Petes /brissy A10

[Warhog]

:) wanted to make sure the darn glue didn't flow down the shaft from the rose and gum the motor up).

 

Peter

 

If I could offer a little trick...I use an ultra thin ca glue and let it wick into the places I want it to go. The trick to getting it into the precise location and to use just a tiny amount so it doesn't flow into places that could cause aggravation is to use a diabetic syringe. They cost maybe $6.00 for ten of them at most drug stores and they usually only last for a couple of applications. I save up all the things that need gluing and then do them all at the same time to get more use out of one syringe. But they can last a day or two. Thing is they allow extremely precise control over where and how much glue is used. They have become an indispensable part of my inventory.

[bnepethomas]

If I could offer a little trick...I use an ultra thin ca glue and let it wick into the places I want it to go. The trick to getting it into the precise location and to use just a tiny amount so it doesn't flow into places that could cause aggravation is to use a diabetic syringe. They cost maybe $6.00 for ten of them at most drug stores and they usually only last for a couple of applications. I save up all the things that need gluing and then do them all at the same time to get more use out of one syringe. But they can last a day or two. Thing is they allow extremely precise control over where and how much glue is used. They have become an indispensable part of my inventory.

 

Thats a great tip, thanks for that John, I need to lock in the needles for the env panel and the AOA, so I'll give it a go.

 

Cheers

 

Peter

[Warhog]

although I've now successfully glued a needle to the shat without it completely gluing the entire stepper in one place, always slightly scary after investing a few hours making the gauge.

 

Another tip for you Peter and everyone else who may be installing Vid stepper motors, I use brass tubing with an inside diameter equal to the outside diameter of the motor shaft. I expect most use that method. But instead of gluing the tube on to the shaft, I place it in a small vice and apply some compression to the first .2" of the tube. Not too much or you'll flatten the tube. It takes a little practice. It's basically creating a crimp. Now when you slide the tube on to the motor shaft there is resistance. By creating a crimp instead of gluing the tube to the shaft it allows you the ability to adjust the needles position. It's also strong enough to hold it in place during normal operations. And it let's you pull it off if you need to work on the gauge. Most importantly though, it keeps ca glue from getting into the motor:music_whistling::smilewink:.

[bnepethomas]

Thanks John

 

That is a good trick, will aluminium tubing do the same sort of job, or does it really need to be brass?

 

Cheers

 

Peter

[Warhog]

Thanks John

 

That is a good trick, will aluminium tubing do the same sort of job, or does it really need to be brass?

 

Cheers

 

Peter

 

Never tried it with aluminum Peter. Brass tubing has always been my choice for small components. Aluminum in that diameter doesn't have the same strength as brass and its a gummy metal to work with (as in very soft).

 

Actually I just tried it while reading your post and it was difficult to get the crimp just right. Brass is much easier to work with and its also available at most hobby stores in almost any small diameter.

[PALLACE]

Hello bnepethomas,

 

my question is how you did it, outsource MFD's on the Raspberry Pi? I have seen that you have installed many of them. I am very excited! It would be a necessity to gain this knowledge. :)

 

greeting

Pallace

[bnepethomas]

Hello bnepethomas,

 

my question is how you did it, outsource MFD's on the Raspberry Pi? I have seen that you have installed many of them. I am very excited! It would be a necessity to gain this knowledge. :)

 

greeting

Pallace

 

Hi Pallace

 

I've just used plain old monitors for the MFDs, it does chew up video card ports, but does the job nicely. I'm also currently doing the same for the CDU, but with Ian's discoveries on data exporting the approach to the CDU may change.

 

Cheers

 

Peter

[PALLACE]

Hi Peter,

 

thank you for the answers.

 

Greetings from Germany

Pallace

Edited February 9, 2015 by PALLACE

[bnepethomas]

Been banging away at the Ardunio and LUA code for the Compass and Clock, one little learning, unless you really really want to emulate a wet compass don't use that as a source for aircraft heading. Was sitting there scratching my head as to why things seemed to be sticky and jumping around whilst altering the course of the aircraft. Finally zoomed back to watch the Wet Compass only to find that it does stick and jump around in DCS. I love the attention that DCS have put into this Sim, but it can sure trip you up when you least expect it!

Edited February 21, 2015 by bnepethomas

[bnepethomas]

Largely completed this round of gauges and panels.

 

All comms to the gauges is over the network (UDP). The meant adding an ethernet shield to each of the arduinos, but it makes my poor coding easier to do :).

 

There are 4 Arduinos in action:

1: Driving the seconds OLED in the clock,

2: Driving the Clock analog hands and the Compass (uses zero position sensors

3: Driving the general stepper gauges

4: Driving the dual pointer and hyd gauges in the fuel panel. That got special treatment as a little more dampening was needed for the dual pointer stepper.

 

For the code hackers and those interested in a little more detail, the sketches and LUA scripts, along with a little supporting documentation for the steppers can be found here:

https://code.google.com/p/bne-arduino-flight-simulator-interfaces/

 

 

[Extranajero]

Those panels really do look fantastic...

[Deadman]

Looks great as all ways all of your hard work is paying off.

[bnepethomas]

Thanks Gents - its coming together, might actually do some flying instead of building before too long... naaa...building is much more fun :)

[Boltz]

Hahaha! The panels look top quality Pete. Very clear text

[Warhog]

... naaa...building is much more fun :)

 

 

You got that right:thumbup:

 

Very nice work Peter. They look quite excellent.

 

I'm curious as to how you went about calibrating the gauges so they match the sim. Was it a mathematically calculated process or just by eye so to speak.

 

Looking forward to seeing the finished cockpit.:)

[Hansolo]

:surprise: It official. I dropped my jaw. I think we need to have a special section for bnepethomas and Warhog's builds called Exceptional Home Cockpits :thumbup:

 

 

 

Cheers

Hans

[bnepethomas]

You got that right:thumbup:

 

Very nice work Peter. They look quite excellent.

 

I'm curious as to how you went about calibrating the gauges so they match the sim. Was it a mathematically calculated process or just by eye so to speak.

 

Looking forward to seeing the finished cockpit.:)

 

Thanks John

 

That's a good question, i had a head start as the Simmeters team LUA export file provides some useful clues:

https://simmeters.com/wiki/index.php?title=DCS_World_Wrapper

 

The hugely cool thing about steppers is they are linear, so if gauge is linear its insanely simple.

1: First establish the 0 point. I spend time on the first gauges trying to get it exactly on zero, but missed the point about the there being a little movement, so you can stick the needle on move the gauge to maximum, return to minimum and find it isn't exactly on zero. For the later gauges I purposefully place the needle a little before the 0 point (eg -0.5), and then in the LUA variable add an offset to move it to zero.

2: Then send a value close to maximum and increase the multiplier until the needle points to the right value.

 

So the LUA looks like

-- LOX Liters 230 Zero point

General_Stepper_Packet = General_Stepper_Packet .. ":" ..

math.floor(230 + soic_conv_mp:get_argument_value(274) * 10 * 436)

 

230 gets the needle to 0 and the 436 is the multiplier to max value.

 

For gauges that aren't linear then here's what the simmeters guys do:

local AGL03 = mp:get_argument_value(93) -- A_036_DangerRALT_index {0,20,50,150,200,300,350}{0.0,0.1838,0.4631,0.7541,0.8330,0.9329,1.0} Meters

if (AGL03 > 0 and AGL03 <= 0.1838) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (AGL03 * 144.92)) end

if (AGL03 > 0.1838 and AGL03 <= 0.4631) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (20 + ((AGL03 - 0.1838) * 107.41))) end

if (AGL03 > 0.4631 and AGL03 <= 0.7541) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (50 + ((AGL03 - 0.4631) * 343.64))) end

if (AGL03 > 0.7541 and AGL03 <= 0.8330) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (150 + ((AGL03 - 0.7541) * 633.71))) end

if (AGL03 > 0.8330 and AGL03 <= 0.9329) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (200 + ((AGL03 - 0.8330) * 1001.0))) end

if (AGL03 > 0.9329 and AGL03 <= 1.0) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (300 + ((AGL03 - 0.9329) * 745.15))) end

if (AGL03 > 1.0) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=350") end

 

I originally was using C# 'shims to receive a UDP payload from DCS, massage it, and then deliver over the COM Port to the Ardunio, adding a $15 shield removed the need for the C# shim, and removed one of the botttle necks. It isn't as elegant or flexible as DCS-BIOS, but does the trick for me.

does that help?

 

cheers

 

peter

Edited March 3, 2015 by bnepethomas

[bnepethomas]

:surprise: It official. I dropped my jaw. I think we need to have a special section for bnepethomas and Warhog's builds called Exceptional Home Cockpits :thumbup:

 

 

 

Cheers

Hans

 

:) Ta Hans - the good news is it got the all important tick of approval from the rest of the family when I showed them it running in the pit, nothing like approval from Parliament :)

[bnepethomas]

Hahaha! The panels look top quality Pete. Very clear text

 

Thanks Boltz - White Acrylic with a good flat black spray paint works wonders. Initially we started with an oyster white, but the letters did not stand out that well.

[Warhog]

Thanks John

 

That's a good question, i had a head start as the Simmeters team LUA export file provides some useful clues:

https://simmeters.com/wiki/index.php?title=DCS_World_Wrapper

 

The hugely cool thing about steppers is they are linear, so if gauge is linear its insanely simple.

1: First establish the 0 point. I spend time on the first gauges trying to get it exactly on zero, but missed the point about the there being a little movement, so you can stick the needle on move the gauge to maximum, return to minimum and find it isn't exactly on zero. For the later gauges I purposefully place the needle a little before the 0 point (eg -0.5), and then in the LUA variable add an offset to move it to zero.

2: Then send a value close to maximum and increase the multiplier until the needle points to the right value.

 

So the LUA looks like

-- LOX Liters 230 Zero point

General_Stepper_Packet = General_Stepper_Packet .. ":" ..

math.floor(230 + soic_conv_mp:get_argument_value(274) * 10 * 436)

 

230 gets the needle to 0 and the 436 is the multiplier to max value.

 

For gauges that aren't linear then here's what the simmeters guys do:

local AGL03 = mp:get_argument_value(93) -- A_036_DangerRALT_index {0,20,50,150,200,300,350}{0.0,0.1838,0.4631,0.7541,0.8330,0.9329,1.0} Meters

if (AGL03 > 0 and AGL03 <= 0.1838) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (AGL03 * 144.92)) end

if (AGL03 > 0.1838 and AGL03 <= 0.4631) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (20 + ((AGL03 - 0.1838) * 107.41))) end

if (AGL03 > 0.4631 and AGL03 <= 0.7541) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (50 + ((AGL03 - 0.4631) * 343.64))) end

if (AGL03 > 0.7541 and AGL03 <= 0.8330) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (150 + ((AGL03 - 0.7541) * 633.71))) end

if (AGL03 > 0.8330 and AGL03 <= 0.9329) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (200 + ((AGL03 - 0.8330) * 1001.0))) end

if (AGL03 > 0.9329 and AGL03 <= 1.0) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=" .. (300 + ((AGL03 - 0.9329) * 745.15))) end

if (AGL03 > 1.0) then table.insert(flightData,"AGL03=350") end

 

I originally was using C# 'shims to receive a UDP payload from DCS, massage it, and then deliver over the COM Port to the Ardunio, adding a $15 shield removed the need for the C# shim, and removed one of the botttle necks. It isn't as elegant or flexible as DCS-BIOS, but does the trick for me.

does that help?

 

cheers

 

peter

 

Thanks Peter

 

WOW! I'll have to spend a bit of time digesting that info. :huh: May be a wee bit over my head and my abilities at this point in time.

 

However, I really haven't spent any amount of time thinking about the whole calibration issue. The focus has been on just getting an actual gauge built. Now that they're almost finished I will need to give this a lot more thought.

[bnepethomas]

Hi Guys

 

We recently had an event at work where we did a show and tell of slightly crazy hobbies. The boss came over with the camera and captured the A10 and Jet Ranger in action. Yes the ugly mug in the video is me...

 

cheers

Peter

Edited March 21, 2015 by bnepethomas

[Boltz]

Got enough cockpits there yet Peter? :) Great to hear a bit about you and nicely edited video!

F/A-18 part made me laugh

 

Boltz

[bnepethomas]

Got enough cockpits there yet Peter? :) Great to hear a bit about you and nicely edited video!

F/A-18 part made me laugh

 

Boltz

 

:) Well we could talk about the other 2.5 pits in another room.....

[Intrepid1]

That Is a very impressive set up you have

A good video as well

Randy

[bnepethomas]

HI Guys

 

Getting very very close to completion, just playing with flood lighting using strip leds.

 

 

 

 

cheers

 

Peter