Gadroc

Nothing should be connected to the ICSP header. That is for flashing firmware to the controller. Trace the wires for that connector and I think they will be the brightness knob. Connect them up to the three pin BRT connector.

I have one. I'll see about posting up dims tonight after work. It is a complex 3D shape if you intend to build a perfect replica, but the general outline is fairly easy.

SoftTH by default turns off Aero. There is an option in it's config file to not disable it. I'm at work right now and don't have access to my config files to give you the setting to turn on.

You can use the layers section in the editor to make items on top of each other. You can move items up and down in the draw order. Second there is a visible check box on properties of an item. This sets whether the item is visible on startup of the profile. In the editor use the layers section to toggle visibility only in the editor.

You can use Helios to translate axis into commands which set those values.

Yea. DCS World has made some changes to where and when the export files are read. Helios has not been updated to look in the new locations. My pit building / personal software development time has been very limited this year. At this point I intend to open source Helios so others can help develop it, but it will take me a little bit of work to clean things up so it's ready for that. I have some bits around donations and old DRM code that need to be removed first.

Wow... a motion platform plus this would be incredible. I imagine the platform would have to be dead on with the immersive visuals or else it will feel weird. Also you would have to figure out how to compensate for platform movement in the motion tracking. I'm looking forward to getting the dev kit to try out a few things.

Some of the DIY resin printers use a projector instead of a laser. These would have a constant time per z layer. Unfortunately you can't scale them with out loosing resolution (aside from in essence building multiple of them in one frame). I'd be very interested in what your planing on building which could scale to 50 grips for under $3k.

Have you done the math for build time/cost into that decision? While the output product is incredible resin printers are SLOW even compared to fused filament printers that take 15-30 mins to print a whiste. In addition the resin will likely be much more expensive per volume than the a acrylic sheets. For personal part building they are great but it will likely be a very poor machine to build lots of low cost parts which seemed like your original intention. Of course you could be planning on casting or injection molding based on those parts as well, but I can't see you getting enough volume to meet your quoted prices using those techniques.

I also would caution selling your personal parts. By all means take a step back and relax, but its sometimes hard to reacquire parts. It's amazing how quickly passion can reduce when your spending more time on other folks parts than yours as well. Being careful how much you sign up for that helps.

There is a know. Big in Helios servo support as it doesn't properly remember your servo type on profile load. Unfortunately I did not get a new release done before leaving for a business trip. I'm currently about 8000 miles away from my dev/build machine and won't be able to generate a new release till March 12th.

Are you using DCS World or pre-DCS World? The log was moved in DCS World to Libraries/My Games path.

Are you using TrackIR? If not you can just have Helios render a static picture over the hud, similar to how you do the MFD button overlays.

I'll have to look into it. I don't have one right now.

Depend on what you mean exit the software. The Export.lua is reloaded every time you start a mission. So you can just hit exit and then "fly again" while testing lua changes. I know the primary time drain is the 3d engine starting, but at least it's a few less clicks than fully exiting the main menu as well.

Excellent progress! I can't wait to see some of this installed and running.

I believe the SU-25T should work with the basic FC2 connector in Helios. It will not have all the detailed gauges like a DCS branded aircraft. I will have to double check to see if I can extract specific gauges out of the SU-25T or any of the FC3 aircraft.

Very nice setup... pretty cool the things you can make with nothing but flat sheets of acrylic.

Whole bunch of mil-specs here.

Yep Mike. Figure 1 has the case dimensions and the panel cutout. Moken search this forums as that Mil spec is already posted.

Keyboard emulators are extremely limited. There are a limited number of keyboard combinations and every application on the computer will receive them, regardless if they want them. Second you will run into problem with controls that need a held down or constant on signal. You also can't poll for current position easily. I would highly recommend avoiding a board which is only capable of being a keyboard emulator. It may be a great quick start, but make sure you can either use it as a DirectX controller or pragmatically read input states with out sending keys.

Nice!

<Rant On> WOW. There is a significant difference in reluctance to share information and available time to package and communicate said information. Asking specific questions will get you faster answers. There are MANY posts on this forum where people ask very very broad questions (how do I wire up a pit is one of them). Writing firmware for embedded systems is not a trivial push this button and done endeavor. Neither is understanding the intricacies of writing a bus protocol to communicate across many daisy chained devices. In my experience people who complain of this lack of this last piece of crucial information, want people to design everything for them. I try when ever possible to help folks, but I usually back away quickly when it becomes someone asking about a pit specific activity but the real questions are "how do I write a program" or "how does a electrical circuit work". I just don't have the time to teach them. If they ask specific questions about programming or something I can answer about electronics I'll explain it. Good riddance I say to you... Head off to your magical land of everything already explained. Ironically I realize I'm feeding the troll who talks about trolls. This ends my part in any following discussion on these lines. </Rant Off> This is no disrespect to agrasyuk here btw, as he is actually thinking it through out loud here not actually asking some to tell him exactly what to do. I just missed the last parts about EOS when this post rolled around the last time. Yes. All of my boards are prototyped first with a standard Uno and a breadboard. I have a set of libraries I use to make writing the firmware easier. It has a standard wrapper which * Replace native Arduino serial library with EOS bus stack * exposes pins (either native or through MCP230* i2c IO expanders) as either Digital IO or LED outs. * Expose PWM pin as a backlight dimmable channel * Expose pins connected to a stepper driver as a stepper motor For my purposes I design circuit boards which embeds minimal circuitry to run the "Arduino" side of the house. That's actually cheaper, since PCB manufacturing costs are the highest cost by far (you have to order in qty>25 usually or pay $20+ per board). Since the panel boards will communicate over RS-485 the USB port, USB - Serial chip, several headers, etc are all just unused cost in the Arduino you buy to go under the shield. ATMega328P + Crystal and other support parts are < $10. The EOS protocol is a multi-drop bus protocol. Each of my EOS boards has a RS-485 driver on it so boards can be daisy chained together. To do this you either need a RS-232 to RS-485 adapter and select direct Serial EOS in Helios... or build one of the EOS Bus shields which piggy backs on a normal Uno and off load bus polling to a microcontroller. That is just the USB/Arudino IDE reseting the board. Since EOS boards use the Arduino boot loader you can load anything you want.

I use steppers on several of my gauges. You just need the right kind of stepper drivers. Helios does support both Phidget boards but they are expensive. The uni-polar board is cheaper but it's slower than necessary for fast instruments like the altimeter or VVI. It works fine for the IAS. You want a 400 step per revolution motor for nice smooth action on a gauge. Not sure what they use in printers, and it may vary.

Thanks. I usually work from the "no price listed" = "I don't want to pay that price" play book. I ended up ordering some of the push/pull switches from Pep Boys found in this thread.