Replica radio panels.

[metalnwood]

I have been a little slow on this because I had a hiccup with one of my machines.. A CNC was leaving the workshop today and it's replacement is going to be tied up at the port during an employment dispute.

 

Not being able to cut the panels until thats sorted out I worked on a couple of other things.

 

Still, I am a little bit closer than before.. I have moved off the development board for doing initial tests and set up the 7 segment displays on some breadboard.

 

All comms between the game and the electronics is on the ethernet port and working well so far.

 

I have only wired up three of the four frequency knobs and nothing else yet but that will be a little easier than what I have had to do so far.

 

I still have not got better dimensions for the VHF-AM panel and don't want to get the PCB's made until I know what they will be as one pcb will hold the displays which have to match the positions cut out in the faceplate as well as needing to choose the correctly sized displays.

 

As you can see from the breadboard, I can't wait to get rid of that tangled mess :)

 

[agrasyuk]

very nice! thumbs up, watching the development closely

[Deadman]

Nice work that looks very cool:thumbup:

[avlolga]

Very Nice Metaln, :thumbup:

when you done - :beer: on the house

[icemaker]

Yess very nice Metal!

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

[metalnwood]

Thanks to you who have commented since my last post :)

 

With luck I will have my replacement machine in the workshop next week and I can try to cut some panels.

 

After trying to get correct dimensions etc it will come down to, at the end of the day, component sizes etc. I.e. how far from a digit the tuning knob will be depends on size of the housing of the rotary encoder and the size of the 7 segment display etc. Not much can be done about that but it will all look pretty much correct.

 

Initial testing has been done with the panel understanding some basic commands sent from DCS via UDP to the panel. Now I have the electronics working reliably I need to remove that code used for testing and put it back on the pc where it is supposed to be.

 

 

As I mentioned earlier I want these panels (it wont just be radio panels, it will be an entire range of simulator panels) to be easy to use and for guys like you and I to be able to use them in different sims how we like so I think they have to be flexible in how they can be configured and used.

 

So the platform is made up, like so many things similar to this, with a piece of software on your pc that communicates with the game and communicates with the panels. The panels would be very basic as far as programability, you can read the values on the panels, i.e. switch states, led states, display readings etc and set some values, primarily displays and leds. They are dumb, they dont know anything and every decision on what to display and what information to send back to the game is made by the middleware on the pc.

 

 

Lua is fairly popular these days and if you are cockpit building with DCS sims then you have already played with it a little, or a lot. My thoughts at the moment are to make lua core to this application so that a lot of it can be written in lua and that it will be easy to customise it for various scenarios.

 

So, if you have played around with lua, reading devices and getting vallues, setting values then this could be similar except more user friendly from a coders perspective. I.e. Panel names, switch names etc, no numbers for reference!

 

For example, if switches were toggled, dials turned etc then the application will call the specific lua code for those events, or lua code specific to that panel etc.

 

By default, the software will come with all that lua so that panels just work but it gives people the opportunity to change things a little if they want to.

 

I think it will ultimately allow me to develop things a little faster as well.

 

So, I deal with the bindings to the game and the panels and the lua can deal with all the logic in between and you guys and add to it if that suits.

 

In DCS, it might not be so obvious where the gains are for this, i.e. what would I change? It works like A in the real world why would I change it to B? I think the gains are slight in DCS, perhaps you could program it so that pre programmed radio frequencies actually appear on the radio when selected rather than what is already there?

 

In other sims there are many more opportunities to cusomise panels. Lots of builders have more generic panels that serve multiple purposes so a basic display panel with a few buttons and a rotary could be programmed to cycle between a radio, transponder and other things. One click on a spare button has it as a radio, click again and its now displaying your xpdr freq, click again and its something else e.g. distance to nav beacon.

 

At the end of the day I want people to be able to make the most from them in an easy way which is not the experience I have had from some stuff I have bought before. That excludes opencockpits who look to have a good solution from what I have seen in the past when looking to buy some for my own pit.

 

Anyway, thats the update. I wish I could update with newly cut panels but that will have to wait! :)

[lancer2000]

Please add your scripts (dsi file and siocconfig.lua etc.).

I have problem with configure encoders for radio channel

[metalnwood]

Hello Lancer, I am not using SIOC to interface with dcs. I am using my own control system.

 

PS, to anyone who has been watching the thread, I will be cutting some sample panels in the next could of days.

[metalnwood]

I am back at this, it's now school holidays so the kids are taking up a bit (lot) of my spare time as well. I will get to a point where it will all start flying along (no, pun not intended).

 

While I am using a laser to do the front I would like to make the rest of the panel with a cnc router, but once again I am replacing mine and I will be without one for a little while. Things will come in to place eventually and I will be able to churn them out. It's just unfortunate that as I want to start offering these I am also restricted by replacing some machines.

 

So, here is a quick youtube of cutting/engraving the sas panel. I want something durable so this is pre covered with a durable finish that can be engraved on to show a white background. It can be backlit. I am also going to try another material which is clear and engraved on the back. It still looks black but you can them put in a diffuser and use any colour for the backlighting.

 

At the end of the vid you can see the dust on the panel, a quick wipe and it is gone. The finish looks good but I can probably get it a bit better with different power setting.

 

 

 

After a wipe. Argh, love how phone cameras love to take your photos upside down.

[DEChengst]

Awesome to see it being cut :)

 

BTW, If you're under Windows 7 you can easily rotate the image. Right click and edit on the image, and it will drop you in a simple image editor.

Edited April 15, 2012 by DEChengst