WIP pictures

[lesthegrngo]

Hi all, it's been a while since I last posted some progress shots of my stand off A10 cockpit. I recently have regained a bit of momentum after the move, in which I nearly had all my stuff confiscated as the customs guys initially thought it was military stuff. Thankfully they accepted that real military hardware isn't made of MDF, acrylic and cheapo chinese electronics! 

Unfortunately my K40 laser machine blew the power supply, so I have been catching up on lots of little jobs, and also making a crude seat now I am able to have a dedicated racing sim rig. Unlike Hungary, MDF and acrylic are easy to find here, so after having luckily made all the fascias for the left console before the laser blew, I got on with the seat and console parts.

At the moment I am just making dumb panels without lighting as most are not critical,  but with time I will go back and update them. One thing I did spend some time on were the knobs, and I think they turned out really well considering.  I changed the geometry of some and spent time making sure they fit correctly,  meaning I have a load of spares.

I'm waiting for some ebay bits and bobs so I can fully assemble some of them, bits that can't be sources locally.  There are also some BCD thumbwheel units sitting on my father's sideboard that will eventually be brought out by a visitor, as some vendors can't ship here. Until they get here there will be a couple of unsightly holes in the IFF panel!

The seat I decided to do as a vague copy of the ACES ll and again, MDF available here made that possible.  As I only have a small CNC router it is made in small sections,  but it has come out well enough for my purposes.  I need to get the canvas for the seat sqab covers, not sure if that will end up being something that someone has to bring out too.

There are still a couple of niggling bits that I want to improve along the way, like the Digital Clock and the standby attitude indicator. I also want to find green on black or white on black LCD 8x1 character displays for the CMSC as for some reason the standard LCD black on grey ones really grate!

Anyway, this is as much for me to keep up my mojo as it is to show you guys! Hope you like it

Les

Some more images

[lesthegrngo]

A question for you guys out there.

The Saitek pedals are not impressing me in terms of quality, feel and comfort. I'm tempted to try and use them as a basis for some more sturdy homebred ones, but want to know if anyone has tried modifying them and whether there is really scope for improvement. Sometimes you are really trying to polish a turd and would be better off with alternative hardware, but in the past I've managed to make some really good stuff out of what looked at first sight like rubbish.

I don't want to waste time messing with them if there's no point

Cheers 

Les

[MAXsenna]

A setup like yours needs Slaws or Crosswinds. 

[sirrah]

On 8/29/2022 at 11:57 AM, lesthegrngo said:

Hi all, it's been a while since I last posted some progress shots of my stand off A10 cockpit. I recently have regained a bit of momentum after the move, in which I nearly had all my stuff confiscated as the customs guys initially thought it was military stuff. Thankfully they accepted that real military hardware isn't made of MDF, acrylic and cheapo chinese electronics! 

Unfortunately my K40 laser machine blew the power supply, so I have been catching up on lots of little jobs, and also making a crude seat now I am able to have a dedicated racing sim rig. Unlike Hungary, MDF and acrylic are easy to find here, so after having luckily made all the fascias for the left console before the laser blew, I got on with the seat and console parts.

At the moment I am just making dumb panels without lighting as most are not critical,  but with time I will go back and update them. One thing I did spend some time on were the knobs, and I think they turned out really well considering.  I changed the geometry of some and spent time making sure they fit correctly,  meaning I have a load of spares.

I'm waiting for some ebay bits and bobs so I can fully assemble some of them, bits that can't be sources locally.  There are also some BCD thumbwheel units sitting on my father's sideboard that will eventually be brought out by a visitor, as some vendors can't ship here. Until they get here there will be a couple of unsightly holes in the IFF panel!

The seat I decided to do as a vague copy of the ACES ll and again, MDF available here made that possible.  As I only have a small CNC router it is made in small sections,  but it has come out well enough for my purposes.  I need to get the canvas for the seat sqab covers, not sure if that will end up being something that someone has to bring out too.

There are still a couple of niggling bits that I want to improve along the way, like the Digital Clock and the standby attitude indicator. I also want to find green on black or white on black LCD 8x1 character displays for the CMSC as for some reason the standard LCD black on grey ones really grate!

Anyway, this is as much for me to keep up my mojo as it is to show you guys! Hope you like it

Les

Some more images

Seriously impressive there mate! 

[lesthegrngo]

Thanks guys

Never heard of Slaws or Crosswinds, will have to look them up!

Cheers

Les

[sea2sky]

On 8/30/2022 at 11:03 AM, lesthegrngo said:

A question for you guys out there.

The Saitek pedals are not impressing me in terms of quality, feel and comfort. I'm tempted to try and use them as a basis for some more sturdy homebred ones, but want to know if anyone has tried modifying them and whether there is really scope for improvement. Sometimes you are really trying to polish a turd and would be better off with alternative hardware, but in the past I've managed to make some really good stuff out of what looked at first sight like rubbish.

I don't want to waste time messing with them if there's no point

Cheers 

Les

I've modded mine slightly:

[G.J.S]

VERY impressive. Quality work on display here. Also like the display cabinet in view behind the bang seat, some fantastic looking small scale work there too!

Kudos, you are producing a pit to be rightly proud of.

[lesthegrngo]

Thanks guys

My models are a source of pleasure

 

14 hours ago, sea2sky said:

I've modded mine slightly:

Was that to improve feel? I feel like mine are very wobbly, or at least not very positive 

 

Cheers 

Les

[sea2sky]

22 hours ago, lesthegrngo said:

Was that to improve feel? I feel like mine are very wobbly, or at least not very positive

My newer cockpit had a seat lowered so the Saitek's angle was not that comfortable any more. So yeah, now it is much better.

[lesthegrngo]

I see, you changed it so it was more a "push pull" movement that a sliding type movement. Do you still use the toe brakes?

Cheers

 

Les

[lesthegrngo]

Finished the proper undercarriage lever mechanism finally, works really nicely after quite a bit of fiddling and fitting

 

 

Cheers

Les

[Dogmanbird]

On 8/31/2022 at 4:03 AM, lesthegrngo said:

A question for you guys out there.

The Saitek pedals are not impressing me in terms of quality, feel and comfort. I'm tempted to try and use them as a basis for some more sturdy homebred ones, but want to know if anyone has tried modifying them and whether there is really scope for improvement. Sometimes you are really trying to polish a turd and would be better off with alternative hardware, but in the past I've managed to make some really good stuff out of what looked at first sight like rubbish.

I don't want to waste time messing with them if there's no point

Cheers 

Les

Love your cockpit project! 

I have a set of the same pedals. I agree, they're a little plasticky, sloppy and flimsy. Not sure there's a lot we can do for that, but they do work.

I was also using them for choppers as well as planes. I put bars on the heel rests so I could put my heels on the floor and push with my toes. I removed the center spring and replaced the processor board with a arduino/promicro, mainly because the original board has a centre dead zone that you can't fully remove (regardless of what the setup software indicates), which is not ideal for choppers.  

I have limited space and i needed something narrower. I also wanted to quickly switch from choppers to planes with self centering. I experimented a bit with a few diy ideas and it resulted in the one at the bottom. It's not pretty but works and I'm still using it after nearly 2 years. video here https://i.imgur.com/uxfMnwg.mp4

null

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Dogmanbird

[lesthegrngo]

Nice - does it include toe brakes on your DIY rig?

I'm torn as to what to do, but it isn't very high on the (long) list of things to do so I have time. If I had access to better machining facilities I'd probably go for a complete scratch design usinga Bodnar board but at the moment that is not possible. One of the questions I have is whether to have them as sliding pedals or pivoted, which would be simpler to implement. The problem with the pivoting type is the toe brakes, it's possible but does complicate things 

 

Cheers

 

Les

[Dogmanbird]

Hi lesthegrngo,

yes the brakes work. There's a hall sensor (red circled) glued to the back of each black pedal arm and a magnet glued to the inside of the unpainted alloy that the wooden brake arm is screwed to. The hall sensor and magnet for the rudder movement is glued behind the right pedal arm, down close to where everything pivots. Again using pro micro board. 

I experimented with pendular pedals too, but I still needed to move my heel about when pushing. VKB's pedals feel nice as the pivot point is near the heel, but they don't offer much travel and no toe braking. For me the most comfortable setup is having the pedal pivot point beneath the feet and under the ankle, with arm coming up through the floor.  Unfortunately I don't have the space for it so had to compromise

null

null

Edited September 5, 2022 by Dogmanbird

[Dogmanbird]

Hi Les - I meant to ask, do your analogue gauges function? If so, can you talk a bit about it?

Cheers

[lesthegrngo]

Yes, they do, which is a lot easier to do than  i ever thought. The problem is making neat wiring, even if you are able to make PCB's

I'm a bit pushed for time right now but tomorrow will give you details. Anything in particular you want? I got all my knowledge (ok, nearly all) from the very kind and helpful people in these forums so i am totally happy to share any info I can give you, plus I have dedicated many posts to my attempts to make everything work including the RS485 network. Other knowledge was found on other sites but I have to warn you that there are some very clever but awfully impatient and unempathetic people on some of the so-called 'help' forums....!

Cheers 

Les

[Dogmanbird]

Thank you. I was curious if it was a servo and arduino combo driving them. 

re the help forums - yeah I could imagine that. It seems to go with the territory sometimes

 

[lesthegrngo]

I use stepper motors and drivers, controlled by Arduinos

Take a look at this

There are other posts I have made on this, but the most reliable setup so far has been A4988 drivers and X27-68 steppers, using Nano's to control. My only caveat is that the way that DCS-BIOS seems to output the data used by the Arduino leads to slightly jerky gauge movement

 

Les

[Dogmanbird]

Thank you Les, will have a read through.  

 

[lesthegrngo]

A bit of progress, some work on the seat and other bits and bobs. Most of it is a combination of 3d printed parts, some on a Lulzbot Mini, some on an Anycubic Photon Mono X. The major work with these was the post print surface prep, in order to hide the very visible layers on the FDM printed parts, but once done they look the part. Painting will follow once I'm happy with the finish.

For the seat itself, the bolsters on the seat back will be filled with car filler and sanded to the correct contour using the MDF formers as a guide. The undercarriage lever assembly was virtually a drop fit and is a vast improvement on the first one, and I was able to recycle the old one for duty as the refuelling door lever. 

I have started using magnets to give some feel to some of the parts, which helps them feel less toy like in their action. It's quite surprising how much difference a couple of tiny magnets make.

I'm still waiting on some Ebay parts to arrive to complete a number of the left console panels, OLED panels and some rotary encoders are still in the post

 

 

Edited September 16, 2022 by lesthegrngo

[Dogmanbird]

Love it!

[lesthegrngo]

Circuit breaker panel and trims, plus a bit more work on the seat decoration

 

Les

Edited September 19, 2022 by lesthegrngo

[lesthegrngo]

A couple more dress parts, basically to tart up the seat, and a revised standby attitude indicator to match some new hardware in the post. The DFDR data plate is a work of pure fiction, just to give some visual interest. If I manage to find a picture of a real one I'll probably update it

 

The back of the seat is also just a vague representation of the real thing so that the back of the seat doesn't look so empty; there's no other real function to it! 

 

Cheers 

Les

Edited October 3, 2022 by lesthegrngo

[lesthegrngo]

[Blue73]

That looks impressive, great job so far!