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AV-8B N/A UFC - 3D Printed


obious

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On 10/11/2020 at 7:41 AM, reddox said:

I've now started printing this. Had to wait a while for my Prusa to arrive.

Does anyone have a clue about how it should be put together?

 

The M3 screws you mentioned Obious, do they just go in the matrix from the back and screw into the plastic in the back side of the cover?

The dimensions of the screws mounting the cover to the box, and the two box parts together would also be nice to have.

 

 

 

Reddox, it looks like you did a filament change in the middle of printing the UFC Top, is that correct?  I wonder if printing in glow-in-the-dark filament for those layers might be cool?  I think the glow-in-the-dark stuff is slight translucent... wonder if there's a way to light those layers with some LED's to make it look like it's back-lit.  UV light would make it really pop.  Might be a cool experiment.  I've heard the glow-in-the-dark materials are corrosive however, and will eventually destroy the nozzle on the 3d printer.  I've only printed with it a couple of times.

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/6/2020 at 4:21 PM, Xpendable said:

 

Reddox, it looks like you did a filament change in the middle of printing the UFC Top, is that correct?  I wonder if printing in glow-in-the-dark filament for those layers might be cool?  I think the glow-in-the-dark stuff is slight translucent... wonder if there's a way to light those layers with some LED's to make it look like it's back-lit.  UV light would make it really pop.  Might be a cool experiment.  I've heard the glow-in-the-dark materials are corrosive however, and will eventually destroy the nozzle on the 3d printer.  I've only printed with it a couple of times.

Yeah, that is a filament change. Glow in the dark might be cool to use, and putting some LEDs in there shouldnt be too hard.

I've had this project on the back burner, waiting for some threaded inserts to ship from China. They arrived today, so I started putting it together. Still haven't started soldering and mounting the buttons.

 

I might eventually remake the whole thing though. There are various inaccuracies in Obious design. Like the top plate, which in his design isn't fastened by the screws in the corner, and the scale of things is a bit off. The Master Emergency and Master Caution buttons are not possible to press. It also needs a back plate.

 

The design is still alright. I'll probably finish this up, and then redo it some time in the future ™️

 

I like your throttle. What are you going to mount it to? Also Fusion360 still works fine. They mostly removed advanced features. It's ok for most hobby use.

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On 10/11/2020 at 2:41 PM, reddox said:

I've now started printing this. Had to wait a while for my Prusa to arrive.

Does anyone have a clue about how it should be put together?

 

The M3 screws you mentioned Obious, do they just go in the matrix from the back and screw into the plastic in the back side of the cover?

The dimensions of the screws mounting the cover to the box, and the two box parts together would also be nice to have.

 

ulw91jcwmgs51.jpg

 

Hi, good job. I building more ufc for A10C, F18, F16 but i printed the text with white text over the black base. I have a  question for you . I try to use the white base and printed second laser with the text in black. Same your ufc. But the text not show good. You can help me to tell me the resolution, the misure of the black layer, font and dimension of the text you to use.? Thank’s for response.


Edited by harleyblue

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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5 hours ago, harleyblue said:

 

Hi, good job. I building more ufc for A10C, F18, F16 but i printed the text with white text over the black base. I have a  question for you . I try to use the white base and printed second laser with the text in black. Same your ufc. But the text not show good. You can help me to tell me the resolution, the misure of the black layer, font and dimension of the text you to use.? Thank’s for response.

 

I'm using a Prusa Mini, with black and white Prusament PLA filament. I'm using Prusaslicer with default settings for the printer and filament.

It was 0.2 layer height, standard 0.4 mm nozzle. I just changed filament on the first layer with text. I would try adjusting the print speed if I were you, to see if that makes the text any better.

 

The model is Obious' UFC, with no change in measurements. I also did this on the buttons I made, you can see an example here. On the buttons I made the text protrude out from the button, as I felt that made the resolution better. The font used is ms-33558, it's a standard font for US aviation I believe.

Hope this helps.

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  • 1 month later...

I've printed the upper box (spool snagged so I have re-print it), the recessed buttons, the top plate, and the button matrix.  I printed everything in white because that's what I had on hand.  I'm going to be spraying everything with gray filler, and will be finishing by sanding and painting.

 

Anyway, I noticed that the master caution and the master warning lights for the side illumination lights are not modelled as buttons.  Those should be able to be depressed.  Ideally those should be separate buttons that can be printed separately with a little matrix behind to hold a microswitch.  This would also save on a ton of material because currently there is a slanted ramp designed to allow that master caution / master warning to be printed without supports. That is a lot of wasted material that would not be needed if these were converted to buttons.  Looks like I can load the .STL into FreeCAD and I may be able to do some parametric modeling to remove this area and create separate buttons.  But if the original author wants to tackle this, feel free!

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On 12/1/2020 at 9:47 PM, Xpendable said:

This is really awesome.  I'd love to print this.  I was able to get the buttons but not the UFC itself.  Anyway to post this again / somewhere?  I dunno if the new forum system lost the attachments.  Disregard, after another day or two, the download link appeared and I was able to grab the files.

 

I'm planning on modeling the throttle handle will be happy to share that when I am closer.  I did start modeling the throttle handle in FreeCAD.  I would have loved to have used Fusion 360 but they recently removed features from the "free" version to try to force you into the $400 a year subscription - and I'm not going for that.  

 

My biggest roadblock is that I can't find dimensions of the throttle anywhere on the internet.  So I'm just "guessing" as best as I can and going from there.  The cool thing is, because everything is parametric, I can adjust every dimension and constraint until it looks like the real thing and "feels" right.  But it will still be a lot of guesswork.  Fun project, regardless.

 

Screenshot 2020-12-03 103018.png

 

These may be of help the thread I've been told the large thread at the bottom is 1.5" diameter 20210122_223455.jpg

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mattjonesgr9, Where on earth did you acquire such fine pictures?  This is a fantastic amount of detail.  Do you by any chance have the original model that these came from?  If the thread is truly 1.5", we may be able to interpolate all of the dimensions using that as a reference point.

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2 hours ago, Xpendable said:

mattjonesgr9, Where on earth did you acquire such fine pictures?  This is a fantastic amount of detail.  Do you by any chance have the original model that these came from?  If the thread is truly 1.5", we may be able to interpolate all of the dimensions using that as a reference point.

Unfortunately I don't have the 3d model but these I got from someone who has a 3d scan of an original throttle lever. 

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It would be super cool if we could somehow get that scan or model!  However, we can still work with what you uploaded.  I can load these into FreeCAD as planar images, and then scale them by drawing a line on the threaded part and telling it to scale the image based on that line being 1.5" long.  Then I can model the shapes on top of the planar images in the background.  This in itself is super powerful.  You've unlocked super powers by uploading these images, and I greatly appreciate it!

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On 3/13/2021 at 11:36 AM, Bbow said:

Guys, a very kind soul has shared the exact measurements of the UFC (not including the master caution/warning rows). Its approx 136x142 mm .  

The exact (...) Its approx 😀

No offence, just found it funny. Thanks for sharing 🙂 That will give us something to work with.

 

On 3/13/2021 at 4:19 PM, mattjonesgr9 said:

These may be of help the thread I've been told the large thread at the bottom is 1.5" diameter 20210122_223455.jpg

20210122_223453.jpg

20210122_223501.jpg

20210122_223506.jpg

20210122_223513.jpg

20210122_223508.jpg

20210122_223511.jpg

 

These are fantastic. If you know the person who has the scans, could you be able to get a hold of them?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/29/2021 at 10:45 PM, Xpendable said:

Still trying to figure out what I need to order to affix the matrix to the front panel.  M3 threaded inserts?  Or M2.5?  It's not clear to me.

As I understood Obious' answer to my question he used M3 button head screws, and screwed them straight into the front panel. I haven't gotten around to doing it myself yet.

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  • 1 month later...

A silly question: What have people plannet for displays in the UFC? I'm in the process of looking into what I'd have to get to build one, but the prospect of the displays and the inputs they'll require is daunting.

Especially since I was thinking of making a UPD as well, which takes 5 buttons and 5 displays. That's a wee bit of inputs needed.

Regards

Fjordmonkey

Clustermunitions is just another way of saying that you don't like someone.

 

I used to like people, then people ruined that for me.

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if i am looking at real life pictures and videos from the av-8b harrier i am pretty sure thats actually using LED Matrix Displays

 

Something like this should work for one of the two digit displays you have in the UFC for Radiochannels: Adafruit LED Charlieplexed Matrix - 9x16 LEDs - Warm White 3162

But thats 18 pins for one display, and you will still have to design a pcb around it.

 

 

There is stuff out there that already comes with a ready to use I2C or SPI PCB, but then you will have to get bigger displays, then what you would actually need, as i didnt find any x9 displays yet.

 

edit: for the Adafruit 9x16 led matrix there is a pcb that gives it full i2c functionallity: Adafruit 16x9 Charlieplexed PWM LED Matrix driver - IS31FL3731

 

will come all in ~20$ for one display

 

edit: scratch that, this displays is _way_ too big


Edited by Wisky
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On 5/7/2021 at 10:22 AM, ShadowXP said:

A silly question: What have people plannet for displays in the UFC? I'm in the process of looking into what I'd have to get to build one, but the prospect of the displays and the inputs they'll require is daunting.

Especially since I was thinking of making a UPD as well, which takes 5 buttons and 5 displays. That's a wee bit of inputs needed.

 

Nice profile pic. I have the 331 patch on my wall from when I worked there back in 2009. I fly VR, so displays isn't an option or a necessity for me.

There are many options out there. I've seen quite a few home made hornet UFCs that seem well documented. Some googling should take you far. Also check out DCS-bios, which seems to be the best way to interface the displays with the game.

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1 hour ago, reddox said:

 

Nice profile pic. I have the 331 patch on my wall from when I worked there back in 2009. I fly VR, so displays isn't an option or a necessity for me.

There are many options out there. I've seen quite a few home made hornet UFCs that seem well documented. Some googling should take you far. Also check out DCS-bios, which seems to be the best way to interface the displays with the game.


Was lucky enough to server at 331/334 during my mandatory year in the RNoAF, so it was an obvious choice 😄

Already running DCS BIOS for the Logitech Flight-panel I have, so it'll be the way I'm going. Hoping to base everything off an Arduino Mega, since that'll give me more than enough room to expand should I need it.

Regards

Fjordmonkey

Clustermunitions is just another way of saying that you don't like someone.

 

I used to like people, then people ruined that for me.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi all, 

 

I am following this topic already some weeks and I am first of all thanks for the template of the UFC of the Harrier and going to donate some bucks for your work.
So here is my outcome. I am still working on the button field and wanted as to be as simple as possible. The original idea to glue/mount the push buttons on the matrix where for me not stable enough so I thought that a PCB would work nicely and giving it additionaly more support while pressing the buttons.

 

So here is what I did. I cut out the actual holders from the matrix as they interfered with my idea. The depth of the matrix to the upper front of the UFC gave me enough room to solder inside and to put some jumper bridges. And for all, thats the second time in my life i have been soldering something 🙂 The first time was creating my head tracking back about 10 years ago.


Thats where I am standing currently. I am trying to find out a way to fix the three Lcd´s / Oleds. But as the space is so enourmusly thight in there I reccommend replaning the Lcds and potentiometers around the matrix to be slightly bigger to fix maybe a 1x16 lcd. 

 

@Obius When you read my little post, I would love to maybe get in contact with you to replan this 🙂

 

As I have put a PCB in between now, the hight is not matching anymore. When you insert the printed buttons, you will have a gap between the matrix and the front of the UFC of about 2 to 3 mm. A friend of mine prints me this items and I am currently wait for a additional spacer, which I will hotglue between those two parts.

 

For all who were asking about cabeling, thats my sollution 🙂

 

Sorry for my English as I am not a native speaker.

 

I hope you will find this interesting and usefull. Please feel free to copy 🙂

 

Michael

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