Deadman's A-10 C Cockpit Build

[Deadman]

None at the moment the idea came up last night, but its not some thing I am willing to spend a huge amount of time on with any real feed back.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Deadman

[Duckling]

I'm in for a copy of the book regardless the cost (allmost ;-) , and pray you find the time and patiance to put it together. It's a huge task to take on counting all the work and administration etc in mind.

Nothing like that has been made for any other crafts as far I know.

Numbers of copies requested by this forum alone may be limited at start but given time it likely be a classic in a broader area of readers and collectors worldwide (i.e. not only Pit builders) given it provide both a professional look and an insight to details along with the pure Pit building info.

 

Mike Powels books, even if covering a more wide scoop, are allmost impossible to get hold of now. (I luckily got my copies in time)

 

On second thought, make that two copies.. not kidding, wished I made the same choice when ordering Mike's books..

 

Cheers

Gus

[Stevos758]

I guess I agree! I'll pre pay for a book as long as it comes with all of the 3d drawings.

[MacFevre]

Hey DM, Why the book is a great idea! :smilewink: You know where I stand on the whole thing. And yes, I would be interested. :thumbup:

[Deadman]

Crappy news on the actuators the company will not provide the schematics even though they are obsolete units. with out me purchasing the software, controller and safety logic but they have not quoted me a price on any thing either But i think it will be in line with if you have to ask you can't afford it

Edited October 24, 2013 by Deadman

[jander]

I would definitely be in on the book, regardless (almost of course) on cost.

[Hansolo]

Crappy news on the actuators the company will not provide the schematics even though they are obsolete units. with out me purchasing the software, controller and safety logic but they have not quoted me a price on any thing either But i think it will be in line with if you have to ask you can't afford it

DOOH....:( Yeah I guess that software is pretty expensive :cry:

 

Anyway I will in on a copy of the book :thumbup: Keep up the good work DM

 

Cheers

Hans

[Boltz]

I too am in for a copy of the book. Would be great to have this build properly documented.

[Thick8]

So Deadman,

If I said "I HATE YOU". Would you understand?...

From,

Green with envy.

[Deadman]

Hum I would say that is a waist of your energy to hate any one or thing.

Envy is a terrible emotion by the online dictionary.

a. A feeling of discontent and resentment aroused by and in conjunction with desire for the possessions or qualities of another.

 

Chill be happy and hopefully you will learn and make some thing your happy with and proud of.

[Whisky One]

Holy smoke gongratulations with the awesome trainer!

 

I guess it's good karma that you finally got one after helping a lot of dogs out with info knobs and awesome decals. Have a good one :joystick:

[Deadman]

Thanks Whisky Iam lucky I found it.

[Deadman]

Well I got a quote on the actuator control and software $25,000 USD time to get some help and just rebuild the system

Edited October 27, 2013 by Deadman

[Boltz]

Thats a lot more than I was expecting even though I knew it would be expensive. I guess you will just have to connect the flight controls up to pots or hall sensors with some sort of feedback unit to provide resistance. Probably be a lot of work but you should end up with something a lot more realistic feeling than a TM Warthog with a stick extension!

[Deadman]

You have misunderstood the measurements i will clarify them soon.

Please don't re post my pictures Thanks

Thanks a lot for those measurements! :thumbup:

 

If I see it correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong) it's 36.7" from the front of the rear bulkhead (the one with the circular cutouts at the top) to the center of the the pitch pivot point of the stick. The pivot point is 13/16" above the cockpit floor.

The last picture is somewhat hard to interpret for me. I'd say it's 13-5/16 inches from the front of the rear bulkhead to where the front of the ejection seat rail intersects with the cockpit floor. Correct?

 

There are some additional dimensions I think many would be interested in:

a) the height of the rear bulkhead from the cockpit floor to the top.

b) the distance from the front of the rear bulkhead to the point where the dzus rails of the circuit breaker panel intersect with the cockpit floor.

c) the angle between the cockpit floor and the circuit breaker panel.

d) the height (from the cockpit floor) of the horizontal part of the right (left) instrument panel measured on the inside wall perpendicular to the floor

e) the height of the right instrument panel at the front

f) the angle between the cockpit floor (disregarding the foot pits) and the front of the right (left) instrument panel

 

Thanks a lot,

DSP

 

PS: If it's ok with you I can repost some of your pictures with the dimensions marked in red.

[Dropship Pilot]

$25000? - That's a little more than I would want to spend on a FFB-Stick. :doh:

The small cylinder at the end of the motor looks like a position encoder. If you are lucky it uses a standard RS422 interface. Then you should get that covered with about $200 for 3 units.

Have you measured the resistance values between the four motor connectors?

That should give a hint about the motor design. Again - with a little luck it's a simple DC motor with a stator and a rotor winding...

 

Cheers,

DSP

[Deadman]

the small cylinders are Sensotec amplified transducers there are three of them I have not recorded any of the information off of them yet.

I have a bout 0 electronic control skills.

What 4 motor connectors are you talking about checking the resistance on?

 

I am hoping it is a simple DC motor but there is no input out put label on it. I have the connector box open and can take some pictures here in a bit of the wire connections

I was hopping to get a hold of PeterP and see if he could spare some time

Edited October 27, 2013 by Deadman

[Dropship Pilot]

On the main motor housing there's a round connector that has 4 pins. I would expect these to be the ones that connect to the motor coils. If you measure the resistance between these pins it should be possible to determine how many motor coils there are without opening the motor.

 

If you have any additional info on the Sensotec transducer, let me know (we are talking about the small cylinder on the back of the motor, right?). From my point of view this should be either a position or a velocity sensor (or a combination of both). Sensotec also does load cells (torque sensors) but as the torque should be directly proportial to the motor current, you wouldn't need a sensor for it (unless you need exceptionally precise torque data).

 

Cheers,

DSP

[Deadman]

Could you be more specifice on how to do this ? If you measure the resistance between these pins it should be possible to determine how many motor coils there are without opening the motor.

What setting do you want the meter on? do you want it tested to ground or between the leads? Pm me your email so we don't clutter the thread with back and forthe but we can post the results thansk

[Direwolf5]

Deadman, do you think that those motors could just be oversize steppers? if so the procedure to determine the windings is fairly straight forward.

 

If they are steppers they are either unipolar with 5 or 6 connections or bipolar with 4.

 

Unipolar

A unipolar stepper motor has one winding with center tap per phase. Typically, given a phase, the center tap of each winding is made common: giving three leads per phase and six leads for a typical two phase motor. Often, these two phase commons are internally joined, so the motor has only five leads.

 

Bipolar

Bipolar motors have a single winding per phase. There are two leads per phase, none are common.

 

There is one final configuration a weird 8 wire stepper.

An 8-lead stepper is wound like a unipolar stepper, but the leads are not joined to common internally to the motor. This kind of motor can be wired in several configurations:

 

• Unipolar.
  
• Bipolar with series windings. This gives higher inductance but lower current per winding.
  
• Bipolar with parallel windings. This requires higher current but can perform better as the winding inductance is reduced.
  
• Bipolar with a single winding per phase. This method will run the motor on only half the available windings, which will reduce the available low speed torque but require less current
  

The only other type of motor it could be is a 3-phase motor, as a former Air Force Missile maintainer I can tell you the the US Air Force likes to use 3-phase motors wherever they can.

 

Direwolf5

[Direwolf5]

As for meter settings look for continuity between pins, for a unipolar motor with six pins you will get continuity for 3 pins to each other, if there is no continuity then they are for separate phases.

 

then in a unipolar you will check the resistance between pins,

Resistance from the coil end to the common will be one half the resistance from end to end.

 

If it is a 5 pin setup check the resistances first, the common pin will give a half resistance reading to the other 4, and the separate phases will read as an open circuit with infinite resistance.

 

Direwolf5

[Deadman]

Well here are some Pictures of the units

the box to the side that every thing connect through

Power in at the bottom three heavy wires color Black, Red, and green possibly 220 here in the sates but It does not appear to be three phase judging by the wire colors and only three power supply wires.

.

 

The second connector goes from the box to the round connector on the side possibly power for the motor.

Looking at the box wires are Black ,Red , Green from the left to right

On the round connector on the other side of the cable. A not connected

B inline with Black

C in Line with Red

Green goes to ground attaches to the connector

 

Next I checked the connector on the motor.

A and B are both green but are not connected

C and D both Orange but are not connected

 

Checking the pins with a meter set on ohm 2000 touched leads befor test and meter read 0. My readings were

A to B 054, A to C 043 A to D 043

B to C 031, B to D 031

C to D 014

 

I pulled the center cover that has a D sub connector on off the was not a gasket and no torque on the screws so what the heck

on the side of the what appeared to be a sensor Turns out to be a Danaher Controls

Encoder Link to the PDF http://www.dynapar.com/uploadedFiles/_Site_Root/Products_and_Solutions/Frameless09072012C_Pamp.pdf

http://www.dynapar.com/uploadedFiles/_Site_Root/Products_and_Solutions/Frameless09072012C_Pamp.pdf

HARDWARE SERVO CONTROL INC WEST CHESTER P.A ( Nothing on goggle search)

HAROSYN-RCX 21BRCX-500-H7A

ROTOR (IN) 4.0 V SATOR (OUT) 2.0 V

SN 677 500 HZ

 

The SENSOTEC sensor are connect between the through arm and linkage in the back for the roll and pitch control of the stick and in line on a transfer bar for the rudder pedals .

Both of the sensors for the stick are A281-02 MODEL RANGE 0 TO 1000 POUNDS EXC +/- 12 VDC OUTPUT +/-10 VDC

 

 

Here is a top down picture of the placement and linkage connection.

 

 

The side Unit that conects to the rudder pedals missing all of its connector wiring

 

The back of the unit showing the inline placement of the censor I am not able to check the model number but it looks the same

 

Here are some pictures of the gearing and cable system between the servo and the swing arm

Edited October 28, 2013 by Deadman

[Deadman]

Hey Thanks for taking Time to help me out here. By your description it looks like they might possibly Bipolar units

 

Deadman, do you think that those motors could just be oversize steppers? if so the procedure to determine the windings is fairly straight forward.

 

If they are steppers they are either unipolar with 5 or 6 connections or bipolar with 4.

 

Unipolar

 

 

Bipolar

 

 

There is one final configuration a weird 8 wire stepper.

 

The only other type of motor it could be is a 3-phase motor, as a former Air Force Missile maintainer I can tell you the the US Air Force likes to use 3-phase motors wherever they can.

 

Direwolf5

[Mike Powell]

Quite possibly your control loaders are multi-phase AC torque motors with synchro-like sensors used for shaft position/speed/acceleration sensing. The Sensotec units are the load cells used to measure delivered force to the pedal or stick.

 

An AC torque motor creates a rotating magnetic field that attempts to drag the rotor along with it. This operates much like an ordinary AC induction motor, but is designed to operate in essentially a stalled condition. An ordinary induction motor will draw too much current and overheat if stalled. The torque motor needs to be multi phase to produce a smooth torque.

 

Because the goal is to produce different amount of control load depending on aircraft dynamics, control position, weather, damage, etc. with good fidelity, there's a complex control structure built around the motor. The outer control loop uses feedback from the sensotec load cell to set the proper motor currents, however, it doesn't stop there. The motor rotor has inertia which must be taken into account. To accommodate the dynamics of the motor into the system and maintain overall control loading fidelity, the rotor speed and acceleration become important factors in the control algorithm. The synchro-like sensor provides that information.

 

Why synchro-like sensors? Because they are accurate and reliable.

 

It's not at all clear how the control algorithm was implemented. It may have been analog, digital, or a mixture of the two.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Mike Powell

[Deadman]

Hi Mike thanks So much for the input .

Now the big question is are they usable or do I junk them for a different solution?