Desk Mounted F-14 Tomcat Cockpit for VR

[hitmanalpha1]

On 2/28/2023 at 2:09 PM, LASooner said:

Decorative Fuel gauge, it will have a functional Bingo fuel knob though

 

I did some coding to hopefully put a screen behind the fuel gauge. Still working out the best way to mount it up but the code works!

[hitmanalpha1]

Would you be willing to share your switch caps designs?

[LASooner]

Busy weekend

 

[LASooner]

[AusMumbles]

You're work is looking great dude. 

Could be just me but alot of the recently uploaded images aren't working for me.

How did you design the gear handle?

Cheers,

Mumbles

[LASooner]

On 3/23/2023 at 6:21 PM, AusMumbles said:

You're work is looking great dude. 

Could be just me but alot of the recently uploaded images aren't working for me.

How did you design the gear handle?

Cheers,

Mumbles

You mean the function of it? I just looked at gear handle designs all over the place and decided how I wanted to do it. It doesn't have the emergency twist like the real thing but a fellow with a real cockpit sent me some measurements from the panel to the tip.

I noticed images I upload directly to the website don't show up on the  tapatalk app for some reason. Are you reading through that?


Got the remote radio displays working tonight

[AusMumbles]

Nice, I'm trying to work out if I want to make the emerg twist work or not. I think I'm gunna at least give it a go to start with. 

Would you mind if I grab that length off you? If you have the hook lever length as well that would be greatly appreciated. 

Negative on taptalk, just via the web on both my PC and phone. You're latest image that was uploaded of the working UHF and V/UHF guages is working fine. They look awesome btw man!

Mumbles

 

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by AusMumbles

[LASooner]

Nice, I'm trying to work out if I want to make the emerg twist work or not. I think I'm gunna at least give it a go to start with. 
Would you mind if I grab that length off you? If you have the hook lever length as well that would be greatly appreciated. 
Negative on taptalk, just via the web on both my PC and phone. You're latest image that was uploaded of the working UHF and V/UHF guages is working fine. They look awesome btw man!
Mumbles
 
 

A guy who owns a cockpit sent me the numbers

the lever itself bottoms out at 4 3/8 against the pivot base

.565 on width of handle

1.5 inches height

Lever base is 1/2 square aluminum

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Started working on a more realistic case for my TekCreations ACM Panel

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[LASooner]

couple fit issues, but at least the TekCreations PCB fits perfectly in there. Fire light mounts are too close to the center, but I'm going to have to reprint several parts anyway.

[freehand]

Love this kinda stuff lots of work nice one. 

[tekadept]

On 3/31/2023 at 12:38 PM, LASooner said:

Started working on a more realistic case for my TekCreations ACM Panel

Sent from my Samsung Chromebook Plus using Tapatalk
 

Nice work thats progressing along nicely

[LASooner]

Finished the new enclosure for my Tekcreations ACM Panel. I didn't discover that my left fire anunciator fell off until it lit up, Decided to take a family photo with the 3 front mounted pieces, I think the deskpit is looking pretty sporty. The AOA and Wing Sweep gauges are non functional. All that's left is wiring up the left gauges panel, and the right side lower console and this will be done until I decide to start playing with servos and extra monitors.

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[LASooner]

My latest addition, I was thinking about ejection handles, and I really wanted to make something that easily travels with the boxes, so I decided to make a harness release handle you find on the base of the seat and use it as my ejection handle and arm/disarm. I bought a break light switch on Amazon, designed a box to hold it, and programmed the arduino pro micro to press the button 3 times when the switch is activated. I also added an arm/disarm switch up front which would be the seat adjust switch. And just for fun I built in some safety measures like a pin to keep the handle from moving, a trigger release to keep the handle seated until you actually grab it. It's fairly big for the limited functionality but it's pretty fun, and with the arm switch so easily accessible, I could get rid of Jester pretty quickly if I wanted to, disarm, fire.

[LASooner]

Seriously, I'm running out of stuff to make for the front seat. And no I don't plan on making the RIO pit.

I made a faux tape player to operate the tape player in game. It's a quantum button box it exists in both the stupid and cool plane of existence. 

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/gadget/tape-player-button-box-for-dcs-f-14-tomcat

 

[Chronocidal]

Hope you're at least getting some flight time in with all of that work, it all looks gorgeous.

I'm currently in the "how do I even want to do this" stage.

I have a friend with a laser/cnc cutter, so if he can make time to help me out, I might get my panels all cut/etched that way, but so far, I've been printing everything with lettering engraved to fill in with paint.  It's not terrible, but could be a lot cleaner.  The filament tends to make layers around the letters that don't blend together well, but it was at least good to get a couple of test panels made.  I can probably print them all, so I'm keeping everything in both cutting and printing formats for now.

I'm in the middle of designing my mounting box though, and wondering whether it would be worth printing some of those dzus rails you made.  Obviously they're all in sections, but how sturdy did they turn out?

It would probably be easier to make the whole console from scratch instead of the modular design I'm trying to work with to let me swap Tomcat and Hornet panels, but I'm doing my best to keep the console box modular, and fit around the WinWing throttle.  I've got about 1.5 inches of internal depth to work with, which should fit all of my components, but the margins are tight side-to-side, and I'm wondering if I can get 2 M5 bolts side-by-side in a 3/4 inch wooden rail.

This is my current layout (with the throttle box slid in partway), and I'm liking the natural space for the two arduinos to fit, with the panel coming out to a nice round 1x2 foot total.

I think my main concern with the design is whether arduinos actually need any air circulation, or cooling. I can cut some venting into the outboard side if needed, but the other option would be the build the panel box deeper, and rework my rough console box to mount it as a drop-in that sinks below the surface, and leaves the underside open like yours.


And I'm just realizing how rough that console is, and in desperate need of a rework to actually fit.  

 

[LASooner]

Trying to finish off the last bits of this.

Canopy jettison handle is functional, just needs to be sanded and painted. I added teflon tape for all the friction points and it's buttery smooth. Also working on a glare hood held on by magnets for easy removal

 

 

I thought that raised lip would be a good way of bringing the pieces together but I think it's just going to be annoyance, I'm going to trim it off. The center stack needs to be raised a few notches on the virpil deskmount. Once I'm happy with it, sand and paint and I should be "done" with this thing

 

 

 

[LASooner]

On 7/15/2023 at 1:04 AM, Chronocidal said:

Hope you're at least getting some flight time in with all of that work, it all looks gorgeous.

I'm currently in the "how do I even want to do this" stage.

I have a friend with a laser/cnc cutter, so if he can make time to help me out, I might get my panels all cut/etched that way, but so far, I've been printing everything with lettering engraved to fill in with paint.  It's not terrible, but could be a lot cleaner.  The filament tends to make layers around the letters that don't blend together well, but it was at least good to get a couple of test panels made.  I can probably print them all, so I'm keeping everything in both cutting and printing formats for now.

I'm in the middle of designing my mounting box though, and wondering whether it would be worth printing some of those dzus rails you made.  Obviously they're all in sections, but how sturdy did they turn out?

It would probably be easier to make the whole console from scratch instead of the modular design I'm trying to work with to let me swap Tomcat and Hornet panels, but I'm doing my best to keep the console box modular, and fit around the WinWing throttle.  I've got about 1.5 inches of internal depth to work with, which should fit all of my components, but the margins are tight side-to-side, and I'm wondering if I can get 2 M5 bolts side-by-side in a 3/4 inch wooden rail.

This is my current layout (with the throttle box slid in partway), and I'm liking the natural space for the two arduinos to fit, with the panel coming out to a nice round 1x2 foot total.

I think my main concern with the design is whether arduinos actually need any air circulation, or cooling. I can cut some venting into the outboard side if needed, but the other option would be the build the panel box deeper, and rework my rough console box to mount it as a drop-in that sinks below the surface, and leaves the underside open like yours.


And I'm just realizing how rough that console is, and in desperate need of a rework to actually fit.  

 

I created my own modular system using interlocking boxes with holes spaced as DZUS rails, my plan is to put them up for sale on Cults3D when this is all done, I figured other people may find a use for them. I made a long box and a short box to have variable lengths. I also created some blank plates to fill in holes on top between panels.

I use threaded brass rivets melted into the holes I need to put a screw in , you can see that in this picture of my console from August of last year. You could just put a bolt in and put a nut on the other side, but I could see early on that would be a royal pain in the ass to do maintenance on. I also realized some panels might go deeper so I created a box that has no middle support. As long as the whole cockpit isn't made of those it should be durable enough, especially with the panels screwed in to give top support.

It's all mounted on aluminum extrusion which makes it fairly light to move around , I even have handles on both sides which you can see on the left side. This important for me because mine has to be free standing as I don't have a dedicated space for a fulltime pit. Moving them out of the way quickly is a necessity. I have a powered USB hub bolted to each console and one attached to each side of my desk so there's only a single cable going from each one to the PC. 

Because the throttle mount base was designed for my Throttletek, I also made a base for the Thrustmaster mounting style throttles. I have adapters to make it angled and flat and flat inner angled outer. I settled on 15 degrees, the real tomcat is 24 degrees but I'm fine with the 15 degree slope. A bunch of different mounting solutions. You can screw it together or glue it together, I did a little of both..

[LeBryce]

what happened to you vdi stuff on shapeways because i no longer see it and i am trying to download it, and if you took it down could you please put it back up there for a little bit

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by LeBryce

[eatthis]

On 6/4/2022 at 1:24 AM, LASooner said:

Small update, made some UHF radio knobs. Added some wear and tear. Uses square nuts and m3 locking screws to hold it in place.

null

null

could i get/buy the stl off you for those knobs please? im planning a similer build

[LASooner]

It's been a while since I updated, mainly because I don't get much time to do anything on it.

I made an ejection handle that's mounted to my joystick base, it has an Arming switch on the back side

I revised my UHF radio to look mor3e like the real thing and use a more commonly available 7 segment display, it's now functional and runs off an Arduino micro. Only the LED requires DCS BIos, the rest still functions as a generic HID device so I can use it with the simulator that shall not be named.



I'm in the process of revising my Display panel with MX switches, as they allow me to use my own custom caps that look like the piano switches used on the tomcat. They feel better to press than the 10mm push buttons I have now. They won't spin and lock like the real thing, but they look nicer.

Revised my master test panel

And my warning panel

They run off the same Arduino Mega and I created my own PCB's for the first time, making each module separate for easy replacement

null
Also added a magnetic attached hood to the acm and side panels

It's mostly refining and the last 1% at this point

[LASooner]

I just want to clear something up, because I'm getting a lot of emails recently. I removed the HSD and VDI from the Shapeways store. The price they were charging to print was really unnerving, and since I wasn't making money on it, I didn't want to feel responsible for something someone paid close to $500 to have printed. So I removed those items. I will be reuploading them to Cults3D and Printables when I get a chance to package them up better. I will not be sending people STL's separately. I will let you know when I get them uploaded or you can just follow me on those sites. But nothing demotivates me more than people pushing me to do something before I'm ready. Those items will remain free, but not all the stuff I upload will.

[Uxi]

I'm digging that housing around the stick base you made for the ejection handle.  I'm doing a similar one for my VKB Gunfighter base.

[LASooner]

I finally got the master test knob working the way I wanted. I used a 12P1T rotary mounted on top of push/pull switch used for golf cart lights. It has it's own Arduino. I did have to decant the rotary and remove the limiter so it will rotate 360.

 

 

[Nightdare]

On 2/23/2024 at 4:11 AM, LASooner said:

 

You could use these piano/hood switches as well

then at least you have the on/off mechanical switching of the F-14 buttons

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004163624382.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller.12.6d47fdxifdxiDD&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.354490.0&scm_id=1007.40050.354490.0&scm-url=1007.40050.354490.0&pvid=ce68cfd6-dee0-48c6-abdd-356f8918b5b6&_t=gps-id:pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.354490.0,pvid:ce68cfd6-dee0-48c6-abdd-356f8918b5b6,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238115%232000&pdp_npi=4%40dis!EUR!5.27!5.00!!!5.51!5.23!%402103854617139676918186087ee84c!12000028242615851!rec!NL!2084566286!&utparam-url=scene%3ApcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller|query_from%3A

 

[LASooner]

 
You could use these piano/hood switches as well
then at least you have the on/off mechanical switching of the F-14 buttons
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004163624382.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller.12.6d47fdxifdxiDD&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.354490.0&scm_id=1007.40050.354490.0&scm-url=1007.40050.354490.0&pvid=ce68cfd6-dee0-48c6-abdd-356f8918b5b6&_t=gps-id:pcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.354490.0,pvid:ce68cfd6-dee0-48c6-abdd-356f8918b5b6,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238115%232000&pdp_npi=4%40dis!EUR!5.27!5.00!!!5.51!5.23!%402103854617139676918186087ee84c!12000028242615851!rec!NL!2084566286!&utparam-url=scene%3ApcDetailBottomMoreOtherSeller|query_from%3A
 

Thanks, I think I'm done, I don't want to have to sand and paint 10 more buttons :)

Did you figure out which of those has the correct spacing? The piano switches that I have that I used on the tape player were too small to use. The panel would be about 75% of the actual size if I use them.

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