the value to anything. I don't know what device would be, I usually can find that data from the clickable lua. you were also missing device commands. I'm not a pro when it comes to this stuff, I just monkey around with it until it works. So someone else might have a more informed thought on it. {action = device_commands.GEAR_Handle, cockpit_device_id=devices.GEARHOOK, name=_('Gear Handle')}, Yours should probably look something like this {action = device_commands.iCommandPlaneDownStart, cockpit_device_id=devices.????????????????, name = _('Vehicle Accelerate'), category = _('Moving')},

I do that in the Tomcat, I created an axis command for the landing gear and use a throttle quadrant to do it. I just put it in the default.lua for the F-14 pilot. {action = device_commands.GEAR_Handle, cockpit_device_id=devices.GEARHOOK, name=_('Gear Handle')}, Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

Had one happen today, that I hadn't heard before, I inadvertently started a mission with my landing gear handle up and the plane started to sink down, and Jester says "Autobots roll out!" trying to imitate Optimus Prime from Transformers.

Yes it's a throttletek, no those hat switches came with it. The only upgrade I had done was hall effect pots for the throttles. Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

The BFM calls along with the bandit calls seem a bit disjointed, one second he's panicked the next he's calling me Dale Earnhardt and to slow down. I don't know how you fix that, but it does break the immersion when his emotions are flailing all over the place. Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk

Finished the TACAN, added a designated switch for VSL and PAL. Probably done for now, will wait and see if Tekcreations makes a light panel for the right side since I already own his environment panel

I came here to ask the same question, will existing mission need to be updated or will the new clouds just show up based on the weather data in the mission?

"Chief update!" GROUND CREW: Unable.

sounds like reflection probes Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk