brydling

It is easy to find, and most people could probably buy them cheaper than me since I live in Sweden. But if someone thinks it is a problem, I could include eight connectors and a bit of flat-cable. You only need about 10 cm of flat cable for each connector since you probably want to split them up and lengthen them individually anyway.

Exactly. Each common can be found on five pins, so if you spread the inputs in the group evenly between them, you will have to connect three switches to the same common-pin. The connectors are the same as the IDE-connectors in your computer. 2x20 pin, 0.1", flat cable receptacles. The card has eight of these connectors. Each row (two rows in each connector) have 15 input pins and 5 common pins. The commons are not really GND, so you can't wire your switches to GND or to a common in another group, you have to wire the switches to the common in the same group as the input the switch goes to. /Niclas

Interesting solution. However I think you have to "convert" the BU0836 to a keyboard emulator (in PC software) to make it work, since I don't think all simulators will let you map combinations of joystick buttons. And even if they do, you would still have the same problem as with a keyboard emulator. That is, you can get into trouble while pressing two buttons simultaneously. /Niclas

If there is enough people interested, I may produce some PCB's for my joystick cards and sell them with components as a DIY-kit. However PCB's are pretty expensive if you order less than 10 pcs. The wiring of the switches to my board is like OpenCockpits' Master Card. It is somewhere between BU0836 and BU0836X. You will still need a diode for each switch. However, every input has it's own pin in the connector. The inputs are divided into groups. Each group has 15 inputs and 1 common. I don't know how to explain because I don't know which level you are at. Just ask if you are interested. There is a total of 240 inputs and it shows up as two game controllers. Based on my experiences, I would not use a keyboard emulator. I think BU0836X or another "joystick emulator" is the way to go.

Just a question out of curiosity abot xkeys. Isn't it a very un-elegant solution to make a simpit with a keyboard emulator, or can it be done in a good way? I am thinking, what if you wire up a switch that sends ctrl+h, and you press it and hold it in. You then press another button supposed to send keystroke 'a', but since the first button is holding down ctrl, you get ctrl+a instead. I had alot of these issues when programming my cougar as a keyboard emulator for Falcon 4. I found it much better to use it as a regular game controller and map buttons in-game. /Niclas

From the DCS: WH manual I found out that six outputs will be needed for panel- and instrument lighting. Engine instruments, Flight instruments, Auxiliary instruments, Accelerometer and compass, Floodlights, and Console lights. Every output needs to have individually stepless adjustable brightness except for the Accelerometer and compass lights which only needs on/off. For the warning- and indicator lights two intensity groups will be needed, one for Refueling and Indexer lights and the other for the rest of the indicators. Only the first group needs to have intensity adjustment, the other group only have two levels which can be done more nicely in hardware (the switch can be used to switch between 5V and 12V).

Okay. Moderator can the thread please be moved to the Home Cockpits forum? I will use the LED boards for all the LED's in the cockpit. Panel backlighting, instrument backlighting and warning lights/indicators. What I am wondering is what knobs/switches are available in each aircraft for adjusting the intensity of these lights. Edit: I'll give a fictional example answer to my own question to better clarify what I am asking for: You tell me there is one stepless knob for adjusting panel backlighting/instrument lighting in the A-10. In the F-16 you tell me there is a switch for setting the panel backlighting/instrument lighting to full-/half-light, and one stepless knob for adjusting the intensity of all the warning lights. Then I know that my board for warning lights only needs one intensity channel that affects all outputs equally, and the board for panel lights/instrument lights need one intensity channel that affects all those LED's equally. The stepless adjustment for panel backlighting is not needed for the F-16, but I must include it to be able to simulate the A-10 with the same board.

Hi, I am going to develop a pair of LED driver boards and are wondering what functionality I will need for the A-10C and the possibly upcoming F-16/F-15/F/A-18. How can the cockpit lights in these aircraft be adjusted? Is it necessary to be able to control the intensity of caution and indicator lights, or is it only the backlighting that can be adjusted? Can the backlighting intensity be adjusted individually for different parts of the cockpit or is it only necessary to have one intensity control channel for all of the backlighting? My goal is to have as large number of channels as possible just as with my joystick board. Simple, cheap and with a lot of outputs. Therefore I do not want to have more complexity than necessary. If every output should be able to be individually adjusted, it will dramatically increase the cost of the IC's needed. Of course no aircraft can adjust the caution lights individually, so that would never be necessary, but if there are a lot of separately adjustable indicator groups it could be cheaper to develop a board with individually adjustable outputs than to develop some odd custom-made solution where the first ten outputs have one intensity channel, the next ten have one intensity channel and so on.. In the cases where intensity control is needed, is it high resolution adjustment or is it only a few levels like half-/full? I will develop two separate boards. One for indicators with alot of output channels where you can put 1-2 or maybe 3 LED's on each channel and one for backlighting where you only have one channel (or as many as in the real thing) that can handle alot of voltage and current for putting a large number of LED's in series/parallell. Please share the info you have on cockpit lighting in these aircraft and I will try to figure out the requirements of the boards to be able to handle all of them. Regards, Niclas

No problem, just shout when you want to give it a try!

Why a relay and not just a toggle switch?

Most interfaces are very overpriced. I built an USB interface with 240 digital inputs and 11 analog inputs (10 bit, could be changed to 12 bit easily). The total component cost was not more than the price of the maplin board. You could probably get 1000 digital inputs from the same design, just some more contacts and a larger PCB, not a more complex circuit. One little microcontroller can handle alot. So how did that help you? Not at all I'm afraid. But if you have some electronics knowledge (real electronics, not only knowing how to plug in your XBOX to your TV) and some programming skills I can assist you in building your own interface. It shows up as a joystick in Windows, so pushbuttons and analog axes will be mapped in-game just as with your regular joystick. Toggle-switches however would need a separate program. If you don't know how to write your own I think that Helios can do it but I'm not sure. Edit: I just watched one of the videos in the sticky about configuring A-10C. You won't need a separate program for the toggle switches, only some LUA configuration. However one thing in the video bothered me, the same action was used for both "switch up" and "switch down", for the emergency flood switch. That could make the real switch out of sync with the switch in the game. Maybe there are some other actions that could be used, or maybe such actions don't exist for that switch. In that case you would probably need a separate program to make that switch work perfectly. Or you could just live with having to set all those switches to a pre-defined state before starting the mission. This part will be the same whatever interface you use. Test with the cheap gampad controller to see if you can get a few buttons working, and if you are planning on getting more serious with alot of buttons you can think about making your own interface.

Nice! How do you export the CDU to another screen?

I'm glad I can be of any use! My MSN is on my profile. Sleep well! Niclas

Hi Red, Haven't read all the previous pages of your thread yet (sorry, I will!), so I don't know if you have said that you already know how to do this. I have designed both a synchro-to-digital and a digital-to-synchro converter with USB connection. Due to limited spare time I cannot make them for sale, but I would be more than happy to share my experiences. Just ask if you need any help with the controlling of the ADI, or any other synchro-based instruments. I guess that the D/S-converter is the only thing you need. And maybe one more 400 Hz phase for the two-phase AC motors that may be inside, if you don't want to fake it with a capacitor :) Keep up the amazing work! Niclas

Oh, sorry about that!

Ok, I will ask again sometime in the future to see if you have got the dimensions ready by then :) Do you mean that the whole MFCD unit is 5 inches wide? I thought that the screen area was 5x5 inches.

Nice! Do you mind sharing the dimensions?

Hi Deadman, Great work! Can you use SketchUp as a CAD-tool for generating input files to CNC-machines and such? I am learning Inventor right now to be able to make the MFCD bezels. I am planning on letting some company mill one for me in MDF and then I will use that one to make a silicone mold. My question to you is, do you have any real measurements on the bezels? Niclas

Hi, Is it possible to change the position of the instructions in the training missions? I have three monitors with bezel compensation and some of the text gets hidden between the monitors. Niclas

The instruments that use synchros are typically instruments dealing with angles, for example attitude indicators and heading indicators. You put one synchro on for example the roll axis in the gyro platform, and one synchro on the roll axis in the attitude indicator. Connect the two synchros together and the attitude indicator will follow the gyro automatically. With this solution you replace the transmitting synchro with a D/S-converter. However, many types of instruments are modified to be synchro-driven for simulator use, so instruments showing angles are not the only synchro-based instruments out there. The one in the movie for example is a brake pressure-indicator from a real AJ37 Viggen simulator. If it would have been a "real flying" instrument, it would probably not have been able to move outside of the scale. It would probably also be purely mechanical. Edit: I have to correct some facts here. First, I'm not sure that the instrument in the movie belongs to the Viggen. I just checked the pilots manual and it doesn't look the same. It could be some other Swedish Airforce aircraft (except for the Draken, I know what that one looks like). Second, both the brake pressure indicator in the J35 Draken and the AJ37 Viggen actually are synchro-driven in the real flying version too, so that one in the movie might be that as well. However the yellow chassis indicates that this particular one has been used in a simulator. Seems odd to sense brake pressure with a synchro, but since the receiving synchro (in the indicator) is driven by currents and not by voltage the signals are very robust.

At NovelAir we have long dreamed about making our own Digital-to-Synchro-converter. I have finally made a prototype D/S-converter and tested it with success! A D/S-converter outputs synchro-signals, which is a set of signals corresponding to the angle to which an instrument should point. Synchros are commonly used in aircraft instrumentation due to the simplicity of transmitting an angle from one place to another when using them. A video of the successful test can be seen at . This is a pretty simple electronics project for anyone who has original synchro-based instruments and want to control them from the computer. 400 Hz power supply required. /Niclas

Looking good! :) I tried sending you a private message Flim, but your inbox was full. Could you please add me on MSN?

Serial # 01034 Location: Gävle, Sweden

Cool! Ordering now!

It probably was about half a year ago I think. But I don't think Leo would suddenly start fooling people. Of course, something bad could have happened.