What I learned From My 6 Year Simpit Build

[Kenpilot]

After about 6 years of off and on building, my A10 cockpit replica home simpit is finally complete. I still have a few extra things here and there that I want to add to the sim, but for the most part, it is complete. Pictures to come.

When I began this journey, I looked around the forum for a thread like this and couldn't find one. 6 years later, I just did another search, and I still don't see one, so I thought I would start one and share with others some things that I learned during my build that I wish I had known when I first started, or before getting in to this endeavor. Please feel free to comment and expand on anything I missed or maybe I didn't run in to during my build, so that we may possibly help others. I'll also be posting all of my Arduino Sketches on another thread soon as well.  Just a few ways I'm trying to pay it forward for all of the help I got from the amazing people on this forum. 

So in no particular order, here are some helpful tips from my sim building experience:

1) Time and money: If you're looking to build a full replica simpit of an aircraft/helicopter, you're going to need lots of it.  I initially got my inspiration from The Warthog Project. During one of his earlier videos, he stated how much it cost him and that it took him about 5 years up until the point of his video. I thought nah, no way, I can do it a lot quicker than that, and probably cheaper. Nope, I couldn't have been more wrong. Obviously time and money are relative, some of us have more than others, but overall, understand you are getting in to a VERY long term project, and an expensive one. 

2) Arduinos, Arduinos, Arduinos: I tried several different gaming control interfaces/ encoders in the beginning, Groovey Game Gear, Leo Bodnar, Arduino, etc. While they can all serve a purpose and will work, there's a reason why my simpit has about 13 Arduinos running it, and only Arduinos. I wish I had just saved my time, money and frustration and used only them from the start. Super user friendly and work really well with DCS and DCS Bios. 

3) Wiring and connections: My simpit is a mix of individual wires, Ethernet cable (bundle of 8 wires) and breadboard jumper wires. I feel like they all can work, its just personal preference and maybe what you have on hand or can get for free or cheap. They each have pluses and minuses. I will say though that ethernet cables are great for panels with a lot of switches or knobs and keeping things neat and organized. The jumper wires are nice, but the male pins tend to break from time to time, which is very frustrating. As far as connecting  whatever wires you choose, do yourself a favor and either solder the connections, or use screw type terminal blocks. Don’t use the jumper wires and just plug them directly in to the Arduino boards. At some point they WILL come out of their pin hole, or break in them. They’re really made for breadboard testing and only temporary use. So when you know what your connection is going to be, make it more of a permanent connection. Which leads me to my next lesson…

4) Building Your Panels and Wiring Them: Design them and build them so that 1) You can replace switches/encoders/ Pots, etc. and wiring down the road if need be, but yet 2) build them and wire them once. As in, do it right the first time. Don’t half ass it or wing it and say eh, that’s good enough. You WILL be rebuilding it or fixing it again at some point, trust me. Do it right and permanently the first time. I can’t tell you how many panels I had to go back and fix my laziness or half ass wiring or connections because things came loose, or broke. If I had just done it right the first time, that panel would have been done for good, and I wouldn’t still be trying to finish it or working on it and basically building it again, wasting A LOT of time.

5). Tools and Machines: Depending on how much of the simpit you want to build yourself, there are a few tools and machines that are invaluable. Assortment of wood working tools such as jigsaw, cordless drill and driver, Dremel Tool, Hot Glue Gun, Soldering Iron, Heat Gun, 3-D Printer, Laser cutter/engraver. By the time you buy all of the knobs, handles, covers, etc, you could have bought a 3d printer, made them yourself, saved money in the long run, and now you have a 3D printer, which has SO many more uses than just building a simpit. Same with a laser cutter/engraver. There are places out there on the internet that you can buy already made panels, or you can get a laser and build them yourself and save money in the long run.

6) Forums: This is without a doubt, the best advice I can give, use the forums. There is no way I would have been able to build my simpit without the help of some awesome people on these forums. Before starting this project, I had some pretty decent wood working skills, basic electronic skills, basic computer skills, and absolutely zero coding skills. I can't even count the number of times I was stuck in my build and came to the forum and either searched for an answer, or started a thread and asked for help. There are a lot of people on here that are absolutely amazing and know a hell of a lot, and they enjoy helping. Obviously YouTube is a great source for information as well, but this forum and the people here were absolutely instrumental in helping me complete my simpit. 

7) MOST IMPORTANT: Have fun and don't forget to play DCS every now and then to remind yourself of why you're doing this! 

Hope this helps! Feel free to message me if you have any questions. 

Edited March 20 by Kenpilot

[Hookah]

Ken,  I followed this post.  I'm 2yrs in on my build, hopefully 4 left, lol.

When you post your Arduino Sketches, please mention it here or link to them.

Many Thanks and CONGRATULATIONS!

Darin a.k.a. - Hookah

[Kenpilot]

16 hours ago, Hookah said:

Ken,  I followed this post.  I'm 2yrs in on my build, hopefully 4 left, lol.

When you post your Arduino Sketches, please mention it here or link to them.

Many Thanks and CONGRATULATIONS!

Darin a.k.a. - Hookah

Awesome! No stopping now! lol I will definitely mention it here and or link the sketches.  Please let me know if you have any questions. If I can't answer them, I'm sure I can point you to someone who can.  Good luck and feel free to share anything along the way that you learn as well! I WISH someone had told me the things that I mentioned before I started, or hell, even half way through! Would have definitely saved me some time, frustration and money I'm sure. Keep us posted on your build! 

PS. If you need a sketch for a panel before I'm able to post them, please feel free to reach and let me know which panel you need and I'll be more than happy to send you what I have for that panel. 

Ken

Edited March 22 by Kenpilot

[Kenpilot]

Something else I learned and just remembered. If a panel/switch/knob, display, etc. isn't acting correctly or is acting erratically, troubleshoot by checking the following items:

1) Wiring. Check and check again, the wiring on the Arduino, as well as the switch, pot, rotary encoder, etc.

2) Replace the switch, pot, rotary encoder with another one.

3) Reload the Arduino sketch

4 ) Ensure you're using the latest Arduino library from Github.

5) Ensure you're using the latest version of Bort and the included sketch language.

6) Plug in an external power source to the Arduino Board. If you have several things connected to the Arduino 5V pins and drawing from it, you may not have enough power. I have had this happen a couple times to where something wasn't acting right like a volume knob or HDG/CRS knob, 7 segment display, etc., and it just turned out to be that it needed more power. Simple and quick fix.

Again, all of these things happened to me along the way, so I'm sure it's happened or will happen to others. Hope it helps! 

 

[t_hedlund]

It amazes me the level of craftmanship, attention to detail, resourcefulness, and persistence that goes into building a simpit. Thank you for sharing your lessons learned, it is appreciated. 

 

I'm working on building a button box, I'm to the point of wiring and I'm holding out until I can spend a few hours straight to do it right. 

Edited March 30 by t_hedlund

[Kenpilot]

3 hours ago, t_hedlund said:

It amazes me the level of craftmanship, attention to detail, resourcefulness, and persistence that goes into building a simpit. Thank you for sharing your lessons learned, it is appreciated. 

 

I'm working on building a button box, I'm to the point of wiring and I'm holding out until I can spend a few hours straight to do it right. 

Good luck on the button box. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. If I can't answer it, I'm sure I can point you in the right direction, or just search on here, plenty of threads on button box building. Not only do button boxes make DCS more fun, it definitely helps vs trying to remember all the keyboard commands and combinations there are in the game. 

[agrasyuk]

6 years ?!
yeah, you probably aren't going to be impressed at all with my speed then  I'm at 10+ for my 3rd iteration and still a lot of things I want to build and rebuild. 
 Enjoy the process, learn new stuff and hold yourself to your own best standards. cheers!
 

 

[Kenpilot]

On 4/14/2025 at 5:04 PM, agrasyuk said:

6 years ?!
yeah, you probably aren't going to be impressed at all with my speed then  I'm at 10+ for my 3rd iteration and still a lot of things I want to build and rebuild. 
 Enjoy the process, learn new stuff and hold yourself to your own best standards. cheers!
 

 

Looking great!!! Actually, I AM impressed with your timeline, mostly because you're going all out on designing and building your panels, up to and including making your own PCBs, and your own throttles and throttle panel! That's awesome!! Thanks for sharing your sim build, can't wait to see it when it's all done! Awesome projection screen too. How do you like it? Are you using Immersive Display Pro to blend and warp the images? 

[Kenpilot]

[agrasyuk]

Ken, 
it's a very nice pit on your side as well. congrats.

On 4/16/2025 at 12:17 AM, Kenpilot said:

Thanks for sharing your sim build, can't wait to see it when it's all done! Awesome projection screen too. How do you like it? Are you using Immersive Display Pro to blend and warp the images? 

By the time one thing is done, something else comes up, LOL. I'm just going with it, trying to enjoy the process.
Indeed, it is Immersive Display Pro. Overall, the picture is great. But I can't help but want more pixels - 1080p after the curve-trimmed ends is not as clear as on a normal monitor. I'm considering updating my projectors to BenQ X500i. but then running at double 4K will probably be to much for my GPU... decisions decisions

[Bucic]

Excellent writeup, Ken! 

May I ask for a word of advice? I'm just before starting wiring my first panels and to this day I haven't decided what's the best approach to multiply the Arduino inputs, with simplicity, cost effectiveness and DCS-BIOS suitability being the priority variables. From all of my research a manually built board of daisy-chained shift registers is the best solution in my case. What is your take? 

I find it really odd that out of a dozen of "beginner simpit building guides" the multiplication of Arduino inputs is skimped over. You can't build anything without addressing the issue first! 

Edited June 9 by Bucic

[Vinc_Vega]

@Bucic

You also may use port expanders. They are available in I2C and SPI bus variants.

I described an example here in that posting:

Regards, Vinc

[Bucic]

@Vinc_Vega

I appreciate your input but from the first look this doesn't seem to meet my criteria of 'simple' 

Not to derail the topic here's my thread on the subject

 

[Kenpilot]

On 6/9/2025 at 7:11 AM, Bucic said:

Excellent writeup, Ken! 

May I ask for a word of advice? I'm just before starting wiring my first panels and to this day I haven't decided what's the best approach to multiply the Arduino inputs, with simplicity, cost effectiveness and DCS-BIOS suitability being the priority variables. From all of my research a manually built board of daisy-chained shift registers is the best solution in my case. What is your take? 

I find it really odd that out of a dozen of "beginner simpit building guides" the multiplication of Arduino inputs is skimped over. You can't build anything without addressing the issue first! 

Thanks Bucic!

Unfortunately I'm not really sure how to answer your question or how I can help. Even after building my sim, I still feel like I'm a beginner when it comes to a lot of things associated with Arduinos. I'm not even sure what daisy-chained shift registers are lol Sorry I'm not much help, but there are plenty of others on here that are much more well versed on these things, I'm sure they'll be more than happy to help! Good luck in your build! 

[No1sonuk]

On 6/22/2025 at 3:40 AM, Kenpilot said:

Thanks Bucic!

Unfortunately I'm not really sure how to answer your question or how I can help. Even after building my sim, I still feel like I'm a beginner when it comes to a lot of things associated with Arduinos. I'm not even sure what daisy-chained shift registers are lol Sorry I'm not much help, but there are plenty of others on here that are much more well versed on these things, I'm sure they'll be more than happy to help! Good luck in your build! 

Shift registers, in this context, are a means of converting parallel data into serial. 

They take the parallel data in and "shift" it out one bit at a time, or take 1 bit in at a time and shift it to parallel.  They usually have a way of linking between devices so you can make a chain for more parallel connections than one device can provide.

The PISO variety take Parallel In and give Serial Out.  You can use this to expand the number of inputs an Arduino can take OR you can use it to convey a large number of inputs through only a few wires - IIRC, this is how TM grips transfer their 20+ button data to the base using a 6 pin mini DIN connector.

[Bucic]

12 hours ago, No1sonuk said:

Shift registers, in this context, are a means of converting parallel data into serial. 

They take the parallel data in and "shift" it out one bit at a time, or take 1 bit in at a time and shift it to parallel.  They usually have a way of linking between devices so you can make a chain for more parallel connections than one device can provide.

The PISO variety take Parallel In and give Serial Out.  You can use this to expand the number of inputs an Arduino can take OR you can use it to convey a large number of inputs through only a few wires - IIRC, this is how TM grips transfer their 20+ button data to the base using a 6 pin mini DIN connector.

This has to be the best explanation of the theory behind SR I have ever seen! Thank you. Although what I'm actually looking is a schematic/wiring. 

For this reason, for now, I'm going with the daisy chained shift registers from mudspike forums (user TheAlmightySnark) as described in this post

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/338959-small-project-organization-dcs-bios-and-freejoy/#comment-5342268

As I mentioned, I created that thread specifically to address the 'beginner interface' problem and you can be sure I'm going to share my findings if I ever find a simpler, better solution.

 

Edited Tuesday at 12:04 PM by Bucic