tekadept

Hey Babok you sure can. hubscripts is what you want to checkout https://dcs-bios.readthedocs.io/en/latest/hub-scripts.html You can tell DCSBIOS to send a comman. then config hub scripts and load the approrpriate one to remap the commands to a different aircraft.

Nice work on that combiner frame definitely add that cool factor :)

Boy has the world changed since I last did an update on the UFC… My problems in January of just sourcing parts from china seems so insignificant to the issues we are facing now. I’m sorry for judging you so hard January.. I am still of course having delays with shipments from China, but some parts have been dribbling in. Enough so that I am able to come up with 2nd beta of the F18 Hornet UFC with all displays. You have already seen the scratchpad in action, now I have added the Comm displays and the Option displays. For the Comm Display I am only using a single digit.. Of course we can get 2 digit comms but sourcing a suitable display just was not possible. My solution is completely workable I feel and so you can tell when you are on a channel greater than 10 I am turning on the Decimal point. this should be enough of an indicator. Now onto the Option displays, I have the displays, and I received my PCB board finally …. great lets solder this puppy in.. plug it in push some text and oh… this isn’t right. Turns out the suppliers datasheet is incorrect and one row of pins is around the wrong way. This means I get garbage text. This is easily overcome with a new PCB design but very dissapointing. This Video showcases the current state of the unit (with garbage text) We are getting close, I am already contacting those who are after a VR only unit, they are ready to go (subscribe on my page https://www.tekcreations.space/product/f18-ufc-usb-controller/ , and I will contact you with a survey link) All thats left is for me to work out what pins are what on the Option display, redesign the PCB for those, and then test. Once thats done I can start ordering in larger quantities of stock in preparation for assembly. Stay safe everyone

Hoping somebody can help as my brain is a little fried.. I want to get the *newValue from the UFCcom1 display buffer and convert that to a uint8_t array.. My brain is fried and my googlefu is failing me at the moment with a workable solution if anybody has any tips I'd appreciate it.

Looking good PeneCruz! You can check out the panels I do on my website https://www.tekcreations.space/

Thanks for the Review Nemax, Glad it arrived all Ok and you are happy with them.

Things are still a bit dire, I have a few bits and bobs with shipping notifications of "regular' components ie rotary encoders, knobs etc. My parts that are manufactured are the issue as I'm told even though they are open for business, they themselves have supply chain issues. I've tried shopping around but I keep getting the same response. I do wonder whats its "really" like there at the moment for their industry. On the weekend I'll be contacting all who have registered for the UFC to guage what they are interested in , VR only , must have all displays from the get go or happy with VR with the option to self add Displays at a later time. That will help me future plan for once I am able to start doing units.

At the moment I don't want to take preorders as its an unknown period of time until I can get back up and running from my suppliers. I would feel bad hanging onto peoples money if delays dragged on and not how I want to operate, I'm not a kickstarter :) The best bet is on the page https://www.tekcreations.space/product/f18-ufc-usb-controller/?v=6cc98ba2045f You can subscribe to register interest. What will happen once I'm able to take orders you will get an email, I can see date subscribed so even if the order doesn't come in a certain timeframe, preference would be weighted towards earlier subscribers.. Unfortunately its the best I can offer at the moment.

Looking good PeneCruz, Currently still held up with pushing into full release mode with the China issues. I keep getting told by the reps "production resuming soon". As soon as I get the needed supplies I can start releasing the base units slowly and resume testing the my option display prototypes. I have the displays just not the chip to control them :/ or a PCB to mount cleanly. I have parts to build 2 more early VR only designs but they are spoken for by previous reservations, if that changes I'll post here.

Yep rotary encoders with push button.

Yep getting close, I have unfortunately been delayed by the china extended break due to the Corona Virus. I will be releasing 3 units soon that I have on hand that are Purely VR only, no guarantees of future displays other then scratchpad ever working on these 3 units. Signup at the link https://www.tekcreations.space/product/f18-ufc-usb-controller/ to be notified. Pic of the electronics

Thanks dailey123, glad you like the ICP and appreciate the feedback. So now it is time to finish off what we started earlier, I have now added on some bezels and finished off the bottom buttons, I’ve used MDF to fill in the spaces of future displays, For the initial and versions and those happy without I might just use some black acrylic as the placeholders. Now Unfortunately The Matte black acrylic doesn’t colour match with the top plate material, I spent a bit of time researching today but I just cannot get anything that is going to be a better match. It is just going to have to be unfortunately , but I think its a small sacrifice, and by the nature of them if anything does come up in the future its easy to replace. I finished up the quick and dirty version of the code and we have a brief video below So now I have a basic functioning UFC I’m going to finish off the enclosure design and do a bit of tidying on the PCB and tweak a few hole placements. With this design it is just the UFC, but I have allowed for expandability of a unit for the Hud Controls, that will be able to be connected (I just need to figure out how first LOL) Still awaiting some parts before I can work on the other displays, Slowly getting closer and closer.

So my F18 Hornet UFC PCB’s Arrived yesterday YAY! I made a few rookie mistakes, not allowing enough clearance for the pots with connectors but nothing to catastrophic as I can just solder the cables direct to the board. V2 will fix that. I am a bit short on time at the moment, but I was keen to get this lit up. I went through and put the top plate on, Next up was putting the buttons on (the bottom aren’t going on just yet as I need to work out the Bezel first before I commit to that) and lit it up, yep works a treat. Next was some quick and dirty DCSBIOS coding to enable the scratchpad, voila The 4 Option LED is just a placeholder to check the size, I am not doing anything with those until the base unit is fully up and running and Hopefully by then my stock of this will have arrived and I can begin designing the boards. For the channel Displays I have something in the works as well, but that one may come later than the options.. Next up I am working on the Bezels, and then the enclosure.

I have a case of where DCSBIOS is installed as well as DCS Open Beta non steam. With the latest V10 DCSBIOS, in the DCS Connection is has only picked up the standard install. Can anybody help out with how I can get the Open beta install to be picked up as well?

Having done the F18 Right Togglebox, it was time for the F16 to get some love so I have created a Right panel USB Controller for the Viper. A Video of the unit in action. I would love to hear peoples thoughts that fly the F-16 on what panels they think are the most critical on the left side for when it comes to be designing that bad boy. Now to get back onto finalising the F18 UFC :)

So I have been quiet for a little while, I’ve been finishing off the F16 Right replica panels but I have also been working out the LCD displays. Well the units I have been waiting for finally arrived china and I have come up with what I am going to do. I have decided firstly, the unit will be back lit as per the F16 ICP, that is a definite go ahead on that one, the next thing with the scratch pad I have made a decision to go for a 6 digit display. The decimal point will be used for the frequency. Now I thought I had a winner with the 16 Segment 4 digit displays, but unfortunately with them arriving, they are just too damn big. Using these would mean I would have to make the unit MUCH larger than the real thing which isn’t what I am looking at doing. A picture below of the 6 digit Display lit up, and a picture of the 4 digits I got showing how big they are. So now I have decided I am going full swing ahead with all units by default will come with back-lighting, and no displays (for the VR crowd), but the the 6 digit Scratchpad will be optional. What I am doing though is with the failure of the larger displays, as I know exactly what size display I will use and how I want them to be implemented I will engineer the design for this. It will be an add in PCB that will be developed at a later stage and can be added into the earlier models. Now I have that sorted and I have cut the top MDF for sizing, time to start working on the PCB and enclosure, More pics to come soon now xmas is behind us I just have to survive New years and it will be hard at work :)

Looks like a nice implementation :)

Looks good Phantom_Mark I do Plates seperate which is what these are, but I also do Plug and Play control boxes. Currently available F18 Replica Right Panel https://www.tekcreations.space/product/f18-hornet-replica-right-control-panel/ F18 Multi Combined Panel https://www.tekcreations.space/product/f18-hornet-control-panel/ I'm currently working on an F16 right at the moment which should hopefully be finished soon. Cheers Tekadept

B10k, make sure its the B and not the A10k as B is linear.

You should be able to have 3 of thesePCF8574 LCD1602 Adapters no problems, with those 3 address pads on it you can have up to 8 devices on I2C and drive it with your nano.

With my F16 ICP and the F18 Hornet Right Panel finalised the next step is to start working on the F18 Hornet UFC. I have started to have a bit of a noodle, on it and started to make some design choices. Firstly I am going strictly 2.5D, For the bottom row of buttons and Comm select rotaries the extra effort involved to get them realistic is not worth it so everything will be on the same level. However I definitely am going to be doing the Bezels, this is important for going by feel and will add some depth to the unit. The Measurements I have and are using is 183mm Wide, 157mm High. If anybody has an exact measurement for the panels I can use please pass them on ???? A rough render is below showing the look I will be going for. I have been trying hard to source Decent 4 Digit 16 and 6 Digit 7 segment displays, but despite receiving some samples and testing, when it came to order the china suppliers became very problematic. Based on the above, and the costs involved of working Displays I have decdied, at least initially to go for a Functional switch unit without displays. This will keep the price down, and me suitable for those in VR anyway. As part of the design I will try and make it so that I could provide “add in” modules later for Displays, but I think this might be a bit more trouble than it is worth again, but it will still be in my mind. With the lack of Displays and going for a Tacile only unit I am wondering if I even go to the bother of backlighting this version as well, I will see what impact it will have on the design as i go on. Next I am going to start looking at how I am going to do the enlosure for this, once thats done I will start cutting out in MDF for test fitting and go from there. Any feedback at this stage is welcome :)

Heya if you want to see how I am making my panels I sell for inspiration check out https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=245746 As far as machine, Laser is a better start for making panels, usually a good start is a cheap K40 ebay laser if you aren't planning on doing that much. A cnc rotary is fantastic, but I found it just not as good for the panels.

I have gone through and finalised the design and the DCS F18 Hronet Right Cockpit Panel is finalised. A video of the unit in action is available to see below. As we had the INTR LT panel the INST PNL potentiometer is what is used to dim the backlighting. There are a few hotspots and dim spots but this is just something that can’t be helped with LED backlighting but overall it does look rather nice Some pictures of the Final product and it is available for order Here. I have also got a smaller more compact Multi Version still available as well here Now I'm happy with that its time to start looking at the UFC more seriously, I will start a new blog for that one :)

So the First incarnation of the F18 Hornet USB Controller was designed as a “multi box” combining elements from both the left and right panel. Now the next step is making a Right Replica panel. This will mean the 3 Elect Panel Switches, Environmental Panel, Interior Lights panel and the Sensor Panel. The layout of these will be replicas of the real right panel, so the positioning will be perfect for those relying on Muscle memory, IE VR Cockpit Pilots. After some work this expanded the size of the Panel Box out to 310mm high, and still keeping the standard 152mm wide. Went through an did a dry fit of the toggles and Potentiometers (currently awaiting more rotary switches) Then I throw the Top engraved panel on, this still has masking tape on at this stage to help keep it protected from my grubby fingers, but you can still see quite clearly the layout. Seems a bit more work to do as a few leds aren’t shining in the right spot. I will also be raising the plate 3 mm, this will help diffuse the backlight more and reduce the hotspots. Once I get the rotaries in I will be able to get back to it and finish this bad boy off. In the mean time I’m starting mock up an idea for a F18 UFC panel to complement this next.

I could provide my PCB alone, however not sure what bits you have or how they would fit?