Red's A-10C Pit

Nice pics bud. Thanks for sharing. :thumbup:

My TACAN has a a separate board under the light plate, with traces going to each holder and it is soldered to the internal connection that provides power. It's an older model I believe than yours.

I have a question about the dimensions of the Tacan. I looked through the thread and found the dimensions of the HSI and am wondering if the Tacan is the same width as the HSI at 5.0"? Would you be willing to measure the height and thickness of the face plate as well as the width of the rear enclosure? Since you have the real thing, I would like to use these measurements as my reference point for the rest of the cockpit and go from there.

The stuff in this thread is gold! Thank you for posting, some incredible stuff here.

All side console or DZUS mounted panels are 5.75" wide per the MILSTD on aircraft panels. That is for the mounting plate, the face plate must be .062" smaller than the mounting plate on either side. So the faceplate is 5.75 - 2(.062) width. I don't have the height of the panel in my head, but DZUS hole spacing is is .375" and if i recall correctly, .170" from the center of the top DZUS to the lightplate, but thats off the top of my head. So you can get a rough guestimate from that.

Panel width between the rails can be no more than 5" in width, and no more than 6" in depth. Faceplates are generally .250" in thickness.

Fantastic! Thank you KLaFaille. This is all I need as I can figure out the rest with this. I was having great trouble tracking down dimensions as my knowledge of these things is very small. I was not even aware of the MILSTD. It makes perfect sense, but the thought just never entered my mind.

Start searching google for MILSTD and MILSPECs. Most of the important shit is online.

Start searching google for MILSTD and MILSPECs. Most of the important shit is online.

That was the missing piece. The moment you mentioned it I knew exactly how to refine my searches. Thank you.

@Deadman: I'm an engineering student, I reverse engineer things in my head all the time.:D

@MILSTD: I got most of the documents I have from http://www.everyspec.com/library.php

I attached a list of what I have. Some of it is completely useless, and not all of it I got from everyspec.

Directory of Mil Standards.doc

@Avilator Thank you. Here we go, this is what I was looking for.

MILSTD and MILSPECs = Exactly what I've been searching for but didn't know existed.

Been doing a lot of researching and work on the digital side of things lately, modeling consoles, panels and various bits. Lots of tedious prep work, but it will ensure that things go smoothly when the physical construction really starts to begin. I've attached a very rough and early stage of the PORT INBD console. All the major dimensions are 98% accurate to the actual aircraft, I have to work on the internal structure some more as can be seen.

A real Emergency Flight Control panel came in (thanks again, you know who you are ;)). The panel is complete with all the necessary indicators, the hat switch, and even the proper molded piece on the FLT CONT switch. I have to do some poking and prodding to get the backlighting and indicators to work, haven't had the time yet. The indicators are hard enough to find on their own, the hat nearly impossible, so to get a complete panel is pretty exciting.

I also got in around 10 feet of DZUS rail for mounting my panels, not enough for everything by far, but I had to verify certain aspects before going through with the entire quantity required. I will go about modifying it as needed to work in the side consoles that I am designing. I threw some of what I have on the rails just to see it all together. :D

Ignore the bottom three panels, those have no place in the pit, I bought them because they were dirt cheap and I can use the rotaries, pots, internals, and DZUS fasteners elsewhere.

The TACAN panel is for sale, BTW. PM me if interested.

LEFT INBD CONSOLE - 21APR11 by KLaFaille, on Flickr

IMG_7180 by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Great work as usual!! :)

Wow, nice work. This is starting to look really good!

...

Cool stuff you have there, looks good. It inspires me to speed up my own work.:thumbup:

Look for more specs in attachment.

:worthy:

Just what I needed to work on the CAD for my recreations of these instruments!

Thanks.

And another bunch of specs.

Thanks for sharing Olgered. Great value :thumbup:

Updates and stuff:

Though I'm not posting nearly as much, work is still happening behind the scenes. I have multiple things being worked on that are all at one stage or another at this point. I'm going to have to prioritize what I want to get done and start doing just one thing. Having the attention span of a gnat has it's disadvantages sometimes. :doh:

Collecting of stuff hasn't slowed down much though. So here are some of my customary gigantic sized pics of the new shit that's come in, with some more on the way.

First up is a real throttle quadrant. Obviously I'll have to change out / mod the right grip but that shouldn't pose too much of a problem. The light plate is NVIS Green A backlit, it has the switch guard doo-dad installed, the switches all work like they should, including the transducer to slew the cursor / weapons. No more ghetto itty-bitty nub mounted in a fake transducer face for me, thank you very much. ;) Interfacing shouldn't be all that tricky, there are super high quality pots already installed in this thing, the switches are straight forward, but I have to play around a bit with the transducer to see if a Microcontroller setup will be required or not. I may hack apart my Warthog throttle for the control boards and have a plug and play USB real throttle. As an aside, don't believe that bullshit Thrustmaster spewed about the switches and buttons feeling "true to life" in terms of feel to the real thing. While the Thrustmaster buttons and switches are a notch above most mushy crap out there, they are not even remotely on the same playing field as true mil-spec switches. Nothing but marketing BS.

Panels (1 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (2 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (3 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (4 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (5 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Second, the proper Cockpit light minus the correct base. The panel will have to be made for this, basically a plate with 4 Dzus, a guarded toggle, and the proper base to mount the light in. The light runs on 28V DC and the red knob on the end is the dimmer & power control for it. It has a built in red filter that is actuated by turning the front head of the light about 180 degrees.

Panels (6 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (7 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (8 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Third, here's a real A-10 control stick, minus the linkages and boot. The silver deal on the bottom is the stick shaker which is nothing more than a weight geared to a DC motor that when fed 27.5V DC spins around and wobbles the hell out of the stick. It's used as a tactile means of informing the pilot of an impending stall, for example. The yellow paddle is the emergency disconnect, which disengages the SAS when it is depressed. Oh, and that's my Warthog stick attached to the top of it, set to the proper angle.

Panels (9 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (10 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (11 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (12 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (13 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Panels (14 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

And finally, just a shot of a couple other toys that came in. A nice Simpson 260-7P analog multimeter, and a spiffy vintage Tektronix 100Mhz dual trace 465 analog O-Scope which is going to come in quite handy when I go about building my DC to 400Hz AC inverters to run the real instruments. Can never have enough multimeters, and old scopes look so damn nice, especially this one with the orange CRT and blue trace. :D

Panels (15 of 23).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

On the way: A proper Engine Tach gauge, a second real ADI to experiment on / use for parts so I don't destroy my good ARU-2B/A, and a few other bits and bobs that I can't remember right now.

Red

:surprise::worthy:I think I might die of envy.

Is it at all possible to post the dimensions of the control stick without the grip? Also, do you know how much travel there is when its installed in the cockpit? Some more pics of the ADI would be cool too, if that's not to much to ask.:smilewink:

@Olgerd: I'm swimming in specs! Thanks.:thumbup:

Nice photos. I'd wish to have them before we had 3D cockpit complete.

Thanks. See, you all need to let people know what's being worked on so the right people with the right parts can get you the right reference data. :smartass:

Thanks for posting the mil sheets BTW, that's good info for the guys out there that don't have them already. A LOT of answers to very common questions are right there in those sheets.

K

The Simpson and the ole Tek 465....

Ahhhh. Brings back many memories there. I can't tell you how many hours I have logged into each of those since becoming a tech 25 years ago. Just seeing the 465 makes me realize I could still operate the controls without have to looking at them lol!

Complements on the rebuild of the Throttle qaud. Outstanding approach and workmanship :thumbup:

Thanks for the compliments Gus, but all credit for the throttle quad as seen in those pics must go to the manufacturer. ;)

Last night I did do some work on the throttle, tearing some of it apart. I discovered that the Burndy plugs were solder cup terminations, so I desoldered both of them and removed the right throttle grip from the quadrant. I have it stripped down at this point to basically the empty grip, and I'm brainstorming how I will mod it to bring it to C specs. One option is that I will get a piece of 1/4 or 3/8 aluminum plate and shape it as required, then cut off the face of the grip and install the switches in the aluminum and mount it to the grip, this will also allow much easier access to te internals. A second, easier option would be to fill in the side of the grip with epoxy or resin then redrill the required holes.

I had a dumb ass attack fiddling with the transducer amplifier circuit board and managed to break off the ground pin of one of the four Bourne 100 Ohm12 turn trimmer pots so I'll have to replace that, then work out the transducer itself.

Red

Worked on the transducer last night and today some. I repaired the trimmer pot that I had broken so it is working temporarily while the replacement is on order. Poked and prodded and scratched my head a bunch, but I seem to have the transducer working along with it's PCB, the way it should be. Working in that I can supply the required voltage, no flames or smoke escape, what I read as a result makes sense, and pushing the post around make the voltage change like it should.

Once I figure out the new throttle dilemma, I'll hopefully have the interfacing portion of this taken care of. Prerequisite pictures attached below.

The first few show what around $800 or $900 dollars of transducer looks like, this thing is only 1.5" in length and .75" Diameter mind you. The last shot shows the thing powered up and working on the table, the two lines on the O-scope representing the output voltage of the X and Y axis of the switch and they dance up and down as the switch is deflected. Also discovered this circuit is very susceptible to EMI noise, but in it's current state that isn't too surprising.

Transducer Switch (1 of 5).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Transducer Switch (2 of 5).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Transducer Switch (3 of 5).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Transducer Switch (4 of 5).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr

Transducer Switch (5 of 5).jpg by KLaFaille, on Flickr