triise's A-10C pit

[agrasyuk]

20x2 indeed does look more comfy then 16x2 since the text is not crammed. Unfortunately 20x2 will not fit the panel if you sticking to prototypical width of 5.75".

[Warhog]

20x2 indeed does look more comfy then 16x2 since the text is not crammed. Unfortunately 20x2 will not fit the panel if you sticking to prototypical width of 5.75".

 

Mine fit ok. It's 5.75" wide and the display is 20x2. It just takes some creative fiddling.:music_whistling:

 

[agrasyuk]

its almost 3am and I so happened to be working in CAD on a CMSP draft at the moment. opened ebay, pulled dimensions, and what can i say, it indeed took you some creativity with those button flanges on right. John, GJ! :thumbup:

 

but now i'm going to pick on you a bit - whats with the upper left mounting hole riding up? :P

and the panel itself seems to be 0.375" higher then the original . how dare you! ;) :)

Edited March 23, 2015 by agrasyuk

[Excalibur]

Good job thus far triise! I'm just starting out my own pit as well, scouring the forums for tips and Ebay for parts - there is an immense amount of info to digest! Looking forward following the rest of your build.

[triise]

A little bit of UFC building tonight, as I got the new tactile switches with led lighting.

Now I'm just waiting for the Amber ones for the MC button.

Buttons are white acrylic sprayed grey and then engraved.

[Warhog]

Very nice Triise. Super clean look. I tried those tactiles with the leds. They are really nice and inexpensive. You happy with them in terms of brightness? They seemed a little bit dim for my liking but maybe the ones i got were just very low intensity.

 

@Anton- all you said was it wouldn't fit in 5.75" wide. :music_whistling: and Mine did.:lol:

Edited March 24, 2015 by Warhog

[Lars]

Nice work!

 

You got a link for the switches your are using ?

[triise]

Nice work!

 

 

 

You got a link for the switches your are using ?

 

 

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=271492707261

[triise]

Very nice Triise. Super clean look. I tried those tactiles with the leds. They are really nice and inexpensive. You happy with them in terms of brightness? They seemed a little bit dim for my liking but maybe the ones i got were just very low intensity.

 

@Anton- all you said was it wouldn't fit in 5.75" wide. :music_whistling: and Mine did.:lol:

 

 

Thanks,

I haven't tried them with the switches yet, so we'll have to see. Will try to wire it up tomorrow. What voltage did you use? I'm going for 12V.

[triise]

 

Tonight's work. Got the 20x02 lcd fitted in my CMSP. Had to cut a bit of PCB ...

 

 

Have run out of switches, (on),off,on. So I'm waiting for some parts at the moment.

 

Now..... How to make a altimeter with servos.... Any suggestions?

[Warhog]

Those are leds in the tactiles so you need a current limiting resistor or they will fry. I use 12v for them.

 

 

Altimeter, VSI and Air Speed Indicator...

Don't use servos!

 

Use zero setting stepper motors. The VID 60 series is what you want. I just ordered 6 from China last week. I have my VSI and Speed Indicator done, almost. The VSI needs to be calibrated with the sim and the Speed needs one of those VID60 motors for the rotating numbers at the top of the faceplate.

 

Here's the front of the altimeter.

 

 

The pressure setting is an oled and the digital display is of course self explanatory. We changed the program for the oled so the digits now roll like the real display when being changed. Looks very cool. I will replace the 7 seg display with another oled but it hasn't arrived yet and I'm anxious to get the whole thing operational.

 

and now the back

 

This is the same stepper motor I use in the EMI panel. Its nice and small, very smooth and not very expensive. I use them in everything except slow moving gauges such as fuel, flaps and hydraulics. Servos are being used for those gauges. The motion is not very apparent in slow moving gauges so servos work well in those situations.

 

Speed Indicator

 

 

This still shows the gears I was using. I have removed the gearing for the drum as the VID60 is continuous so I don't need that extreme of a gear ratio any more.

 

 

Your panels look really nice but your lettering sucks big time. I'm not trying to be nasty but its really evident that there is a problem here. I expect your new to CNC because if you weren't you would be raising bloody hell about this. Its either excessive backlash somewhere in your x or y axis or it could also be a flexure problem in the y axis. Do you have any measurement gauges/indicators of any kind. You should read up on how to check the accuracy of your mill because once you have isolated the problem you can try to reduce the error. But you need to know where its coming from in the first place.

 

I would also complain to the seller about this. Its unacceptable to have this occur in any machine of this calibre. Its like buying a new car and it can only go 50km/hour because after that it shakes like hell.

 

One more question, what depth are you cutting your letters. Typical cutting depth for engraving is .003". You only need to remove the top black surface which is extremely thin. In the close up of your CMSP, it looks like your using Rowmark engraving plastic, same stuff I use.

 

What software are you using for the machine, Mach3? Is it properly calibrated to your machine and also do you have the axis acceleration and deceleration setup as well? These could be adding to the problem.

[agrasyuk]

GJ Tore, quite a pace you moving at.

 

Your altimeter looks much better now John. Makes me want to do mechanical gauges as well. Did you animate the "off" flag with a solenoid? It looks like you have a sliding cover there.

[Warhog]

GJ Tore, quite a pace you moving at.

 

Your altimeter looks much better now John. Makes me want to do mechanical gauges as well. Did you animate the "off" flag with a solenoid? It looks like you have a sliding cover there.

 

No, I wanted the cockpit to look interesting when powered down. Instead of "OFF" flags I used red LEDs that turn on when the instrument is not in operation. So now you will see a glowing "OFF" instead of the flag. Its not the way its done in real life, I know. But I took "Graphic License" as its termed and changed a few things to suit my taste. I applied that same logic to other instruments. The Hydraulic Gauges for instance. If I loose Hydraulics the gauge will indicate that as well as the Caution panel. But I also added a small red LED beside each gauge that lights when the hydraulics are down and I can immediately see which side is screwed. You can see the LEDs in this pic.

 

 

Triise, With regards to the fuel panel, this is the only place I used servos besides the flaps gauge. Because of the reverse double shaft gearing required, servos were a better choice as they have the torque needed for a geared type of movement whereas the VID steppers do not.

 

[LynxDK]

That looks really good, Keep it up :)

[agrasyuk]

Well, I don't have anything against adding additional comfort functionality to own pit. I really like that visor for hydro gauges, John.

ADD: And I really like that 1-2-3 block :) I received severa as gift recently, can't believe how useful those little things can be at a times

Edited March 25, 2015 by agrasyuk

[triise]

Your panels look really nice but your lettering sucks big time. I'm not trying to be nasty but its really evident that there is a problem here. I expect your new to CNC because if you weren't you would be raising bloody hell about this. Its either excessive backlash somewhere in your x or y axis or it could also be a flexure problem in the y axis. Do you have any measurement gauges/indicators of any kind. You should read up on how to check the accuracy of your mill because once you have isolated the problem you can try to reduce the error. But you need to know where its coming from in the first place.

 

I would also complain to the seller about this. Its unacceptable to have this occur in any machine of this calibre. Its like buying a new car and it can only go 50km/hour because after that it shakes like hell.

 

One more question, what depth are you cutting your letters. Typical cutting depth for engraving is .003". You only need to remove the top black surface which is extremely thin. In the close up of your CMSP, it looks like your using Rowmark engraving plastic, same stuff I use.

 

What software are you using for the machine, Mach3? Is it properly calibrated to your machine and also do you have the axis acceleration and deceleration setup as well? These could be adding to the problem.

 

Hi, thanks for the feedback. I know it looks very bad. You clearly know a lot more than me about the art of CNC, as I don't even know what backlash is. I use mach3 yes, and it's probably time for me to start reading some more :book:

That beeing said, I paid 600$ for the machine on eBay and I'm aware of the fact that you usually get what you pay for... It's probably a very good reason for the other CNC-machines costing 1000$ more.

I use a v-cutter and are engraving the letters as pockets I didn't know how else to setup the machining, as the text actually was splines and bold. Anyway I tried to change to stick fonts today and it worked a bit better. You can see for yourself in the attached picture. The machine still isn't very accurate, but it's an improvement.

[triise]

Do you by any chance have a link for the double shaft axels that you use on your fuel indicator? I've been looking for something like that now.

 

Also, I tried to find the VID 60 steppers. Is this the ones? http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pc-New-instrument-Cluster-Stepper-motor-vid29-05-/300673452201?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item460188c8a9

 

Maybee this one for the altimeter? http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pc-New-instrument-Cluster-Stepper-motor-vid29-05-/300673452201?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item460188c8a9

[Warhog]

Do you by any chance have a link for the double shaft axels that you use on your fuel indicator? I've been looking for something like that now.

 

Also, I tried to find the VID 60 steppers. Is this the ones? http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pc-New-instrument-Cluster-Stepper-motor-vid29-05-/300673452201?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item460188c8a9

 

Maybee this one for the altimeter? http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pc-New-instrument-Cluster-Stepper-motor-vid29-05-/300673452201?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item460188c8a9

 

The double axle I made myself. Its just 2 pieces of brass tube. They size brass tube such that the next size down is always the inside diameter of the next larger tube. That way they always fit nicely one inside the other with excellent tolerances.

 

Those are the VID29 Steppers as indicated in the eBay listing. And yes you would use those for most everything that doesn't require continuous motion and zero setting. They have a sweep of 315 degrees which covers many of the gauges we use. These are what I bought.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-Pcs-Instrument-Cluster-Diagnostic-Tool-Auto-Gauge-Stepper-Motor-DC-5-10V/321499764351?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131003132420%26meid%3D3f0a4ca9a7684f0b8c1779c137cdd3e5%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D311319515399&rt=nc

Much better price. You should shop around as some of these venders have terrible prices.

 

These are the VID60

http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6548499324.html?orderId=66332974733697

 

Thats $28.00US for 5 stepper motors. Thats not bad at all.

 

You should spend some time doing a search for information on the VID series of steppers. Use different search parameters. You will find sites that have all sorts of good info. Also Switec steppers are the exact same knock off. Actually I think the VID is the Chinese knock off.

 

The VID29 series have several different models. Some with the pins on the front and some on the back. ie VID29-05, VID29-03 etc. There is data on the models and their configurations on my GITHUB site here (compliments to bnepethomas for his efforts and making that information available to us)

 

https://github.com/JFWall/bne-arduino-flight-simulator-interfaces/tree/master/Fuel%20Panel

 

Hope that helps.

 

So any update on your machine error yet. I saw the original video you did. One problem immediately apparent is that you had 3" of your end mill sticking out of the collet when you where cutting some plastic. You should expose the least amount of your cutting tool in order to reduce flex. I noticed you were cutting a circle. Have you tried cutting a circle using a smaller diameter end mill such as a .0625" diameter or a .125" diameter. I would scribe a perfect circle on a piece of scrap. Then write code for the same diameter circle and cut it. Measure the diameter of the cut circle from left to right and then top to bottom. They should be exactly the same. It verifies if your mill is calibrated in both axis. If not you will get an oblong shape.

 

Another little trick is to tape a large piece of paper to the bed. Chuck up a fine tipped marker and load up some code with a series of squares, circles, text etc. Run the mill with the spindle off (obviously) and set your cutting depth to just let the marker touch the paper. Now instead of cutting your just drawing. It will help to determine flex as well. As there are no lateral forces acting on the mill all you get is what the steppers and controller are doing with no outside influences on the machine. Its an easy thing to try and if you get the machine to draw a line from left to write and then another line right to left you could see if its doing the same distance in each direction That will help determine if backlash is causing problems. You do that in both x and y axis.

 

I saw machines just like yours with much less error. The results they were getting indicates that your machine either requires proper setup or repair or possibly both. The point being that you should get at least the same accuracy as I saw in other videos of the same machine.

[triise]

Ok, so now i got my Darlington arrays. Do I need a separate resistor for each LED? Or could I use one on the VCC pin of the Darlington?

 

Disregard: found out that thay have internal resistors.

Edited March 26, 2015 by triise

[Warhog]

Well, I don't have anything against adding additional comfort functionality to own pit. I really like that visor for hydro gauges, John.

ADD: And I really like that 1-2-3 block :) I received severa as gift recently, can't believe how useful those little things can be at a times

 

Thanks Anton. The visor thingy came off that full cockpit print you've probably seen many times. The Fuel panel on that print is just a little bit classier than our DCS version so I added it to my panel. It gets my LEDs high enough to properly light the pointers on the hydraulic gauges. So it actually does have a purpose.

 

Yes those 1-2-3 blocks are great. You can never have to many. I'm up to 8 now and it's still not enough sometimes. I've been buying these Czech made blocks for something like $18.00 a pair. They're not the ultra accurate ones that cost $100 but they are at least ground to .0003" which is way beyond what I ever need to work at.

[triise]

Ok, new PCB milled and the arrays fit perfectly.

Now I'll just have to wait for the new soldering tips to arrive in the mail, as the one I have left is useless...

Pretty worn as you can see.

 

Have been reading about backlash today and will do some tests tomorrow if I can get my hands on a measuring device.

 

Looking into starting with the CDU tomorrow, but have to do a bit reading on matrixes.

 

Thanks for the info on the stepper motors. Will order some of them next week.

 

And to all of you, thanks for all the help and tips/feedback! I would be lost without it. I'm really learning a lot very fast on this project.

[triise]

Here is the DXF for the caution panel (PCB and acrylic) that i have worked out, (with the basis from reactorone's panels). If anyone have use for them, they are avaliable here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31661823/Privat/2015-03-26%20caution%20light_panel%20LED%20MEGA%20NEW%20working.dxf

 

If there is interest for CAD-files and other things, please let me know. I'll post them here. Also, please remember that the panels are not of the exact authentic measurements. All I want is a functioning cockpit with a good resemblance to the real thing. :thumbup:

Edited March 26, 2015 by triise

[Warhog]

Hi, thanks for the feedback. I know it looks very bad. You clearly know a lot more than me about the art of CNC, as I don't even know what backlash is. I use mach3 yes, and it's probably time for me to start reading some more :book:

That beeing said, I paid 600$ for the machine on eBay and I'm aware of the fact that you usually get what you pay for... It's probably a very good reason for the other CNC-machines costing 1000$ more.

I use a v-cutter and are engraving the letters as pockets I didn't know how else to setup the machining, as the text actually was splines and bold. Anyway I tried to change to stick fonts today and it worked a bit better. You can see for yourself in the attached picture. The machine still isn't very accurate, but it's an improvement.

 

Triise, I've been into CNC for 12 years now. I have a full metal machine shop and although I'm not a professional machinist, I've made some amazing things. So lets see if we can't get you beyond this problem. If you follow my advise you will be producing much better results.

 

First off, I suggest you get CamBam and start using it to set up your drawings from a dxf file. It is so easy to use. Just watch a couple of 5min videos. The software allows around 40 uses for free. After that you need to buy it.$150.00 Everyone who starts into CNC at a novice level should use this to learn the basics because its so easy and will do a great job. My initial motivation was that I needed a quick an easy way to obtain professional looking engraving on a variety of materials. After some time spent researching various packages, I found this to be one fo the best packages for CNC engraving at a novice level. It was very easy to learn, fast to use, accurate and also had sufficient controls to manipulate whatever it was that I needed to engrave.

 

After CamBam, you need to spend some good old reading time with the Mach3 manual. There are videos as well to get your machine set up properly. In that respect, Google is your friend and will find what you need.

 

CNC machines need to be tuned properly before you get into making things. It needs to know specific information and thats what the setup will provide. One example is to have Mach3 move one axis 150mm in one direction. You tell it to move that distance and then measure the distance it actually traveled and see what the difference is. It will not be the same. You must use accurate measuring equipment for this such as a dial indicator, 1-2-3 blocks, digital scales, etc all being able to measure to within 0.001 of an inch. When Mach3 knows that 150mm is, for example, really 150.045mm, it will then start correcting itself for this error. You will do this for all 3 axis. I believe there is a routine in Mach3 that you use but its been a long time since I had to do this with my machine. Read the manual and it will explain all.

 

That's was just one example as part of the initial setup. Without doing this setup, your machine will never cut properly. Stop doing anymore work with the machine until you get through this first part. At the same time start to learn how to use CamBam. If you have questions about it, you can PM me and I'll try to help. You can even produce your panel drawing right in CamBam if you wish. It`s reasonably good as a means of drawing panels and the text for them. I work exclusively in AutoCAD and have for the past 25 years. I never draw with anything but AutoCAD. However, lately I started to use CamBam for making corrections or additions before it goes to g-code rather than going back into AutoCAD to make some minor changes. That`s when I realized it was pretty good at drawing. And its excellent for engraving text.

 

If you get CamBam and start to learn to use it and go through the Mach3 machine setup you should see a marked difference in the quality of your engraving and your cutting in general. That is, of course, assuming your machine is not damaged or flawed in some form so as to contribute to the error we see. In that case its repair time. But lets not go down that road right now. We can assess that once the setup has been completed and if a large error still exists then we look deeper into it.

 

So basically your success rate will climb dramatically by using good engraving software and getting your machine tuned to maximize it`s accuracy potential.

 

BTW, the PCB`s look good. Thats also where you see CamBam excel as setting up PCB`s for g-coding is identical to engraving.

 

2 quick points, if you have an inspection microscope or some kind of very high powered magnifier, check your traces very carefully for tiny wee bits of copper. You can't see them unaided but sure as hell they will short you board out if you don't get rid of them.

2nd, your cutting depth for copper clad board should only be 0.003" deep.

[triise]

Triise, I've been into CNC for 12 years now. I have a full metal machine shop and although I'm not a professional machinist, I've made some amazing things. So lets see if we can't get you beyond this problem. If you follow my advise you will be producing much better results.

 

First off, I suggest you get CamBam and start using it to set up your drawings from a dxf file. It is so easy to use. Just watch a couple of 5min videos. The software allows around 40 uses for free. After that you need to buy it.$150.00 Everyone who starts into CNC at a novice level should use this to learn the basics because its so easy and will do a great job. My initial motivation was that I needed a quick an easy way to obtain professional looking engraving on a variety of materials. After some time spent researching various packages, I found this to be one fo the best packages for CNC engraving at a novice level. It was very easy to learn, fast to use, accurate and also had sufficient controls to manipulate whatever it was that I needed to engrave.

 

After CamBam, you need to spend some good old reading time with the Mach3 manual. There are videos as well to get your machine set up properly. In that respect, Google is your friend and will find what you need.

 

CNC machines need to be tuned properly before you get into making things. It needs to know specific information and thats what the setup will provide. One example is to have Mach3 move one axis 150mm in one direction. You tell it to move that distance and then measure the distance it actually traveled and see what the difference is. It will not be the same. You must use accurate measuring equipment for this such as a dial indicator, 1-2-3 blocks, digital scales, etc all being able to measure to within 0.001 of an inch. When Mach3 knows that 150mm is, for example, really 150.045mm, it will then start correcting itself for this error. You will do this for all 3 axis. I believe there is a routine in Mach3 that you use but its been a long time since I had to do this with my machine. Read the manual and it will explain all.

 

That's was just one example as part of the initial setup. Without doing this setup, your machine will never cut properly. Stop doing anymore work with the machine until you get through this first part. At the same time start to learn how to use CamBam. If you have questions about it, you can PM me and I'll try to help. You can even produce your panel drawing right in CamBam if you wish. It`s reasonably good as a means of drawing panels and the text for them. I work exclusively in AutoCAD and have for the past 25 years. I never draw with anything but AutoCAD. However, lately I started to use CamBam for making corrections or additions before it goes to g-code rather than going back into AutoCAD to make some minor changes. That`s when I realized it was pretty good at drawing. And its excellent for engraving text.

 

If you get CamBam and start to learn to use it and go through the Mach3 machine setup you should see a marked difference in the quality of your engraving and your cutting in general. That is, of course, assuming your machine is not damaged or flawed in some form so as to contribute to the error we see. In that case its repair time. But lets not go down that road right now. We can assess that once the setup has been completed and if a large error still exists then we look deeper into it.

 

So basically your success rate will climb dramatically by using good engraving software and getting your machine tuned to maximize it`s accuracy potential.

 

BTW, the PCB`s look good. Thats also where you see CamBam excel as setting up PCB`s for g-coding is identical to engraving.

 

2 quick points, if you have an inspection microscope or some kind of very high powered magnifier, check your traces very carefully for tiny wee bits of copper. You can't see them unaided but sure as hell they will short you board out if you don't get rid of them.

2nd, your cutting depth for copper clad board should only be 0.003" deep.

 

Thanks again Warhog for your good tips and advice, I really appreciate it!

As a matter of fact, I have been using CamBam since I got the machine. Its a very good program indeed, and I do almost all my drawing in it. I'm also used to working in ACAD, but have also discovered that CamBam is very good for drawing.

I have a measuring device on order now, and will probably have it in the mail after easter holiday. Looks like I'm reading the Mach3 manual and not crime novels this easter :book:

 

One thing about CamBam and engraving. Usually the letters are "pockets" (if you know what I mean), for example a S is not a stick S but an area outlined with a line. How to I setup this the best way for machining in CamBam? I have both V-cutters and very thin end mills. Usually I just make new text with a stick font and engrave 0.2 mm with an v-cutter, but i've also tried 0.6 mm end mills, but that usually gets to thick. If I try to engrave standard letters, I only get it to engrave the outline of the letters, and it doesn't look good.

 

Regards,

Tore

[Warhog]

Excellent Tore, CamBam will let us talk with a much better understanding of how to solve some of your problems. BTW, when I work on panels I use imperial instead of metric so I will speak in imperial units for this.

 

Do you have AutoCAD on the same machine as CB. If not, can you make that happen. AutoCAD has a font romans.shx that I use for all panel lettering. If AutoCAD is on the same machine it will have installed this font in windows. Now in CB you can select the text, change it to Romans and set the height to .16" height and cutting depth to .003". The text should be selected with the engrave icon rather than the pocket icon. You should always create text with justification set to centre. It makes it much easier to rearrange your text when you apply other CB operations such as resizing that causes your text to move slightly out of position. If you need larger text for something like a gauge, the altimeter numbers for example, use Arial and then pocket them instead of selecting engrave.

 

Cutters, are 60 degree v-cutters, tip width .10", cutting depth for everything related to engraving type operations which includes pocketing larger text should be .003". Where do you get the V-cutters from. Chinese cutters are not very good. I buy American made cutters from

 

https://www.2linc.com/engraving_tools.htm

 

C-125x2.0-60-.010-G is what I use for all engraving.

 

They are expensive but they make such a difference in quality. I will not use anything else.

It looked like you are using engraving plastic, white base with black top. Is that correct?

How do you ensure your material is completely flat on the machine bed?

What is the feed rate set too on Mach3? This is very important as it possible that you may be skipping steps if it's set to high.

Is your spindle speed adjustable. If so it should set to max.

 

Have you ever accidentally run your mill against something hard that might have stopped it. It can be somewhat disastrous if that happens and it can cause the same type problems I see here. Even after 12 years doing this, last month, it was late, I was very tired and I set something incorrectly...SMACK...right into a clamp and snapped the cutter right off. I smashed 2 lead screw bearings. $50 later with new bearings in place I was back to normal.

 

Besides all of the questions I've been asking, can you try an experiment for me. Make a 2" circled for me and cut it from plastic. Depth only needs to be enough to actually see it. Use a v cutter. Then do a 1" circle and then a .25" circle. I want you to measure the height and the width EXACTLY and tell me if they are the same or not.

 

The last thing I would like to know is how you cut with CB and your CNC machine. These are the typical selections I make in CB

Cutting large holes...select profile...inside...cut depth interval .02"

Cutting perimeter of panel ...select profile...outside...cut depth interval .02"

Cutting small holes...select pocket...cut depth interval .02"

Select cutting tool... 0.063" diameter end mill

 

Could respond in imperial for me just to be consistent.

BTW, what exactly did you order for measuring. There are several devices that are virtually indispensable.

 

And sorry with all the questions but the more I know about how you do various operations, the easier it will be to find and solve the problems.:)

 

John