escar

Hihi. Yeah. Proboably it simply takes more patience and money to play sims. But I know a couple of kids who play them too and I'm pretty certain that the amount of younger ppl here is a bit higher, but maybe they don't show it. :) Ah, BTW, I didn't feel targeted. :D But for a moment there I thought that you implied what now I know you were not implying. :D I've been building things since I was a kid. And dismantling things, to know how they worked. In most cases it wasn't a cartoon scenario when after putting everything back together you have a ton of "spare parts". :D Of course in some cases it was just like that, so family had a ball trying to hide remote controlled cars, etc. from me when I was a really lil kid. My bro is the same. Even though it's a pity that some of his contraptions never come to a working order, it's still great to have someone with similar interest, if not for building something together, then at least to share the burden of paying for new tools. :P Hyhy. I know what you mean when you say "I used to" and "don't have time". I've started earning money when I was 15ten, yet I always had time for tinkering. However a time came after the university, when the combined "burden" of normal job, extra job and some other things (expl: woman :P ) made it impossible to find time for it. And for lots of other things. This wasn't good. If you put aside such things and leave only "imporant" things, at some point a person may just burn out. I'm not sayin' it'll happen to you, but... I'm young, yet I've been there and seen it happen. My old school coleague, who's 24 years old, had a heart attack last year. Another, after working 20 hrs/d in his firm, had something what might translate as "identity crisis". Another, very close friend, experienced a rather unpleasant episode of depression. Etc., Etc., Etc. I haven't went that far yet as they did, but some things were not so right either, so I slowed down, took a moment to look around myself and then a longer moment to actually find myself again. Sounds pretty psycho-bable, but it really makes sense, once you realize that recent stomacheaches are not stomacheaches but probable signs of ulcer. :> Without the psycho-bable, translated to plain human, it may simply mean... going back to tinkering, among other things. :) That's healthy. My granpa is 97. I doubt heavily if I'd be able to reach it if I didn't start... tinkering again. Another thing is finally learning how to balance work with life. And another thing is ... finding new places of peace in life (expl: spliting with gorgeous, but wicked one :P and falling for a even more gorgeous, but with a big heart one. :> ). Damn... when I start to write I can't stop. :> To sum up, I've learned from my experience that waiting for the right time to find time, doesn't work. Because everytime there'll be something new, more work, more challenges. Untill you decide that the time is now and find the time. Even enough time to take up another university course (still can't decide between psychology and some cultural studies :> ). ps: HAHAHA. Why don't you stick to the motto from you signature? :D You'd have all the time you want for tinkering. :D Haha. :)

I could do it even now. I would require additional 61 buttons, another 30-40 m of cable and probably three evenings extra. :) All I'd have to do would be to solder wires to all pathways on the keyboard and then attaching those wires to the board. With all signals "out of the keyboard" I could loose the keyboard casing and hide the keyboard board entirely in the mini-pit casing. there's enough room in there to fit it in. If someone so desires, he/she might try to do it. :) I too at first wanted to make cables for all pathways, but I never wanted to put them all on the panel. That panel is a mini-pit and in a true plane you have no controls for... hihi, pause, time acceleration/deceleration, views, etc. :) I only wanted to put real aicraft functions on the panels. :) During the making of this mini-pit I finally resigned from the idea of having wires for all pathways (just in case they come in handy), because even now (although it may not be so clear on the pictures because they "flatten" the view a bit) there was a JUNGLE of cables. I actually had to make larger holes both in the pit and keyboard to fit them through. As for the materials, I used the following: 8 x 3 position, two section temporary switch = 24 zl 5 x 3 position, two section permanate switch = 12 zl 50 gr 1 x 3 postition, one section permanate switch = 2 zl 40 gr 30 m of TDYd 2x0.5mm cross red-white copper cable = 13 zl 20 gr 20 x temporary, square button = 20 zl 13 x temporary, round button = 11 zl 70 gr 8 x temporary, small square button = 8 zl 4 x temporary, larger square button = 4 zl 80 gr 1 x angular impulsator BCD = 12 zl 90 gr 1 x black knob for the impulsator = 4 zl 30 gr 0.40 x 1.82 m MDF board = 11 zl 90 gr 0.80 x 0.20 m particleboard = 2 zl 77 gr 3 x aluminium profiles (1 m long 10x10 mm ) = 15 zl 87 gr 1 x military gray pain in spray with enamel = 9 zl 95 gr 2 x gray metal handle = 9 zl 20 gr 0.150 kg x screws for cartoon-plaster boards = 2 zl 70 gr Total: 166 zl 19 gr Hmmm, a bit of correction here. 4 x temporary, larger square button = 4 zl 80 gr were actually round buttons. And I also replaced 8 small square buttons with the buttons of the same size as the previous bunch of 20. Small buttons were simply...tooo small. Ah... and I think I had to add one more button for a function I forgot about... One sec... (counting pieces on the mini pit)... there are now 46 buttons there and 14 switches. All buttons are temporary. 8 of the switches are temporary, the rest is permanate. :) Another note, I should've bought 40 m of cable instead of 30. I run short and had to cut old UTP-5 ethernet cable to scavenge some extra cable. You can also scratch one aluminium profile. Two were enought to get a nice mettalic look and I didn't cover all the edges, because I didn't feel the need to do so. Panels were made from the MDF board. It's a great thing to work with. You can cut it even with a kitches knife and yet, after painting it gray, it doesn't look like wood. :) You just have to be extra careful not to damage it during building, because it's prone to damage from sharp objects (well... you can cut it with a knife, so go figure :) ). I'd probably make it all out of MDF (it's prolly fibreboard in English), but the vertical walls had to be thicker (screws were too thick for MDF), so I used partical board. It made the whole thing much heavier, but I didn't want to complicate things by adding some extra profiles to connect the pieces. It was easier to just screw them all together with plain screws. :)

Lol. :D Who says I'm a kid? :D Pilotasso, I have a day time job and sort of a private practise too. There are days or even weekes when I work 12-16 hrs a day, day after day. :) But work is not everything and if it is, then one soon goes bananas. :) Making this mini-pit was a damn fine way of forgeting about work after a hard day of work. :D Try it. :P :D Hihi.

HAHAHA. :D That one was purely for fun. :D I suppose it MIGHT work, but it'd be really cumbersome and a player would have to sit very still. This solution is much better: http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=14714&highlight=Cyborg+evo and yet it is still very cheap. :) I loved my "Redneck Throttle". :D Haha. It was meant as a joke, but it actually turned out to be working. :) I even used it for some time. As for this one, I was really inspired by the "My New Toy Thread". ~215 dolars for such a thing is too steep price for me. So I thought about making a thing with similar functionality, but for less money. I went over the board a bit with costs, because I wanted it to cost much less, but once I got into building part I really couldn't stop myself. :D So... basically the goal was to make a thread with complete instructions on how to make the cheapest "mini-pit" possible (note, I only came up with the name "mini-pit" yesterday... but it best describes the pictures :D ). I think however, that it may not be "the cheapest", because I have some ideas on how to really make the cheapest pit :P , but those ideas are... well, same shelf as "poor man's trackIR". :D While this... is really a sturdy piece of equipment. :)

I can't remember what was the first RL thing that caught my attention regarding flying. I know that I was into sailing and flying for as long as I can remember. I do rember though my first flight sim. It was Ace and Ace 2 on Commodore 64. I used to force my brother to play with me in Ace 2 (it was "multiplayer"). He hated it. :D But it was so much better to have a human oponent then the computer controlled one. Then, still on C64, there was Solo Flight. You had to go from airport to airport using VORs to deliver mail. Scenery were just dashes and dots but this was first sim to feature a working cockpit. Then came Amiga and with it... a leap in technology. I played Wings II (I loved the climate of that game, music, everything), F-19 Stealth Fighter, F-15, GUNSHIP 2000, etc. (BTW, in parallel I was playing sub sims like Up Periscope, Silent Service I and II, i686 Attack Sub). Then I switched to a PC and it was... ugh... a bad experience after Amiga 500. First sim I bought for PC was... GUNSHIP 2000... and it look awful compared to Amiga's version. Time passed, there was no real sim in sight and then... Strike Commander came. This was not a pure sim, but still, I loved it. Played a couple of times. There of course also was F/A-18 Hornet Korea. And then... I was trying to choose a new sim when I read an article in gaming press, about a new great game from russia. Flanker was it's name. Author was semi enthusiastic, saying that the game rocks, but it's hard to play because cockpit is in Russian. LOL. That's when I got hooked with ED. The sad truth is, that each of my computer upgrades since then were motivated mainly by the need to play Flanker (LO-MAC) with better graphics and no stutters. :) ps: Not flight sims entirely, but I also remember playing X-wing all the time during IT classes in my primary school. And then TIE Fighter. And then, not at school but at home, the Wing Commander series. In "The Price Of Freedom" I was totally in awe, when flying my little craft around those great aircraft carriers. The list of games is loooooong... but these come to mind in first flashes, at least considering the topic of simming (Ah, for subs... Silent Hunter II!!!! With Destroyer Command. What a game. And Sub Command... man, I stopped playing because it got tooo complicated even for me. :) ).

Ye, gods! It works! <Dr Frankenstein voice on> IT'S ALIVE!!! MUAHAHAHAHHAA! <off> :P All buttons work. I was pretty worried that some cables or solders might've been damaged at some point, but signal goes through all of them, so it works 100%. It's a bit hard to fly without the labels glued on yet (hence the A4 paper you see on the photo), but... after couple of minutes fiddling with it I had all right side controles memorized. BTW, I have an idea how to make good labels. :) In Polish it's called "kalkomania". You buy it in shops for kids. There's a set of color papers in it with letter profiles. You place a letter profile on the surface, then you put this paper to it, press a couple of times and a letter is "printed" on the surface. To sum up... this thread is now officially a complete guide on how to make a working mini-pit for ~44 euro! :D Enjoy. :D

FINISHED! :) Or at least the technical part is finished. All that is left to do now is to put some labels on it and add some sort of gauges or TV screen in the empty area. :) But technically... it's good to go. I'm taking it out for a spin now. :D Cheers!

Almost there...

I managed to download the pictures I made with celular to my PC. Here they are showing the initial state of the gizmo. :)

I'd love to have the version with SFX too. :) So please upload it when you have the time. :) I've seen both movies and they are the ones I wanted. :) But here's another thing: The scene with lot's of bombers dropping their payload is not in those movies. The climate of Unleash Hell is very similar to the climate of that movie I remember. But in that movie there were REALLY long shots of B1B or Tu-160 dropping their payloads on cities. Does anyone remember which movie it was? I haven't been around for a year, so it has to be a movie dating back to 2004. Any hints? :)

God DAMN IT!!! Only 6 cables left to solder to the keyboard and the damn soldering iron overheated so much that it stopped working! I'm trying to cool it down right now using a fan. I hope that it's not broken. If it is... damn, that would be a prefect case for the "Murphy's Laws" book. Only six cables... damn it! EDIT: It started to work again after cooling down. I'm attaching two pictures, one showing the keyboard's board with all the wires and another showing how they stuck out from the casing. So, soldering wires to the keyboard is finished. :) As you probably see, I only made the necessary wires, not for all the buttons. Why? I didn't have enought cable and to tell you the truth, I didn't have the patience to do the rest. Soldering those that are there took two evenings already! :) I'm finished with it for today. Since tomorrow I have some other plans, I'll prolly get back to it on weekend. With some luck perhaps I'll be able to finish it on Saturday and test how it works. :) I'm only affraid that I made some of the cables too short, but I'm not going to open the case and resolder longer pieces. I'll just lenghten those that will require it.

Wooow. Niceee one. Guy had to spend a lot of time building this. :O And money too. Hehe, I wouldn't mind if someone made such a pit as a present for me :P , hehe, but for the time being I only have time and money to build what I'm building. :) But... nice pit. :)

All buttons are momentary buttons. 8 switches are momentary switches. Two section, to avoid signal mixing. 6 switches are not momentary switches, but this is on purpose, because these will be for functions that require a held key, like refueling, fuel dumping and ejecting, etc. BTW, I'm writing this post on the semi dismanteled keyboard with already over a dozen wires sticking out of it. I have soldered wires for all buttons located on the left side of the panel. Hopefully I'll manage to solder wires for buttons up to the right handle, leaving only the mechanical and radio switches for tomorrow. The picture shows keyboard in it's current state. It may not look so on the picture, but there are already many wires sticking out, making it harder to work on the keyboard. The fact that my soldering iron is not designed for working with PC equipment, makes it hard to make proper solders (I keep making too big ones, which overlap over several pathways, causing some abnormal keyboard behaviour. :> EDIT: It's really late at night here, so time to go to bed. I'm replacing the photo with the most current one, showing present state of the keyboard. I think that over half of the wires are now already there. I still have to do mechanical systems, flight modes, radio and altimeter. Hopefully soldering all those wires to buttons will be easier then soldering them to the keyboard. :) If I keep up present speed ... I may be able to finish it tomorrow. :) Cheers. EDIT: Picture from this post was removed to make space for other pictures. See below for a picture of how the keyboard looks like with all cables attached.

Update: Whole project came to a sudden and painful stop yesterday, when I realised that I can't use the BTC keyboard for it, due to how the pathways on that keyboard are laid. This problem bugged me entire day at work and even after thinking about it for some time, I couldn't find a soultion. Luckily I have several keyboards in my junkyard. After returning home I gathered all of them and dismanteled them all with the help of my brother. It seems to me now, that finding a right keyboard is the most cruicial part of making such a device as mine. Some keyboards had the same pathway solution as BTC. Some had pathways embeded in RUBBER and couldn't be used either. Finally I came upon one keyboard (one!!, damn it, among so many), that ... was (and is) perfect. I mean it's better then I even hoped for, because it has A LOT of space underneath for the cables AND all imporant pathways are ended with a solder! So I don't even have to drill any holes. I just have to solder the wires to solders and voila. I'm happy, damn it. For half the day today I was almost convinced that I'll have to scrap everything. :) Here are the pics of the backs of the BTC keyboard and the other no-name keyboard. BTC keyboard is the one held closer to the camera on the picture. You can see, that there are very intricate pathways on the BTC and almost no solders sticking out, while on the other keyboard solders stick out in groups of threes. :) EDIT: Damn... I think I'll need more wire. Like ... mmm... 30 m more. :| EDIT2: Had to remove the picture of the BTC keyboard to make room for other pictures.

Some more pictures. All buttons are now attached. You may notice a large free area near the right handle. I'm thinking about attaching some sort of fake TV screen there. So far I came up with nothing. Do you people have any idea what might work as a TV screen imitation? :) If not TV... perhaps I'll try ... some gauges. Haha, maybe a small thermometer. :D You may also notice that there are no small buttons. I went to the store today and replaced them. Simple truth is, it would be too hard to mount them. I had some problems deciding which color should go where, but the final outcome seems ok. From the back, main panel looks now like the insides of a very old TV, like one of those with lamps. I hope that all buttons work. I'd hate to be forced to unmount some of them (nearly ripped off my fingernails mounting them). Do you guys have ANY idea how to make labels for the buttons? I mean, plain printout on the paper will look terrible on this "quasi-metal" surface. I don't want to paint or write on the panel itself, because there may come a time when I'll want to change button asignments. Any idea what to use? I'm thinking about taking several (4 maybe) pieces of A4 foil and printing the labels on them with laser printer and then putting those foils on the panel, of course with holes cut out in the foils for the buttons and switches. Is it a good idea? ... That's it for now, I guess. I suppose now came the time to leave the pit for a moment and take care of the keyboard itself. Which means I have 204 wires to solder to the keyboard board. :) Cheers.

Alright. Got my camera back. :D So here are some shots of how the "weird thing" looks like today. I made some pictures yesterday with my brother's celular, but I don't have the means now to transfer them to my putter. But there'll be pictures showing how it looked like before painting. Hopefully today I'll be able to finish placing buttons and I'll finally start soldering wires. :) BTW, to tell you the truth, when I was looking at all the wood before painting, I was a bit sceptical, but ... now I'm really starting to like how it all starts to look. :) EDIT: Had to remove three pictures to fit some more in the thread.

Most probable button layout. I'm trying to draw it on the wood right now. I'll see how it looks. BTW, imporant thing, you can't use some areas due to the fact that the buttons stick out a bit on the other side, so there has to be space for them to fit. EDIT: Drilling holes finished. I had to use size 10mm bit for switches, size 12 for buttons. I also had to use size 25 mm, but not to drill holes, but to remove some material from around holes made with 10 mm and 12 mm. Because some buttons were to short and I could't mount them properly, because even MDF board was to thick for them. I ruined one button trying to mount it, so I'll have to buy a new one or actually two, because I seem to be missing one more (now two more). So, basically, base is screwed tightly together with back, sides and fronts. Panels are still loose but now all holes in them are made. After making the holes I took the spray and painted whole thing. Two layers on everything. At first I was very disappointed with the effect, but after the paint dried out... wow. Wood with this paint on now looks like old, worn out metal. Verryyyy nice. :) Since the painting is finished tomorrow probably I'll start soldering wires to the keyboard and testing if short-circuiting gives desired effects. And the day after tomorrow I'll probably begin soldering wires to the buttons. NOTE: Due to the fact that it's friggin cold outside, I didn't paint the thing outside or in the garage, but in the largest basement of my hose. Ppl, even though that room is really big and I opened all the windows.... I still fell a bit dizy. :) So children... don't try this at home. Paint the bloody thing outside, with a mask on. ;> Hihi. Nigdy, ppl. I can barely keep my eye opened. :)

Thanks, guys. :D I'll try to download them ASA I get home.

There are such cameras available in Poland, however I'm not too fond of them. I have this tendency to think about the world my grandchildren will inherit and I don't want them to live among piles of garbage. I sort my garbage, try to buy things that I know I'll use untill they die and even then I strip them for parts which I later use in various contraptions (ie. electric engine from old washing machine used to build an wind powered electric power plant :> ). Besides, my scanner dates back to 1994 and it takes forever to scan anything with it. :> All this + the fact that my camera should be back from repair today... :) I want it back today, because this way I'll be able to shoot the thing while it's still in quasi-dismanteled state. Right now only back, sides and fronts are screwed together with base board. All three panels are still loose, thing is not yet painted and there are no holes for buttons yet. I'll be doing all this today in the evening, if time allows. Drilling will be the easy part of the today's evening. The hardest part will be planning the proper layout of the buttons and then transferring the layout to the panels, so that all is straight and leveled. After this I estimate two-three evenings for soldering all wires together and making required holes in the keyboard. I don't have the exact measurements yet. I'll have to get back home to measure it all and place it on the diagram. However I'm attaching this diagram with measurements I still have in my head. I'll add the rest in the evening. A bit of description for the diagram: base - it's a base :P , all things will be attached to it, keyboard will be in the center, closer to the player (me), back - positioned vertically at the farther side of the base, screwed to it tightly, this part will support main pannel, so that it stays at a given angle to the base, main panel - this part will be attached to the back with it's longest side (four screws), the shorter side will rest on the base freely (for easier maintenance, I'll only have to remove the 4 screws in the back), most buttons will be placed on this panel and also below it there'll be space to hold all wires with surplus wireing (in case of any modifications) sides - vertical parts placed at the sides of the baseboard, these will provide partial support for the main panel and main support for side panels, sides are tightly screwed with base and back, side panels - this parts will be attached to sides with two screws each, shorter sides will rest on the base, I'm planning to put here buttons for radio commands + some additional non essential commands, basically these side pannels are an attempt to "break" the main panel so that the whole construction doesn't look so "plain", I couldn't carve the main panel and side panels so perfectly to avoid creating some gaps at the connecting edges, but I'm going to cover them up with aluminium profiles, fronts - these parts will be placed vertically and will cover the hole created between base, side panels and sides, at first I thought of making some kind of grills, to make it look like some sort of ventilation, but gave up the idea because I couldn't find a good "grill looking" material in the workshop. EDIT: Changed the attachement. Now it has all necessary measurements. NOTE!: This is not a rocket or nuclear precision type measuring! :D If you could see the whole thing up close you'd see how crude the wood looks. All of this should be smoothed out with the help of some paint, aluminium and a bit of filling material + good glue. On the schematic left and right parts are shown equal. :D Well... my hand slipped a bit while cutting right side panel so in reality whole right side panel and right side are a bit smaller then the left side and left side panel. :) So, no worries people. If your hand slips 5 mm one way or another it's not a catastrophy. I mean... it's just for fun. :D

Hi. :) The woodwork is ready. All items carved/cut out and most of them in place. Only the top panels are still not screwed on, because I have to make holes in them for buttons. Not a big problem there, I have a power drill with a set of boring bits, so the moment I measure and mark it all up, it'll be like 5 minutes of wwzzzzoooommmm .... wzoooooom .... wzooooooooom and ready for painting. :) I didn't do three spearate boxes. I made one large front panel with two small side pannels attached to it. Keyboard sits in center. I wish I had my camera to take pictures of it all. Hopefully I'll have it tomorrow. Also, right now I don't have the time to post the exact sizes of all pieces, but I'll do it as soon as possible. Having exact sizes of boards I bought with exact sizes of actual panels, with ruler, pencil and saw you'll be able to make a copy of what I'm building in nno time at all. :) ps: I'm lazy. Really lazy. Instead of using hand saw to cut it all I used ... angular grinder. :> Cutting itself was fine. Only thing though... I produced so much smoke with it that I had to leave the workshop for a moment. :> Then I tried to use grinder also for some finetuning carving (the tops of chipboards that create walls have to be skewed a bit for better positioning of the panels) which led to a destruction of two plates for the grinder. :> One damn thing actually exploded. Very nice shrapnel. :> But basically, it's possible to do it all with a: hand saw screw driver power drill one normal bit (for easier screws placement) a set of boring bits (so far I only made holes for cables, but later these will come in very hande for all the buttons) ruler pencil piece of paper free morning and part of the afternoon family that won't scream FIRE FIRE even if there's tons of smoke coming from the basement (such family is only required if you're trying to use angular grinder with plates for metal cutting... for cutting wood. :P ). Cheers.

Hi. I had those on my HDD but I can't find them now. Either I recoreded them and hid the DVD so well I can't find it or I unknowingly deleted it. No matter what happened to it... I want them back. These are possibly greatest LO-MAC movies ever. Does anyone happen to know where I could download Unleash Hell (it doesn't have to be the DVD format, even the DivX one will be fine) and Maximum G? I use those two regularely to show ppl how LO-MAC looks like. Without them... I use other (OCT, 23rd promo, 3GO, Superiour Fighters, Nightstalkers, VTFC videos, etc.), but the scene from Unleash Hell where B-52 drop their bombs... Only OCT is close to it (the climate). Anyone? :) Pretty please. :D

Hmm, forum board screwed up the list of keys a bit. Here it is in TXT. Should be much easier to read. 112233.txt

Hi, ppl. My camera is still being serviced, so ... no pictures still. That's a pity, because I bought all the materials and wanted to give you the idea how it all looks like. However, I now have the full list of items needed to build "Wacky Pit" (hopefully). 8 x 3 position, two section temporary switch = 24 zl 5 x 3 position, two section permanate switch = 12 zl 50 gr 1 x 3 postition, one section permanate switch = 2 zl 40 gr 30 m of TDYd 2x0.5mm cross red-white copper cable = 13 zl 20 gr 20 x temporary, square button = 20 zl 13 x temporary, round button = 11 zl 70 gr 8 x temporary, small square button = 8 zl 4 x temporary, larger square button = 4 zl 80 gr 1 x angular impulsator BCD = 12 zl 90 gr 1 x black knob for the impulsator = 4 zl 30 gr 0.40 x 1.82 m MDF board = 11 zl 90 gr 0.80 x 0.20 m particleboard = 2 zl 77 gr 3 x aluminium profiles (1 m long 10x10 mm ) = 15 zl 87 gr 1 x military gray pain in spray with enamel = 9 zl 95 gr 2 x gray metal handle = 9 zl 20 gr 0.150 kg x screws for cartoon-plaster boards = 2 zl 70 gr Total: 166 zl 19 gr which in euro is ~ 43 euro 70 eurocents. Hmm... as you see I only took two handles, it took smaller buttons for eject and kobra, I also didn't get the connectors for wires. That's because I really wanted to keep it as cheap as possible. :D I think that I can live with it. :) What started as an idea that was supposed to cost no more then 40 zl, turned out to be an idea which costs me ~44 euro. :> Am I complaining? Damn me, I'm not. I'm having fun. Even my bro, who was at first very sceptical of the whole idea, now wants to help me with the woodden parts. :D With the info above, all of you people thinking about similar thing, now have an idea of what is needed and how much it may cost in Poland and probably Europe. Now, I was thinking of posting scans of the keyprintouts, but they'd take forever to load and are not all that interesting anyway. I'll write down here all key assignments with correlating buttons. So here it goes (I've changed some key assignments, some were cleared completely, some were changed to diff key assignments, I'll list those changes below/ this is a printout for the 1.02 version of the game / I'm building this for Su-27/Su-33/Su-25/Mig-29, so some essential stuff for F-15, etc. may be missing): Alt - - 3 position, two section permanate switch Shift - - same (same article, not same button!) Control - - same (same article, not same button!) Down Arrow - Trim down (cleared) - temporary, square button Up Arrow - Trim up (cleared) - same (same article, not same button!) Left Arrow - Trim left (cleared) - same (same article, not same button!) Right Arrow - Trim right (cleared) - same (same article, not same button!) H - Toggle ASM - 3 position, two section temporary switch (combined with toggle auto-throttle) U - Toggle onboard lights - temporary, round button K - Exectue "Pugachev's Cobra" - temporary, larger square button T - Cancel Trim Settings (key changed to Ctrl+T) - temporary, square button (placed in the center of trim buttons) + - Increase BP of the Altimeter (cleared) - temporary, small square button - - Descrease BP of the Altimeter - same (same article, not same button!) H - Toggle auto-throttle - 3 position, two section temporary switch (combined with toggle ASM) Home - Airbrake out - same (combined with End) End - Airbrake in - same (combined with Home) Ctrl + EEE - Eject - 3 position, two section permanate switch + larger, square button E - Toggle ECM - temporary, round button B - Flaps down (cleared) - 3 position, two section temporary switch (combined with F) F - Flaps up (cleared) - same (combined with B) G - Toggle landing gear up/down - same (combined with 9) 9 - Toggle arrestor hook down or up - same (combined with G) 0 - Canopy open/close - temporary, round button P - Release drogue chute - 3 position, two section temporary switch (combined with Y) Y - Toggle folding wings (key changed to Ctrl+Y) - same (combined with P) N - Dump fuel (flight) or refuel (ground) (cleared) - 3 position, one section permanate switch M - Jettison fuel tanks (cleared) - 3 position, two section temporary switch (combined with R) R - Toggle refueling boom - same (combined with M) X - Toggle gear light Near/Far/Off (cleared) - same (combined with L) ~ (tilde) - Select next waypoint or airfield - temporary, square button A - Toggle auto-pilot - temporary, larger square button 1-8 - Various flight modes - temporary, round button ~ (tilde) - Cycle through targets - same button as for the "Select next waypoint or airfield" TAB - Lock selected target or target point - temporary, square button Ctrl - Extra control switch for TAB and W - same (same article, not same button!) D - Cycle through weapons selection - angular impulsator BCD (function=turn) W - Toggle cannon (key changed to C) - same (function=press) Q - Dispense chaff&flare - temporary, square button Insert - Dispense chaffs only - temporary, round button Del - Dispense flares only - temporary, round button Alt+W - LPO - temporary, square button + angular impulsator BCD (function=press) Ctrl+W - Jettison weapons (airborn) reload (ground) - same control button as for TAB + angular impulsator BCD (function=press) V - Toggle salvo mode (key changed to Ctrl + V) - temporary, larger square button I - Toggle radar illumination on or off - temporary, square button O - Toggle EOS - same (same article, not same button!) Shift + I - Reset to center all sensor - same shift button as for scan zone/designator box + temporary, square button Keypad - - MFD zoom out - temporary, small square button Keypad + - MFD zoom in - same (same article, not same button!) ; - HUD target designator down - temporary, square button , - HUD target designator left - same (same article, not same button!) . - HUD target designator up - same (same article, not same button!) / - HUD target designator up - same (same article, not same button!) Shift+;,./ - for radar/EOS/TV scan zone movement - same + ;,./ buttons [ - Radio: Attack my target - temporary, small square button ] - Radio: Cover my six o'clock - same (same article, not same button!) Shift - for extra radio commands - temporary, square button Shift + [ - Radio: Wingman on mission>join - same shift button as for "shift + ]" + [ Shift + ] - Radio: Windgman on mission>RTB - same shift button as for "shift + [" + ] Alt - for extra radio commands - temporary, square button Alt + ] - Radio: Toggle formation - same alt button as for "alt + [" + ] Alt + [ - Radio: Rejon formation - same alt button as for "alt + ]" + [ Alt + H - Radio: Request AWACS for bearing/distance TB - same alt button as for "alt + []" + temporary, small square button Alt + T - Radio: Reuqest AWACS for bearing/distance TT - same alt button as for "alt + []" + temporary, small square button Keypad Del - Enable/change padlock view - temporary, square button Keypad Numlock - Disable padlock view - same (same article, not same button!) Sht + Keypad Del- All missile padlock toggle - same shift button as for scan zone/designator box + Keypad Del Alt + Keypad Del- Threat missile padlock toggle - temporary, small square button + Keypad Del L - Toggle Cockpit Illumination - 3 position, two section temporary switch (combined with X) These are all commands for LO-MAC I want to transfer to the board. Hope this is pretty selfexplanatory. Switches might be a bit confusing though. Temporary switches simply have two keys attached to them. The rest is usually diffrent switch, sometimes with shift, alt or control added for extra commands. ps: Damn it!!! I forgot to buy the connector for shifts, alts and controls. Grrr.

Sure calculations: 8 temporary switches - 24 zl (bought) 5 permanent switches - 12 zl 50 gr (bought) 1 permanent big switch - 2 zl 40 gr (bought) 2 impulsators - 25 zl 80 gr 8 temporary small red buttons - 11 zl 20 gr 13 temporary red round buttons - 11 zl 70 gr 19 temporary black square buttons - 19 zl 30 m of 0.5 copper cable - 12 zl 3 aluminium profiles - 17 zl 70 gr 6 handles - 12 zl ?? screws - 5 zl 2 square m of fibreboard - 10 zl 3 square m of chipboard - 21 zl Total: 184 zl 40 gr Damn... I overshot with all those switches. :P So right now it seems that the whole thing will cos 48 euro for sure. I also need 2 really big buttons for eject and kobra and two medium buttons for autopilot and map. An I'll need some paint. I think it will add aditional 20 zl to the picture. Due to incrising costs I've scrapped connectors for wires (they'll go straight from the keyboard to the dashboards) and lamps (can live without them). I'm thinking now about scrapping one impulsator and replacing it with a temporary black square button. I could also cut 5 zl from the picture if I resigned from transferring trim to the boards and kept it on the joystick. Hmm... got to think about it a bit more. But if you're interested in costs... here's how it looks. At least by prices we have here in Poznan, Poland. :) EDIT: I'll need 6 connectors for shift, alt and control cables. I'll have several shifts, controls and alts on the dashboard so I'd have to make a separate cable for each and every one from the keyboard. With connector, I can easily solder those extra cables to the connector and have just 6 cables coming out from the keyboard for the alt, shift and control. I've drawn a picture of the boards and tried to place the buttons there and it seems that I actually only need two boards. One for "flight operation" and another for "combat". So... this should also cut the cost. Mmmm... maybe I'll manage to get it down to 150 zl? :]

Ever heard of reading first then replying? ;) I've mentioned in one of the above posts that I'm going to keep this a bit blog style, for one intent and purpose: To trail the line of thought and document the stages of the project. Why? For people who actually might be thinking about doing a similar thing, but not convinced that they could actually do it themselves. To show that I'm just a regular guy, not a technic-wiz, a guy who has to go into a shop and says "I need this something, with this thing, that does this thingy, you know" and get THAT look from the sales person who thinks "OMG, not one of those again, f....g amateurs!". :P I don't know how this will finally turn out to be, but if it does great, someone might just read the whole damn story and come to a conclusion: "Hey, if this dude can do it, so can I. And I don't even have to worry about stuff and find solutions, because this dude has written all up here.". BTW, I'm also going to post scans of the notes, schematics and also photographs. I'd already post some, if it weren't for the fact that my camera is broken and I'm supposed to pick it up today. Most probably during this weekend I'll post the tables for key bindings and what types of switches and buttons could be used for these. Hey... as I said. I'm always trying to bring something good to a community I feel part of. BTW2, I don't like blogs. Didn't like Big Brother either. Watched one episode of it just to make sure that I don't like such shows. Everything remotely similar=> TV OFF/change channel. If saying the above makes me a blog kind of person... hmm... I'd say that it's more like this guys page: http://www.f15sim.com . If I start to say what I had for lunch (haven't had lunch yet, actually :P ) and if I already pooped today, then... I'm definetly going bloggy. And then feel free to spank me (You big boy, you. ;PPP ). So far, at least IRL, people have reacted very positively to the endeavour. Just two minutes ago I was speaking with two guys who I know as alarm system technicans and when they heard of the idea, they gave some nice suggestions and then confessed that after hours one of them is a radio technican on the airport and the other does aircraft electronics in general. I was like "WHOOA?? You guys??". :D And in some of the shops I visited people were like "Damn... that's new." and they flocked from all over the shop and even brought the equipment to check exactly which connectors get shorted with which, when a given button/switch/trigger is in position A, B, C, etc. Least, but not last... if you're not interested... skip the topic. :) As for the wacky idea itself... I've been to that last shop and JUPIII, they had them. I now have 8 (their entire stock) temporary, three position, two section switches, 5 permanate, three position, two section switches and one permanate, one section, three position switch. ... errr... I kind of got carried away when I saw the first ones mentioned and then that last one had such a nice cover, etc. :P I'm going to use it as "fuel dump" switch. You have to keep the key pressed in LO-MAC for fuel dump, so it might aswell be a permanate switch. What all this means in plain human language. Those 8: They have six connectors placed in two rows of three. Switch is temporary, which means that it returns to a given position when not pushed. In this case it stays in the centre. When it's in the center, no connectors are connected. It's three position, so you can push it up or down. When you push it up, the middle conncetors connect with the connectors that are up. Pushing down=vice versa. In a normal situation, where the middle connectors would be just plain ground or +, you could attach up to 4 diffren cables to the switch. However, due to the fact that in keyboard I have to keep each pair of patchways separated, I can only attach 4 cables total to the switch, which means that each pushed position will give me one key. I've changed the key assignments a bit, so now I have separate keys for flaps up and flaps down (without shift/alt/ctrl... just one key). So, if I connect the "F" key to the "up" position and "B" key to the "down" position... I'll have flaps up-down switch. AFAIR there are only two systems in LO-MAC which works this way. Why did I buy 8 switches then? Because I decided that I want to have entire mechanical and some of the flight system controls controlled with switches... because it'll look cooler. The permanate switches are very similar, same connectors short when the handle is moved. The diffrence is, that the handle of th switch stays in position when it's moved. I'm going to use 3 for permanate shift/ctrl/alt on and two more... still thinking about it. Acutally I could've just aswell buy two position, one section swithces for this task but... they were the same price, so... :). The last switch is pretty straightforward. It has an ON-OFF-ON position. One section only, which means that it has only three connectors. The central connector connects to either right or left connector depending on the switch position. I'll just connect one pathway to the central connector and the other patchway to the other two. This way, regardles which way I'll push, fuel dumping will start. Hopefully after this explaining it all still makes sense to everybody. :) I now have to count the functions again. I know I need two impulsators. So that's an easy buy. But I now don't know how many buttons I have to get to have enough for the required set of functions. So... it's back to paper and markers. :)