Damn you JBaymore! you made me snap this time!! LOL!

It's been great fun watching your progress thus far, and I have to say it all looks very well thought out, and you are a master with your hands (ooo-err!!).

So, with all this encouragement and great tips, I've decided I'm going to give it a go. I want to make some rudder pedals first, but I need to get some bits together. I've already dismantled the old vaccum cleaner for parts.... 8)

I have a digi-cam so I'll record my efforts with the workmate and the drill for your amusement!! 

Ric B.

Yup, I agree with that.

My problem at the moment is money and space. Money I can generate, space I cannot.

I figure in the end I want a "generic" 2/4 engined cockpit, enclosed, with all mod-cons. That will have to wait until I can get some more space. For now, I'm going to concentrate on my rudder pedals, as it's something I've wanted for ages, but never got around to.

Once I've made them, I'll draw up a set of plans so anyone who wants to can make their own.


Ric B.

Quote:


Ric,

Hey..... welcome aboard the "homebrew" bus!  Now your "Sim headaches" have really begun.  And watch it there with trying to put the "hex" on me   .

I am going the "generic" route too.  Trying to go with a recreation of a specific plane is a sure way to spend BIG bucks, I think.  I also decided to model only the left side up to the center pedestal...... I don't HAVE a copilot anyway so why waste space and dollars?

The first thing I really wanted and then quickly "canned" was all backlit panels so that the control labels were lit.  Seemed easy at first..... then as I analyzed it....it got either REALLY complicated to make it look OK........ or incredibly expensive to solve that by buying premade panels.  I also relized that the few GoFlight units that I was planning on using (like the autopilot) are NOT backlit anyway...... so that would be an issue too.

The current total "footprint" for mine is set at 57" x 62".  Roughly 25 square feet.  Tight fit for all the stuff...... but doable.  Took a lot of thinking.

I look forward to seeing your plans for pedals and some photos.

And while you are generating that money.... send some my way   .

best,

..............john

PS:  Thanks for the kind words on the "craftsmanship" bit.

Major Simulated Cockpit Programming Breakthrough Tonite

I plan on utilizing a bunch of "glass cockpit" features in my homebrew cockpit.  This basically means that you "hide" a monitor behind a wood or plastic panel and cut holes in the wood/plastic surface thru which you can see "gauges" that are actually on a monitor screen.  This cuts the cost of stand alone "instruments" and the associated I/O interface cards dramatically.

I am using a registered version of FSUIPC and WideFS to put the glass cockpit system onto a network that will "run" the cockpit.  I have also downloaded the FSUIPC SDK and have been looking at it with an eye toward developing some possible custom stuff.

There are a couple of well developed "freeware" glass cockpit setups out there that I have found so far.  Right at the moment I am "partial" to likely using FreeFD in my setup.  However...... while it certainly is GREAT as it sits....... there are some functions that I can envision that I want to implement that it does NOT (yet) have.  Since I am creating a "generic" cockpit...... I don't have to have exact Boeing or Airbus displays.

I also own the Visual Basic 6.0 professional development package....since I have written some very basic programs for my business.  In the FSUIPC SDK there is information about developing programs to interface with FS200X and FSUIPC in Visual Basic.  Great.

So I played around tonight to see if I could figure out how to get real time infomation out of FS2004 using FSUIPC and VBasic.  There is a great set of VB modules supplied in the SDK by Chris Brett that set the groundwork for accessing data.  That level of programming would take me a LOT of time to arrive at if I ever could have.  But it is there for you!

Making a not too long story even a bit shorter.......

I DID IT!

One example of a "glass cockpit "gauge" that I want to have available as a separate item was a square red "Stall Warning" light.  So I went in and using the docs.... found the hexadecimal address of the stall warning flag (1 byte at &H036C  with 0=OK  1=stall) in FSUIPC and wrote a short VB routine to definitively tell me that the plane is stalling.  It worked first try!    The warning popped up in my little VB module just as the stick shaker started shaking and the stall warning light went off on the virtual aircraft panel.

This little test.........that took an amazingly little amount of time to actually figure out and write..... now shows me how relatively easy it will be to generate a lot of different types of glass cockpit gauges I might want.

I am NOT a highly skilled VB6.0 programmer.... if I can do it ........ most any "computer literate" person can learn to do this kind of stuff too.  The code by Chris Brett gets you pointed in the right direction.  (Thanks Chris!)

I'm pumped!


best,

....................john


PS:  You can download the FSUIPC SDK from Peter Dowson's site to take a "look see" for free........ even if you do not get a registered version of the FSUIPC program first.

Some facinating stuff going on here guys.

As the original post was about whether it was worth having a forum for this - well looking at this I would have thought it probably was.

A forum would ensure that this great stuff is not lost & will be evident to a wider audience.

If you want one - tell me what, where , etc....

I'll be ditching some of the un/little used forums soon so there'll be plenty of room on the page ..

Ric,

That photo you posted there is very much where I am headed with my cockpit........ except just not even HAVING the FO side of things at all.  I just can't find THAT much space in the house at the moment.....and no one to SIT in the FO position anyway.  My "modular" design is such that in the future I could add the FO position just by duplicating what I am building on the left side.  You might think about that.

The "fire danger" part you mention I had already thought of relative to my OWN safety sitting in a wooden box full of plastic coated wiring and electrical gear..... not to mention the whole house.  Luckily I AM (supposedly) the "mature adult parental unit" in the house..... so no mom or dad to "satisfy".   

Like a normal aircraft.......  I already decided that the cockpit has to have some sort of REAL fire warning device.... ... and some means of general REAL fire suppression.  The minute it goes fully "enclosed"..... everything changes a bit, I think.

I will mount mini smoke detectors inside a couple places in the unit with their power supply lines tieing into switches on the overhead panel, with LED's showing their status.  They'll just use their normal alarm sounds. 

For general protection, one of them will remain on even when the unit is powered down.  The power to my unit will come thru one master switch, and the whole thing will be FULLY off when not in use.

Fire suppression at the minimum will be having a large ABC type fire extinguisher in there within easy reach.  I may set something up more like the suppression used in a commercial kitchen with pipes taking stuff inside the panels.  That will have to wait...... very complicated to do right and to have a good "failsafe".  I could set it up to have a solenoid actuated valve trigger off of the alarm pulse on a smoke detector...... but a single false.... and some expensive computer stuff goes "bye bye"  .

Thanks for joining in here...... makes me feel a little less "nuts".   

best,

..................john

Quote:


Pete,

Thank you........thank you....... THANK YOU!   

I think this subject as a "forum" will nicely compliment all the other stuff that is going on here ar SimV.

I think that where it goes is completely up to you.  My one suggestion is that it might sit physically next to the hardware forum...... since, as Will pointed out a while back,....... when all is said and done...... you got a big whopping piece of hardware sitting there  .

The exact title is kinda' tough. 

Some quickly thought out possibilities:

"Simulated Cockpit Construction"
"Simulated Cockpits"
"Homerbrew Cockpits"
"Simulated Homebrew Cockpits"
"Simulated Homebrew Cockpit Construction"
"Cockpit Construction"
"Homebrew Simulated Cockpits"
"Cockpit Hardware and Software"
"Cockpit Construction"
"Homemade Simulators"
"Homemade Simulated Cockpits"
"Homemade Cockpits"

and of course........

"Large Complicated Box Into Which You Pour Money"


Will......Ric... Professor... BaileyGirl......Hyperion.....Fido Andrew....Polynomial.......others..... chime in with suggestions, please.

best,

...................john

Will,

Thinking on that further about CFS..... (which I have never flown).........

With the FSUIPC interface ...... my guess is that there is a variable about "aircraft damage" or two hiding in there.  You could used some Visual Basic code to monitor the status of one or more of them and then send a pulse to an I/O interface running off of the parallel port or the serial port or even the USB port to activate one or more devices in the cockpit that do a Disney-esgue "special effect" like simulated fire in the cockpit.

For someone who was good with both hardware and software.... probably would be pretty simple.  But that is NOT me  .

best,

.................john