Glareshield Night Lighting

I mentioned in the last part (21) that I had added the light to the glareshield.  In the two images below you are looking at the BACK of the trim piece that faces the top edge of the glareshield.  

On the back of it I have glued a number of short pieces (1/2" +/-) of hollow aluminum tubing using 5 minute epoxy in a line along what will be the bottom edge.  A piece of electroluminescnet red "string" is threaded thru the hollow "mounts" , and the 12v inverter is mounted inside the glareshield.  The inverter is the small cubic "box" that you see.

Result...... non-heat generating, red light on the glareshield controls.









Internal Representation of the Beacon and Strobe Lights

I wanted to have the red beacon light to "reflect" just a tiny bit into the cockpit.  Also the strobe light.  So I used the pictured red led flasher unit from Radio Shack to accomplish this task.

The units are powered by 3 VDC via a battery pack.  They have a red normal LED mounted on a tiny circuit board that has the encapsulated flasher circuit.  I cut the battery packs off and used a 3 VDC power supply line in the pit and wired it to the SECOND set of contacts on the "Beacon" light switch.

The flashing LED is mounted above the overhead panel out of the line of sight from the pilot's seat... but it puts just a very subtle red "reflection" onto the window frame.  Ditto for the "Strobe" switch and the LED..... but it is in a slightly different position....more in the center of the windscreen.

For the strobe, I needed WHITE light, of course, not red.  What to do?  Since the flashing circuit is external to the LED in these units (yes!), I just unsoldered the standard red LED from the circuit board and put a 1100MCD white one in it's place.  Bingo..... white flashing LED.

On the "Beacon" switch I actually have THREE of the LEDs.  Two of them create "reflections" in the cockpit...... with the staggeered and varying timing that is typical of the real thing.  

The third one is a "dumb" idea.  It is mounted on the top of the simpit enclosure...... and shows out in the room that the engines are running  .  OK... dumb, I know.




best,

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

Because there is a 500 K limit on photos in any one thread.

Sorry you find it annoying...... but if it is worth it... you'll surf around.    

There are a lot of pieces of info there to be had.  Start at part 1 and go sequentially.  Someday I might index it by subject.  Also some of the early photos got zapped in a recent "older than 1 year" photo cleanout at SimV.


best,

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

Look at the sticky on the top of this forum.   


best,

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

Cockpit Voice Recorder

There are a number of panels on the overhead that are really" eye candy"...........either can't be or won't be hooked directly to the sim.  The space is there...... so why not use it to make it "as real as it gets".    One of the panels I have up there is the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).  All along I have been wanting it to sort of "function" somehow.  

A while back I saw a small relatively cheap 20 second digital recording unit at Radio Shack that seemed "just the ticket" to add some realism to the preflight checklist.

Better photos coming soon!



I took the small unit and disconnected the two momentary switches it has on it for "record" and "play".  One switch is on two wires...... and the other was a pcb mount.  These two switches then got interfaced by soldering wires to the switches on the CVR panel that were labeled "test" and "erase".  

The combination speaker / mike that the unit has was mounted to the rear of the microphone opening on the panel.  I mounted the main pcb for the unit on the rear of the CVR panel also.  It is just under 2" long and about 1" deep.  

The 9V DC power from the pit avionics supply for the recording unit goes thru a main power switch on the CVR panel that indicates "off" and "on".  This main switch has red and green LEDs that indicate the finction state.  When "on", this main switch also sends power to a 1100 MFD white LED that is set up to backlight the "fake" VU level meter.

When you turn the CVR "on", the appropriate power LED lights up, the VU meter glows, and the real digital recorder is active.  If you press "test" and say something, it gets recorded.  If you press "erase", it plays back what you just recorded.

Kinda' fun  8)  It's on the checklist.

best,

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