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HMA's cockpit build


Hansolo

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Hi,

 

Finally I got a little to show also after countless hours of watching everone else outstanding pit building. Many of you may recognize layouts or idea as I have been borrow here and there, rather than re-invent the wheel. As I cannot remember all the threads I have visited here is a thanks you very much to all who have unknowingly been of assistance.

 

Mine is not in the same league as so many others but knowing this is the first time I am trying I am very pleased with the result so far. The learning curve have been quite steep now and then.

The top plates are not backlit (maybe on an later upgrade), have been done on a router not laser engraved. Fair to say that the quality using laser engraving would have been greater, but I just do not have one.... yet :smilewink:

I have only been working of left side panel which is functional although the potentiometer on fuel panel, Aux. lighting panel and SAS panel have yet to be hooked up. Air fuel control lever is also not in place yet. :music_whistling:

Interface is done with one of Brydling's B256A13 and Leo Bodnar BBI-32. Where the joystick lua code supports it switches are sent directly to the game. Others have been routed through Helios

 

Hope you like it. I will put more pictures as the project goes on. Next is probably right side panel as I have the caution panel ready with a Phidgets 1031.

 

Cheers

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Edited by Hansolo
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Very nice setup !!

 

Maybe you can help me with the Brodnar BBI-32.

I would like to use it. I have the board and several encoders. The blue ones with "2 feet" and the ones with "3 feets".

How to use them f.eks. for the radios ?! With or without HELIOS ?

I just made a short try but di not understand really how they work.

 

I have had a look in my thread where you started giving me the right direction. So I have to use all "3 feets" of the encoders.

 

 

 

Cheers

Tom


Edited by TomDK
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Hi TomDK,

 

Many thanks for your kind words.

 

 

With regard to the BBI-32 I am not sure what the "blue ones with two feet" are. But the incremental encoders I am using have three feet for rotational detection and some of them also have a push switch thus additional two feet.

 

Hardware connection:

I use the incremental encoders from the Leo Bodnar site but it is most likely the same setup.

Of the three pins A-C-B, the center one © is the common if you like. Connect that to GND of input no 1. Then connect A on the encoder and B1 on the board. You then need to connect B on the encoder to B2 on the board. In this setup you are not using the GND of input 2. Initailly I did send C of the encoder to GND on both input 1 an dinput 2 two, but in my radio set up I have not done and it works.

 

Configuration:

Now you need to connect the board to the PC and start encoder configuration software (found here http://www.leobodnar.com/products/BBI-32/).

Once the software sees the board you set field for B1 B2 to "1:1" and pulse width to 80 ms. Its the settings I have used and it is working.

Now the software will enterpret the signals from the encoder and send B1 or B2 inputs depending of the rotation. E.g. clockwise ratotation may case B1 to pulse, this means that if you rotate counterclockwise then B2 will pulse.

 

Setting up the game:

You probably could send it to Helios but in this case there really isn't any point. The game will now only recieve B1 or B2 pulses depending of the rotation of the encoder due to the setup we did above.

Start the game and go to options as you would to map a switch. Select e.g. VHF AM volumen increase, double click on the empty field in the BBI32 coloumb. Now rotate the encoder one way to map it. Do the same with VHF AM volumen decrease and you have a functional volume using encoder :)

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Thanks again for your time.

 

My VHF AM settings are working as described from you directly on A-10 not on Helios. Great !

 

The blue encoders I have are also from Leo Bodnar, I ordered them byside the encoders you described with a regular pushbotton and without it.

I connected one of them for testing, they do the same but only need 2 wires.

 

I also started today my light-panel. But on this i use potentiometer due the Brydling board provides enough connections for potis. Bad side, the setup in Helios again. I have setup them all, but if I use them A-10 reacts very very slow on inputs from the potis ans sometimes crashes. Maybe some faults in ..

 

 

Back to your pit ! I am looking forward to see the right side !

Mine is about in the same stage. I started with stickers as panels and now I change them step by step with lasered panels. At least they do the same work ... and making the panels is also hobby :thumbup:.

 

Keep on the nice work and let us see .... I will also post next week my pit, have to work the whole weel.

 

Hilsen til Danmark

 

Tom

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Ahh.. Then I guess its the the rotary switch assembly. I haven't used that one but found this on their web page:

 

----qoute----

Alternatively, if the pins of the rotary switch you want to use do not match the PCB we supply, you could connect wires from the switch to our PCB and then connect from between the two PCB solder tabs to the BBI-32 then this would work too. You could even solder push buttons to the PCB this way too if you wanted to.

 

The BBI-32 recognises that our PCB has been connected and assigns 12 buttons to it for example, if you connected the PCB to button 1, 1-12 would be allocated.

---unqoute---

 

If I read this correct then you should be able to utilize this for e.g. VHF AM rotary switch OFF-TX-DF using only one input. Not sure how this will be interpreted by the game though :music_whistling:

 

Looking forward to seeing your panels.

 

Hilsen til Tyskland

 

Hans

BBI-rotary-switch.jpg.742644d8e1f01abe46a31122f131122f.jpg

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Ah.. got a little breakthrough in my attempt to make a working CDU. It won't make a true replica specially because the screen is not the original size but I think it will eventually get the work done.

 

Bottom plate made by two PCD prototype boards. The diodes are soldered directly to the tactiles. Eventually it will get connected to the B256A13 board.

 

Above the prototype boards are 6mm plexiglas spacer follwed by a 3mm plexiglas plate which shall keep the buttons in place. Top plate is 2mm plexiglas which needs to be painted. Buttons will be made of 6mm plexiglas plate painted grey.

 

Tomorrow will I will give the buttons a try and maybe start soldering some wires :music_whistling:

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Darn you guys and your Home CNC machines!!!!! DARN YOU ALL!!!!!! :) (you) :.( (me)

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Jihaaa !!! :thumbup:

 

Very cool !

I was also looking for such a labor pcb but in Germany they are all too small. The knobs are also here ;-)

Will see how it works with the display ! I guess this is the hardest part.

I made a UFC, so with the B256A13 it will easily work ! But you will need some slots for all the buttons.

 

:thumbup:

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Yes damn the cnc's..... they do not alway do what I had in mind :doh: The clearance between the top plate holes and buttons were too small. luckily it is possible to try again..

 

Will have to figure out if painint the backisde of the buttons white will work. Then it might be possible to have them backlit.

 

@Tom... the LCD is running on VGA so I expect it to be plug and play with viewport using a cheap video card just for the CDU

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Great !

 

A nice job for a build-in-graphicscard on the motherboard :)

 

I did not know that this mini-monitors are simply vga-connected.

 

Looking very good ... maybe you make a small run for us ?! ;)

Would be nice beside my panels from sweden :thumbup: An international pit.

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CDU is up and running

 

Got the CDU panel assembled during the weekend and it is working although the finish is not too great. I have following areas for improvement which I need to look into:

 

1. The buttons are made from clear plexiglas painted grey on the front and white on the back. Need to try with opal white plexiglas instead as the letters is not really visible.

 

2. The white frame on front of panel is made by missing off material and then spay white paint on with the plastic protection film still attached. As can be seen the result is poor. :( Need to revise my strategy towards materials. Will try to find someting similar to what Linden is using as his result is staggering. :thumbup:

 

3. The attachement of the VGA board need to be refined

 

4. I have only attached 64 input which is actially one too few. Reason is that I use the B256A13 board from Brydling and wanted to match two 40-pin connectors

 

5. The LCD screen is not correct size thus will never be a true replica but will have to do. At least it is working:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKNAk92GBRs

 

@Tom the problem of making a panel run is that the cutouts depends deeply on the size of the LCD, plus the location of the tactiles have to match the grid of the prototype pcb.

I am currently using two prototype boards and this causes a slight misalignment between the pcb boards

 

Also this have been made specifically for the B256A13 so 16 diode for 16 tactiles are interconnected to lessen the amount of common lines.

 

If you want CDU panel then I would suggest Linden's as the quality of his is simply beyond my reach. Saw he had the CDU on the list so maybe in the future he will make a panel run

http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?p=1532884&langid=1

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HMA,

 

nice work and no need to worry about the display. Simply cut a frame with a 80x60mm cutout (that's the size of the glass area on the original display) from black self adhesive sheeting and glue it to the display. Then reduce the area where the characters are displayed to 73x49mm and you have the original configuration.

You'll loose some pixels but unless it's really low resolution it shouldn't matter. Only the arrow buttons might be a little far from the text.

 

The other thing I'd suggest is to spray paint the gloss black keyboard frame with a matt coat which should make quite a difference. As an alternative you could use flat black color and mask off the white frame.

 

Cheers,

Stefan

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Thanks for your kind comments, Stefan. Much appreciated. I did consider making the frame smaller but had the same doubt as you that the arrow buttons will be too far from the text.

 

I think I will try you suggestion. It has been painted matt but on the rear/downward side. This is why it stands out as gloss. Will dismantle and give it a matt top coast as well, at the same time I can correct the white frame :thumbup:

 

Cheers,

 

Hans

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Thanks a lot. I think the the one I bough was this one:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-8inch-TFT-LCD-Module-800x480-LMS480KF01-VGA-AV-board-/300641489786?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45ffa1137a

 

Appart from the fact that I should gone with a different size, it work very nice. The board takes VGA so just straigh plug and play :thumbup:

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I'd recommend this display & driver board:

http://www.ebay.de/itm/VGA-AV-Controller-Board-with-3-5inch-lcd-display-640-480-resolution-PD035VX2-/180922018470?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1fcaeaa6

The outer dimension makes it fit into the opening of an original CDU panel and (more importantly to most) the active display area is a very good match too:

Original Dot Matrix Display: 73x49mm

PD035VX2: 72x53mm

So on the left and right side there's only an 0.5mm difference to the real deal (which noone will notice) and the height difference is easily dealt with by applying a frame with a 72x49mm cutout.

Also with 640x480 is has a good resolution (most 3.5" have only 320x240) and the driver board makes it possible the switch the image upside down which might come handy depending where you want to place the connector for the board.

 

Cheers,

Stefan


Edited by Dropship Pilot
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  • 2 months later...

Juhu..... Finally some work done on the pit..

 

I have installed an PC power supply in left side panel and hotwired the on/off of the power supply to the battery switch. So once battry power is turned on the PC power supply will apply power to the CDU LCD and Phidgets LED board. Works great :thumbup:

 

Lately I have been working on front part of the cockpit. It wasn't until resently I noticed that my cockpit drawings are actually made by Dimebug. A great thanks to him for the excellent work.

 

I have long ago decided that trying to attached servoes for indication is going to be too difficult for me, so I was going to utilize Helios' outstanding capabillities. For past year I have been running with a cheap touch screen which kinda worked but since it is based upon optical registration wrong inputs have been entered more than once. Therefore the plan was to used the TM MFD's instead.

 

I got a used 22" monitor which I stripped of all the plastic so that it could be mounted flush in the front cockpit. Then four layers of plexiglas have been routed facilitate the rotary encoders for HSI, ADI and Altimeter. This would ofcause mean that many if the gauges would be incapsulated by the plexiglas but is is a small price for having the encoders in the middle of the screen. Wires have been imbedded in the layers of plexiglas.

 

I did try and see if the MFCD power switches could be incoporated in the TM MFD's but there was any room so they are on the outside (engraving plate still missing).

 

The screen is held in place by the plexiglass for MFCD power switches and flight instrumentation. The TH MFD's are not really attached. The are stuck in between plexiglas for flight instrumentation, power switches and cable. Works fine

Eventually a modified landing gear panel will be made where the flap and gear wheel indications will be generated via Helios on the screen. The ACHP panel is not positioned correctly but at least it is then fluch with the rest.

 

The UFC is working with the LED attached to the Phidgets board but the front plate when sour a long time ago I haven't made a new one yet. Thats the reason for the tape...

 

 

Cheers

Hans

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HMA Helios profile v. 1.9.rar


Edited by Hansolo
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I like a lot the embeded rotary encoders idea on the front panel

Nice pit mate ;-)


Edited by Ninefingers

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CMSP victory with Arduino

 

Woohoo!!!!!!

 

I finnally got a break through with the outstanding software made by Tacno/Gremlin77.

 

I had long ago bought a an Arduino Uno with a 16x2 LCD. It is now fitted with an Ethernet shield (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2012-Ethernet-W5100-Network-Shield-Arduino-UNO-Mega-2560-1280-328-/140901722278?pt=UK_Computing_Other_Computing_Networking&hash=item20ce65a8a6)

 

I have stacked them together and placed the lcd on a small prototype shield on the top.

 

The Ethernet shield is using pins 10, 11, 12 & 13 on the Uno. The LCD is using :

RS - pin 9

Enable - pin 8

DB4 - pin 6

DB5 - pin 5

DB6 - pin 3

DB7 - pin 2

 

After a lot of trial/error and reading on Google I finnaly found something which works. May not be very ggod programming but it works.

This is the Arduino code:

***** program start*****

// CMSP using Tacno/Gremlin77 export

// by HMA

#include <Ethernet.h>

#include <SPI.h>

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

#include <EthernetUdp.h> // UDP library from: bjoern@cs.stanford.edu 12/30/2008

#include <string.h>

 

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

//CONFIGURE

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

byte ip[] = { 192, 168, 1, 100 }; //Manual setup only

byte gateway[] = { 192, 168, 1, 1 }; //Manual setup only

byte subnet[] = { 255, 255, 255, 0 }; //Manual setup only

 

// if need to change the MAC address (Very Rare)

byte mac[] = { 0xDE, 0xAD, 0xBE, 0xEF, 0xFE, 0xED };

 

EthernetServer server = EthernetServer(80); //port 80

unsigned int localPort = 8892; // local port to listen on

 

// buffers for receiving and sending data

char packetBuffer[32]; //buffer to hold incoming packet,

 

// An EthernetUDP instance to let us send and receive packets over UDP

EthernetUDP Udp;

 

String data;

 

// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins

LiquidCrystal lcd(9, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2);

//Pins 10,11,12 & 13 are used by the ethernet shield

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

void setup(){

Serial.begin(9600);

 

//Initialise LCD

lcd.begin(16, 2); // set up the LCD's number of columns and rows:

lcd.print("Ready"); // Print a message to the LCD.

 

//start ethernet and UDP

Ethernet.begin(mac);

Ethernet.begin(mac, ip, gateway, subnet); //for manual setup

Udp.begin(localPort);

}

 

void loop(){

int packetSize = Udp.parsePacket();

 

if(packetSize) // if there's data available, read a packet

{

// read the packet into packetBufffer

Udp.read(packetBuffer,32);

data = packetBuffer;

 

// Write data to LCD in two lines

lcd.clear();

lcd.setCursor(0,0);

lcd.print(data.substring(0,15));

lcd.setCursor(0,1);

lcd.print(data.substring(17,32));

 

delay(300);

}

}

 

****program end****

 

Big thanks to Tacno and Gremlin// to making this even possible. Only downside to above is that second line is visible eventhoug the CMSP is turned off in the simulator but I can live with it :-D

 

Small clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9tUCRZiXvc

 

cheers

 

Hans

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Edited by Hansolo
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