Boot910 Posted January 8, 2011 Posted January 8, 2011 any update...??? :music_whistling::D -bump- Should be something more to see early next week. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
reschke Posted January 11, 2011 Posted January 11, 2011 I don't have a good idea yet for the Master Caution button. FYI the size I'm using for the UFC front panel is 225mm x 50mm Nice find on the Front Panel Express company. I am checking them out for another project in the real pay check world. As for the Master Caution button...what if you just went with a clear button with an overlay that was a stencil? You may have thought about that already but I am sure they are out there. Warthog #1397...compliments of SimHQ
Dejjvid Posted January 11, 2011 Posted January 11, 2011 I really hope someone put together a kit or sell preassembled UFC's. I'd buy one for sure. i7 8700K | GTX 1080 Ti | 32GB RAM | 500GB M.2 SSD | TIR5 w/ Trackclip Pro | TM Hotas Warthog | Saitek Pro Flight Rudder [sigpic]http://www.132virtualwing.org[/sigpic]
71st_Mastiff Posted January 11, 2011 Posted January 11, 2011 I really hope someone put together a kit or sell preassembled UFC's. I'd buy one for sure. ditto :thumbup: yes a kit to assemble would be awesome. "any failure you meet, is never a defeat; merely a set up for a greater come back", W Forbes. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts", "He who never changes his mind, never changes anything," Winston Churchill. MSI z690 MPG DDR4 || i9-14900k|| ddr4-128gb PC3200 |zotac RTX 5080|Game max 1300w|Win11| |turtle beach elite pro 5.1|| ViRpiL,T50cm2||MFG Crosswinds|| VT50CM-plus rotor Throttle || G10 RGB EVGA Keyboard/MouseLogitech || PiMax Crystal VR || 32 Asus||
y2kiah Posted January 11, 2011 Posted January 11, 2011 I will offer this, once I get my CNC machine to a point where I can quickly and reliably produce the parts
JaseGill Posted January 11, 2011 Posted January 11, 2011 y2kiah, Methinks you're going to be inundated as soon as you announce availability. Good prosperous businesses are made this way :) J. Rig: Home Built, water cooled,i5 2500K @ 4.3Ghz, ASUS P8P67Pro Mobo, 8GB Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 RAM, MSI Nvidia GTX970 4GB Gaming OC, 120GB OCZ Vertex 2e SSD Boot, 120GB OCZ Vertex 2e SSD Games (BS & WH), Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB other, Samsung UE37D5000 37" LED TV,EloTouch 1600x1200 secondary, Thrustmaster Warthog No.467, Thrustmaster MFD, Saitek Pro Pedals, Track IR4 with Track Clip Pro. Ex RAF Aircrew, Real Life Pilot, proud Geek and father of one :)
y2kiah Posted January 11, 2011 Posted January 11, 2011 Yeah you may be right. I learned my lesson with the panels I've designed so far, I had better be ready to produce quickly if I'm going to take orders. :helpsmilie: So to start off, I most likely will not take orders but instead produce a bunch of extras when I make my own, and sell them when they are ready with no timeline pressure. If I feel like I can make them quick enough from that experience, then I'll consider orders. I know my CNC v.2 will be up to the task though, so it will be less learning and more producing. 1
JaseGill Posted January 11, 2011 Posted January 11, 2011 Fair enuf y2kiah. Probably a good move. Good luck in figting us all off mate ;) J. Rig: Home Built, water cooled,i5 2500K @ 4.3Ghz, ASUS P8P67Pro Mobo, 8GB Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 RAM, MSI Nvidia GTX970 4GB Gaming OC, 120GB OCZ Vertex 2e SSD Boot, 120GB OCZ Vertex 2e SSD Games (BS & WH), Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB other, Samsung UE37D5000 37" LED TV,EloTouch 1600x1200 secondary, Thrustmaster Warthog No.467, Thrustmaster MFD, Saitek Pro Pedals, Track IR4 with Track Clip Pro. Ex RAF Aircrew, Real Life Pilot, proud Geek and father of one :)
Dejjvid Posted January 12, 2011 Posted January 12, 2011 y2kiah, gief your paypal and i send you some money straight away, if your doing one UFC, you might aswell do two ;) i7 8700K | GTX 1080 Ti | 32GB RAM | 500GB M.2 SSD | TIR5 w/ Trackclip Pro | TM Hotas Warthog | Saitek Pro Flight Rudder [sigpic]http://www.132virtualwing.org[/sigpic]
Boot910 Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 Here's an update on my build This is the back of my pcboard with my connectors attached. I have a photo of the front of the bare board, but it was blurry and I put my camera away and I'm tired, so I'll upload it later. This is the front of my pcboard with the buttons soldered in. The one without the cap is the Enter button. I still have to fabricate the final button. Here's the insides of the UFC with the panel mounted. You'll notice I haven't soldered the wires to the rockers or Master Caution yet. I also haven't mounted the interface card. That I will do last of all when making the final connections. And here's the UFC buttoned up for the night. I labeled all the buttons and put in a temp cap for the Enter button. This is what the finished project looks like... pretty much. Final Enter button needed obviously, and I'll paint the screws for the rockers flat black. Still to do: Put together a build/cost list and whatever info is useful. 1 [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
JaseGill Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 WOW Boot, that rocks. Looks really good mate. Especially like the way you have done the PCB. Any idea what you're going to drive it with? Leo Bodnar or one of the many others around? J. Rig: Home Built, water cooled,i5 2500K @ 4.3Ghz, ASUS P8P67Pro Mobo, 8GB Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 RAM, MSI Nvidia GTX970 4GB Gaming OC, 120GB OCZ Vertex 2e SSD Boot, 120GB OCZ Vertex 2e SSD Games (BS & WH), Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB other, Samsung UE37D5000 37" LED TV,EloTouch 1600x1200 secondary, Thrustmaster Warthog No.467, Thrustmaster MFD, Saitek Pro Pedals, Track IR4 with Track Clip Pro. Ex RAF Aircrew, Real Life Pilot, proud Geek and father of one :)
Boot910 Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 WOW Boot, that rocks. Looks really good mate. Especially like the way you have done the PCB. Any idea what you're going to drive it with? Leo Bodnar or one of the many others around? J. Thanks! I have a U-HID card (http://www.u-hid.com/home/overview_board.php) It's small enough to fit inside the UFC and seems to have all the capabilities I need. I can configure the buttons as either key presses or game pad buttons, and I can drive the LED in the Master Caution switch with it. You could really use any of the solutions out there I think but this particular card fits inside so I can make it a self-contained solution with just a USB cable coming out the back. I still have to work out how I want to interface with the game and I'll probably need help with some code in export.lua for the LED. It's been a fun project so far though! Lot's of different skills exercised. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
hog_driver111th Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 Hey boot, when you make up your lists of stuff for us, can you PM me about how you made and wired your PCBoard? I can buy a PCB here in Germany that looks easy to work with, but if using a Master Card from Open Cockpits, would I have to wire each tactile switch to the card, or... My front panel is about half done (still haven't gotten my buttons) being cut out of wood. I may have a free way to make the front panel out of using an old VCR cover (hehe)... I just need to have my wife let me buy an attachment for my dremel tool. The wiring is something I'm not sure on though. Oh, I have the image you made from the panel parts (thanks btw!), but I'm confused on how you ordered the Master Caution Switch. I couldn't actually find where to order it on the website and how much it cost. A-10C - FC3 - CA - L-39 - UH1 - P-51 - Hawk - BS2 - F-86 - Gazelle - F-5E - AV8B - F/A-18C i5-4590 - GTX 1060 - Oculus CV1 - TM:Warthog [sIGPIC]http://forums.eagle.ru/signaturepics/sigpic9979_1.gif[/sIGPIC]
Pendra Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 (edited) Thanks! I have a U-HID card (http://www.u-hid.com/home/overview_board.php) It's small enough to fit inside the UFC and seems to have all the capabilities I need. I can configure the buttons as either key presses or game pad buttons, and I can drive the LED in the Master Caution switch with it. You could really use any of the solutions out there I think but this particular card fits inside so I can make it a self-contained solution with just a USB cable coming out the back. I still have to work out how I want to interface with the game and I'll probably need help with some code in export.lua for the LED. It's been a fun project so far though! Lot's of different skills exercised. That is cool stuff, what kind of coding help you need? I'm working on an USB touchscreen controller app (among other stuff). It has a HID input section and it can send control commands to any application, of course. It won't be too hard to modify the app to accept the input of your UFC and convert it to key press/mouse press/whatever event or combo you want. It already has a HID customization screen. I suspect that it would be possible to expand it, so it would allow you to set up any UFC using any shape and size easily. Edited January 13, 2011 by Pendra
hog_driver111th Posted January 13, 2011 Posted January 13, 2011 Sorry to post again, but I found this. I'm not sure if it would work or not, and it's a little large, but thought I'd let you know about it... http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Cat=1115298&k=3003bb A-10C - FC3 - CA - L-39 - UH1 - P-51 - Hawk - BS2 - F-86 - Gazelle - F-5E - AV8B - F/A-18C i5-4590 - GTX 1060 - Oculus CV1 - TM:Warthog [sIGPIC]http://forums.eagle.ru/signaturepics/sigpic9979_1.gif[/sIGPIC]
Boot910 Posted January 14, 2011 Posted January 14, 2011 Sorry to post again, but I found this. I'm not sure if it would work or not, and it's a little large, but thought I'd let you know about it... http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Cat=1115298&k=3003bb Thanks! I downloaded Digikey's entire PDF catalog. It's huge and would take a bit of searching to find that I think, so thanks for the link. To be honest, once I settled on the NKK switch I stopped looking but it's cool someone is thinking on it. Since I already have the front panel and it'd cost another 65 bucks to do a new one I guess I'll stick with what I have. :) [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Boot910 Posted January 15, 2011 Posted January 15, 2011 That is cool stuff, what kind of coding help you need? I'm working on an USB touchscreen controller app (among other stuff). It has a HID input section and it can send control commands to any application, of course. It won't be too hard to modify the app to accept the input of your UFC and convert it to key press/mouse press/whatever event or combo you want. It already has a HID customization screen. I suspect that it would be possible to expand it, so it would allow you to set up any UFC using any shape and size easily. The U-HID card I'm using has an SDK that would allow me to drive an LED (Master Caution) from an external program. I'm guessing this is where export.lua comes into play. If I can get this figured out then the MC light will be functional. The actual button reading should be pretty straight forward. I can configure the buttons as either standard key presses or as game pad buttons. I might set them as game pad buttons since the card outputs standard keyscan codes and it doesn't look like there's a way to combine them; I can output an A, or Left Control, but I don't think I can do LCtrl+A. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Boot910 Posted January 23, 2011 Posted January 23, 2011 Quick update for those still interested. I finished up the soldering/wiring the other night but I haven't been able to program/test the UFC until tonight. Plugged it in and no sparks or magic smoke so that was good. :) I used the U-HID Config utility to program all the named buttons/rockers as gamepad buttons. You can do keystrokes but it doesn't do combos like Left Shift-A it seems, so gamepad buttons look to be the way to go. I can still program the blank 3 buttons (under FWD, MID, and AFT) with keystrokes to do other things later. Windows only allows 32 gamepad buttons and fortunately all the required functions add up to exactly 32! Anyways, everything works. Now it's just a matter of integrating it into DCS:A-10C. To test out the Master Caution LED I programmed it to turn on when I depress the MC button and that works too. If I can figure out how to interface that with the game it should work. Only thing really left to do is fabricate the final ENT button. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
WarriorX Posted January 23, 2011 Posted January 23, 2011 Congrat's on your progress...keep the reports coming! [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] "Is that you John Wayne?.......Is this me?" Full Metal Jacket //My Mission Data Card//My Cold Start Checklist //Clearing a Hung Store Tutorial //CDU Offset//Asterisk Error Correction Procedure//JTAC UTM Coordinate Entry Tutorial//JTAC 9 Line Lat Long Coordinate Entry Tutorial
Pendra Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 The U-HID card I'm using has an SDK that would allow me to drive an LED (Master Caution) from an external program. I'm guessing this is where export.lua comes into play. If I can get this figured out then the MC light will be functional. The actual button reading should be pretty straight forward. I can configure the buttons as either standard key presses or as game pad buttons. I might set them as game pad buttons since the card outputs standard keyscan codes and it doesn't look like there's a way to combine them; I can output an A, or Left Control, but I don't think I can do LCtrl+A. That is where I come into the game. My app can intercept the raw USB input from your UFC. After some calibration, you could set up each button to do whatever you want. Macros, timed events, mouse movement etc without LUA coding.
TigersharkBAS Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Hey Boot...how did you label your panel? [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Creator of: F-18C VFA-195 "Dambusters" 1998 CAG Livery https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=213788 F-18C VFA-195 "Dambusters" July 2001 CAG Livery https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=215950 Pilot avatars for DCS Logbook https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=221160 How to make a DCS A-10C Panel http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=65998
Boot910 Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Hey Boot...how did you label your panel? The front panel was engraved and backfilled with white paint when it was manufactured by Front Panel Express. The labeling on the buttons I did with a P-Touch using white on clear extra strength adhesive tape. I didn't have any plans to hook it up to the lighting system or else I would've made the front panel out of perspex instead of black anodized aluminum. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
shu77 Posted January 24, 2011 Author Posted January 24, 2011 Hey Boot Just out of interest what did your front panel cost? I got to about $65-75 from memory from these guys when I used the software. Did they make the back unit as well? Hornet, Super Carrier, Warthog & (II), Mustang, Spitfire, Albatross, Sabre, Combined Arms, FC3, Nevada, Gulf, Normandy, Syria AH-6J i9 10900K @ 5.0GHz, Gigabyte Z490 Vision G, Cooler Master ML120L, Gigabyte RTX3080 OC Gaming 10Gb, 64GB RAM, Reverb G2 @ 2480x2428, TM Warthog, Saitek pedals & throttle, DIY collective, TrackIR4, Cougar MFDs, vx3276-2k Combat Wombat's Airfield & Enroute Maps and Planning Tools
Boot910 Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Hey Boot Just out of interest what did your front panel cost? I got to about $65-75 from memory from these guys when I used the software. Did they make the back unit as well? Just the front panel by itself was somewhere around $65-70, yes. I had them do the entire enclosure. Front, back, top, bottom, sides, and corner extrusions to hold it all together. The top and sides were simple pieces of black anodized aluminum @ 1.5mm thickness so they didn't cost much overall. I had a slot cut out of the back panel for the cable, and the bottom panel was thicker to provide a more stable base @ 3mm or so. I also had 5 threaded holes drilled in the bottom piece to mount the control board and a stand-off for a cable restraint, and I had the sides machined to fit the grooves in the extrusions so those two cost a bit. Total for the whole package (all six panels, 4 extrusions, 8 M5 screws, 4 rubber feet) was a bit over $200 with shipping. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Smoky Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Here's an update on my build This is the back of my pcboard with my connectors attached. I have a photo of the front of the bare board, but it was blurry and I put my camera away and I'm tired, so I'll upload it later. This is the front of my pcboard with the buttons soldered in. The one without the cap is the Enter button. I still have to fabricate the final button. Here's the insides of the UFC with the panel mounted. You'll notice I haven't soldered the wires to the rockers or Master Caution yet. I also haven't mounted the interface card. That I will do last of all when making the final connections. And here's the UFC buttoned up for the night. I labeled all the buttons and put in a temp cap for the Enter button. This is what the finished project looks like... pretty much. Final Enter button needed obviously, and I'll paint the screws for the rockers flat black. Still to do: Put together a build/cost list and whatever info is useful. This is awesome! You should make a few of these and sell them. I don't have time to build stuff anymore and am using a CH MFP but would prefer to use something like this! I'd buy one for sure!
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