Cockpit electronics for n00bs

[pappavis]

This thread is to concentrate questions about elekctronics in one place. Similiar to the DCS-BIOS discussion.

 

DCS-BIOS + Arduino's is cheap (<=€5!!), easy way to interact with realworld buttons & controls in DCS World aircraft.

===============================

 

 

To kickoff..

Backlit my MiG-21bis custommade arduino Nano shield. HOW??

 

 

 

I have 2x I/O pins available. Apparentley each LED should be connected to a resistor. The picture below is only the PCB.

 

Q's;

1. Can I use a 3x LEDs which gives enough light to lightup my PCB?

2. Should i integrate LEDs into the PCB design?

3. Did u use a LED per switch/button/whatever? If not why not? How?

4. Should i rather change to a Arduino Mega? If so, why?

5. How did u backlight each control in your cockpit? Did u use a dedicated Arduino to power the backlighting..?

6. other tips, or insights to share?

 

This is my (current) design. TODO: panelmaking by CBC router.

[Thick8]

To hook up multiple LEDs, the easiest thing to use is the LED strips from Amazon. They already have resistors built in, can be cut into groups of three, and come in various colors.

If you want to connect single LEDs then use this calculator http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz to determine the resistors you need.

Hope this helps.

John

[yipster]

Looking very good so far!

 

I'm experimenting with DCS BIOS and Arduino combo at the moment, have not got to the stage of custom PCB manufacturing yet. I think I am leaning towards getting couple of Arduino Mega's for its extra I/O capacity without mocking around with shift register and DCS BIOS.

 

Q's;

1. Can I use a 3x LEDs which gives enough light to lightup my PCB?

 

If you are using a Perspex panel on diffusion method, 3 LEDs should be enough for your current board.

 

2. Should i integrate LEDs into the PCB design?

Perhaps integrate LED termination points but LED itself should be in the diffuser panel

 

3. Did u use a LED per switch/button/whatever? If not why not? How?

That is a very power hungry solution and increases as number of switches increases.

 

4. Should i rather change to a Arduino Mega? If so, why?

Depends on how much you want to play around with shift registers (I'm still learning to use it but find it quite confusing and challenging). Using the Mega will allow you use to use the extra I/O as native I/O without the need of a shift register.

 

5. How did u backlight each control in your cockpit? Did u use a dedicated Arduino to power the backlighting..?

I would use a separate lighting circuit with a dedicated switch for 'interior lights'. Unless you want to use Arduino to detect the interior light switch from lua export.

 

There are plenty of examples on this forum on how people did their backlighting.

 

 

6. other tips, or insights to share?

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Do small increments/prototypes instead of big changes. A lot of time when I try to do large implementation and it does not work out, I lose interest and leave it for a long time.

I find it that I get a lot more sense of completion and success with small increments and keeps me interested in keep on building.

[Diode663]

If you end up running more than one LED directly off of the arduino pin you will exceed the current the pin is capable of handling. The best thing to do would be to is to have the arduino trigger a MOSFET that is capable of powering the LEDs properly. This is something I would integrate on the PCB. I probably would also use 5050 LEDs on the PCB since you seem like you don't mind soldering smd components.

[BravoYankee4]

Buy a couple of ULN2803 chips. I have them form my breakout boards, and they are cheap and easy (doesn't require any additional components like pullup resistors etc).

I use them for all my outputs, in order to ease off the current load on the Arduino board.

And as others already stated - the better diffusion the less LED's are required.

 

Personally I would focus on getting all in and outputs sorted out before I proceed with the bling-blings.

 

I assumed that you where about to handle the large amount of I/O's with the BUS system and mini's?

[pappavis]

Buy a couple of ULN2803 chips.

Good tips :). I just ordered sum for use with LED strips.

 

I assumed that you where about to handle the large amount of I/O's with the BUS system and mini's?

 

You mean, with using a RS-485 slave..? I had one on my PCB but seems like DCS-BIOS doesnt like it :P. My sketch wont compile. It says it needs a Arduino Mega :joystick: