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F-16 simple simpit


Lentaro

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After discovering DCS BIOS the other day and trying some Arduino (Uno) programming, I want to have a go at building a fairly simple F-16 home cockpit. I have the Thrustmaster HOTAS and planning to 3D print the panels I'd like to have (flying in VR so no LCD/LED neccesary).

 

Question 1.

Does anyone have a build layout or dimensions for the F-16 or other cockpit I could use as a reference?

 

Question 2.

Is there any place I could get the dimensions of the different panels, or does a ready 3D model exist for printing? I've found some 3D models but not everyone I'd like.

 

Question 3.

The wiring. What is the best way to hook all this up to my single computer. The switches I'd like to have sums up to 169(!) inputs to nine different Arduinos, 157 digital inputs and 12 analog inputs. What is the best way to hook this up? Is it possible to use two USB hubs and nine Arduinos (Uno)?

 

Happy flying!

Thanks in advance!

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Congratulations you have been infected by the SimPit bug. So many ways to approach what you want to do. Check out Leo Bodnar cards they offer USB plug and play and the cards have individual serial numbers so windows won’t mix up inputs when using more than 1 card, which you will need for 169 inputs.

 

I chose Bodnar for switches , rotaries, potentiometers because I can use the inputs directly within DCS for input assignment with more than one module.

 

I am using DCSBios for LEDs and displays.

 

Good luck and have fun. There are so many ways to get where you want to go.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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The problem that a DCS-BIOS-based simpit can only be used with one aircraft module will be solved in the very near future by adding Lua scripting to the DCS-BIOS Hub. It's already running on my machine and I think I have found an API design that I am happy with now, so I'll probably release it some time next week.

 

If you use DCS-BIOS, you have two options: connect everything via USB or use an RS-485 bus.

 

Connecting everything over USB is not as annoying as it used to be, as the DCS-BIOS Hub has a graphical user interface where you select the COM ports you want to connect to and it remembers a list of ports it should automatically connect to. As long as each panel stays plugged into the same port on the same hub, Windows should not mess with the COM port numbers too much, and when it does change port numbers on you, you can fix it in 20 seconds.

 

You can also connect each panel to an RS-485 transceiver chip like the MAX487. You will have to buy an Arduino Mega 2560 board which will be the bus master and connect all devices on up to three RS-485 buses via a single USB port.

In theory, you can connect up to 126 devices to one RS-485 bus (some transceiver chips only support 32 devices per bus). In practice, the RS-485 feature of the DCS-BIOS Arduino library is not well documented yet and people have had various degrees of success in implementing it. It works without issues for some, while others have had a bunch of hard to diagnose problems.

 

In the future, I plan to add features that make it easier to debug a misbehaving RS-485 bus.

 

For nine Arduino boards, you should have no issues with using USB for everything.

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