talisman

looks like were winning now ! wohoo Done

OK i just threw this together tonight, its not brilliant and some of the varnish didnt dry clear, but hey - were immitating an old abused russion helo that wasnt made to look pretty - right? This seems to have most of the functions that i ever use, i know you have to loose some of the buttons, but anything is better than nothing. Also, i decided against turning it on it side. As a bonus, having the wayoint button over the original "Num lock" button - gives me a handy LED indicator when i press the button.

just had a quick test - and do you know what? It only bloody works. I just assigned the commands to the associated "num" keys and all is well. Even the del key and the num lock keys work fine. gotta print some labels now.

No no, your not missing anything. I no longer need my keyboard and this is basically just a USB numberpad. I was going to change the key designations in BS to make it work. Just not sure if it will work yet :S

Just found this for £6, I was thinking for the PVI-800, it wont have allof the functions, but it could be used for basic navagation and target selection. Ive never used all of the buttons on the 800 anyway. I was thinlking of turning it on its side and changing the labels. So 1 - 4 and 7 would become 1 - 2 - 3 and 2 - 5 - 8 would become 4 - 5 and 6. That would leave 4 buttons on the side and one large "Target" button. What do you think?

printed - laminated - in in the cockpit. Thank you. rep+1

This is indeed true - i was just simplifying - it is automatic, but the result is the same - no shkval.

Pulling hard on the collective can cause a sigificant drop in RPM this is enough to disable the shkval. Remember the KA-50 was experemental at best - the generators where built for other aircraft and only produce enough power for the electronics at almost full RPM. There is a beeper - when you hear the beeper at startup and change pitch thats the indicator for the amount of power being produced. Also when the above happens you will loose your damper setting as well and will see three green flashing lights where your solid Autopilot lights where.

Just a quick update, I have been busy reciently. In fact i have been bitten so hard by the pit building bug, i now enjoy it more than flying. Anyway - the whole point of this build is to see what a guy can do if.... 1) money is tight 2) The wife is watching. So i made a couple of purchases. Firstly was another monitor from ebay (£15) Its a 17 but thats ok. I then bought a triple head 2 go, i bought one second hand and went for the analougue one - im using 17" standard monitors - ill never be able to afford 3 wide screen digital ones and i figure - hell if i can afford the screens ill be able to afford the TH2G upgrade as well. TH2G cost me £90 and as an interesting back story - was used by the BBC in an outside broadcast truck. Been doing some fine tweaks - my lighting is now dimmable as are all of the panel lights and status indicators. I have also added a new built in 15" monitor for BSVP this is just below the main monitors and is angled for the best view. It rus of a 12 volt supply embedded in my right panel. This is my current view of the world of DCS. Who knows - perhaps one day ill even fly the bloody thing. Below is the Pit with the lights on. I have just had another BU0836 pop through the door yesterday, this will be the last. This will be for my lighting, the datalink panel and the Abris buttons, then its done! New buttons coming after Xmas woo hoo. I have been trying to join a squadron - but noone seems to be interested. The only ones i have found so far are flying FC and refuse admission if you dont fly planks. Tell me what you think guys - am i the only one, or are others still trying to find a home to fly from. Night night.

woohoo piccies! I like seeing piccies!

ok set digicam to movie mode and give us a tour. I would love to see that thing in moving pictures :D PS Slayer - nice vid.

yes yes - piccies!

good luck!

brilliant ........... just brilliant. so when do i get mine??? :)

dont know if it helps but i found these guys http://www.lumatech.com/products/annunciators.php and a cheaper version in india - http://www.shahelectronicsandelectricals.com/electronic-control-panel-acccessories.html

Im getting a little bored with BS but i still just love flying it randonly. What i would like to see are more campaigns being posted, i cant figure out the mission editor and i figure most others cant as well. I love the 2 campaigns that i have now - deployment and oilfields, but i really hope some more are made by the wonderful community we have here. Just a little wisper, but wouldnt it be bloody awesome if ED made a few missions in the Afgan theatre. I would give my back teeth to be able to refly a Jugroom Fort style mission. And i am sure it would povide a LOT more interest to those flying the Shark now.

A word about toggles. For the duration of this project i have been using svmapper software, mostly because i used the older versions of leo's BU0836 boards which for some reason all show up in a weird way in vista. This ment that every time i connected my wall panel and the cyclic - it would show as one big controller and not 2 individual controllers. so svmapper was the only option as it shows each button individually. BUT then i read BaD-CrC's post telling me about XPadder and since then my world has changed. This is a blinding piece of software. For £5.99 (uk) you get the ability to add as many inputs to the software as you wish. you can arrange the graphical user interface to show not only your buttons, but you can place them as they sit in your panels - making it much easier to find switches that are out of number order. But best of all, Macros can be added to buttons without needing to know any programming. you just press the buttons on the keyboard in the order they need pressing. 200 buttons - programmed in about an hour and a half. Howzat! seriously - if your using bu0836 boards - you will get the best from them by using this software. Another neat trick is the ability to assign key strokes to joystick axis. reverse thrusters, flaps, gears, even the rotor brake can all be assigned to axis. how cool is that? Something previously only given to us by the likes of FSUIPC and of course not available to BS flyers. Did my first fully switched mission last night, no keyboard except to center my trackir. WooT. Cheers CrC. +1

CRC - I just wanted to say thank you for the update on the XPadder software. Had a look at this yesterday as i wasnt happy with the svmapper software i had been using and was annoyed as to how limited my autohotkey programming was. Thanks to the £5.99 i spent yesterday, and your advice - i also performed my first "without mouse and keyboard" startup.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ what he said!

londo ..... that is a brilliant idea. i never would hve thought of that . im off now to put dots on my panels.

this is a good idea but i think it can be a little bit of a hog for resources. This means that each switch has to be connected to 2 switch functions on your boards. So essentually you half your switch matrix. By using svmapper, you can use SPST toggles and assign 2 functions to each, thus giving you the same thing but doubling your swith matrix. However i can see one advantage to your setup. With mine, i have to reset swithes on the ground and if they are out of sync they do bizarre things. IE if my gear switch is up, and i start on the ground, by putting the gear toggle into the down position - my gear will rise. I assume your setup jumply ignores it if that condition is already set. I do use DPDT toggles, but use the other pole to light status LED's.

in short - toggle switches. Take gear for instance - with a toggle mapped to the sim - then the switch is flipped the signal will be sent once. then when its flipped again, nothing will happen. Or if repeat key is on - the when flipped the gear will go up and down all the time by itself. So I use svmapper, this allows me to use 2 functions - one for when the toggle is flipped to on (gear down) and again when its flipped off. gear up. so - button one - toggle - when activated (press G) when deactivated (press G). simples. If your using press buttons - you dont need svmapper, if your using toggles - its a god send. Its also good for bu0836 boards that all have the same name, its a night mare finding all of the buttons on each board in the game when they are all called bu0836. Svmapper allows you to watch each button and add an input, you dont need to know which board is which. hope this helps. and sorry for the late reply.

Not what your looking for i know - but feel free to use anything of mine.

awww you guys just rock.