Hello Everybody,

just a picture of what I'm trying to realise taking hispiration from WWII style fighters; if everyone has ideas about how to increase realism, Boys, let me know!

If someone needs promps about it, please, do not hesitate to ask. Maybe I will not be fast, but it's only a honour to share info with you.

Bye!!!
Andrew.

When it was at the beginning. A fuselage section with wooden formers cut with a jigsaw, screwed to a wooden floor with "L" brackets.

The seat comes from a scrapped one after car crash test I was gifted by a friend.

The floor is mounted on 6 wheels, 4 of which can be blocked.

Bye!
A.

Very cool! It's a big model airplane.

You didn't comment on my plan to increase realism though. 

You need one of these
http://www.barco.com/simulation/en/products/product.asp?element=2591
or if you're really serious
http://www.barco.com/simulation/en/products/product.asp?element=2592

Regards

Jim

Even in 100 lives I could NOT afford it, I suppose........

Andrew,

Sorry should have added what a lovely piece of engineering.  Excellent sheet metal working!
Regards

Jim

Chuck! Thanks!!!!!!!! Several times: after seeing your P51 Mustang (by the way I didn'i find the pictures any more in the forum, are they being removed after certain time?) and reading your explanation to 109 Dreamer, I encreased the enthusiasm so that to be able to start, and now I'm really proud of your appreciation.

For sure I'll tell you when I start with the panel, gunsight, throttle quadrant, etc..

I have several ideas, and I'm thinking about how to optimise the few time I have, with a satisfactory, both technically and realistic for the period, realisation.

For the rudder pedals, for ex., I built from Al alloy scrapped pieces a pantograph moving assy, integrated with the PC by means of a potentiometer. As soon as I can I'll post a pic of it. It works like a dream (thanks to one of my best friend "Commander Flash" that helped me a lot), but it's not very close to those period pedals.

For integrating other commands, I was thinking about connecting buttons and levers through the keyboard, but any suggestion at this stage is welcome.

Bye!!
A.

Hi Andrew

I will get around to reposting the original photos of the P51 one day , photos that are more than 12 months old get deleted to save hard drive space on the server.   

I have posted some new pics and some of the old ones here http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=homebuild;action=display;n...

As far as the electronic interface you want to use, the type you get, really should depend on how skilled you are with electronic knowledge and soldering etc. and how prepared are you to go and sort through the scrap that people throw out. (I have found lots of good stuff that people have tossed out-- old car parts are good too!)


There is a great choice of products out there, ranging from the home built usb controllers like "mjoy" where you build everything, including the pcb, to complete systems that are plug and play like "Go Flight".

What flight sim are you going to use?
Are you going to have seperate instruments/gauges? Are you going to attempt a motion platform?

The reason I ask, is that there are only a few WW11 flight sims that you can extract the data from the game to run things like gauges , motion platform, multiple LAN setup etc.

If you are going to use CFS3 as your primary sim then you are going to have problems.
CFS3 has great graphics ( but you must have a very powerful pc -- even more powerful than a pc to run FS9-- this sim is hard on pcs)  as you cannot extract any of the gauage data etc to work with outside add on s/ware.
You can't use FSUPIC to connect any LAN setup such as Wide veiw etc.  as it will not work with CFS3. (This really craps me off-- please let someone out there prove me wrong on this)

CFS2 will work with FSUPIC although with some reduced functionality, however this sim is a bit dated although it still looks good if you have all the latest updates and add ons.

The IL2 series I believe has some software available that some one has written that will allow the gauge data etc to be extracted for use with instruments/ motion platforms etc.  The simulator itself has some missing control funtions ,like seperate axis selection for Prop pitch and engine mixture which tend to detract from the immersion factor.


Shockwave's Battle of Britain 2 is an open source sim and I believe there is software availble to interface to gauges/motion platform etc. This sim would have to be the most immersive of them all as it models all the controls , and has the best engine start up modeling of any of the ww2 combat sims.
It has some bugs in it though, patch 2.04 should be out soon which should sort out the last of the bugs.

Looking forward to see how your simpit progresses.

cheers
chuck

Just a couple of pictures of how rudder pedals are made: some scrapped Al alloy piece mounted as a pantograph for the movement and two rubber wheels to transfer the movement to the potentiometer.
The potentiometer is connected to a joystick male connector and it's translated into a USB connector for the PC by means of a commercial device.

Pneumatic instruments (altimeter, climb/pitch speed, anemometer through pitot tube, etc.). I've mounted an old monitor to use it for their visualisation in the center of the instrument panel.

Program in use. Well CFS3 has really a good grphic, but I have tha idea that, even if setted at max realism, is not so close to what piloting such a warbird is like as the IL2 series. In particular FB+PF are my favourite.

CFS2, anyway is the one that goes the best on my PC, and the one that offers the major number of freeware downloads on the web. 

Therefore CFS2 and IL2 are my main sw.

Never heard of Shockware's BoB: where can I find it?

Bye!
Andrew.

Hi Andrew

I think I found that link about the software to extract the gauge data from IL2. It looks like you can run this over a lan setup and have the gauges displayed on a second pc/monitor.

check it out.
http://forums.ubi.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/23110283/m/4001089673

cheers
chuck

Hi Andrew

That device link software looks good, and those soft gauges look fantastic-- ( there are Me109 gauges as well as the Spit now available) all you would need to build is a face panel to go in front of your monitor and have the cutouts so they match the layout of the plane you are flying.

(curse CFS3 for not being able to extract data)

I think you can even save the position changes of the gauges. This would mean you could have different gauge/positon combinations for different aircraft.
You could design a system of removable face panels that you would slide into their holders in front of the instrument monitor. This would give more flexibility for your simpit and would look great.



Anyhow lets get onto the subject of your interface for all the switches and levers.
Are you going to buy a USB type control unit or are you going to try and do this with a hacked keyboard only and just use old stripped down joysticks for the analog control(ie prop pitch etc)?

I originally had a stripped down joystick that I used for the throttle quadrant. This worked fine.(cfs2 can have 16 joysticks -don't know about IL2 )
All of my switches,levers (gear & trim panels) all worked into a hacked keyboard.
Now the main problem (curse) of hacked keyboards are that you can only use momentary switches.  This doesn't make for a very realistic cockpit where you want toggle switches , rotary switches, rocker switches etc you want a bit more variance than just simple momentary push buttons.  



So this means you have to build the electronic and mechanical front end if you like to the hacked keyboard to allow all those other switch types to work with it.
This has just complicated your project a hundred fold.
Trust me as someone who has actually built one of these simpits-- using a hacked keyboard is the most complicated way  to go if you want realistic switches etc in your pit.


I have developed electronic circuits that have overcome these problems and I have working electronics for rotary switches that work ok ( things like trim control,flaps etc see my thread p51b trim controls) that I am happy to email you copies if you want to go this path.  I haven't done an exact costing on the difference but I would be surprised if there was much difference between buying all the additional electronic hardware for a hacked keyboard or buying a USB control unit that can do all the functions.



So what I'm trying to say is that a USB controler may be easier to install and wire up in your pit than the keyboard and would most likely be about the same price after you bought all the electronics and your time in soldering the keyboard electronics.

Now having said all that what you have to know is that if you are choosing a USB controller you need to check if it needs diodes for the scan matrix or not and if it can take toggle switches. If it can't then you will end up having to put the same front end electronics for it to recognise toggle switches as you have to for a hacked keyboard so your costs go up heaps and the wiring hassles also !

(curse CFS3 for not being able to extract data)

Andrew have a think about which way you want to go and we can fine tune the electronic option when you decide. (of course I haven't mention the other factor that impacts greatly on simpit building--- "the wife!"-- this requires very careful consideration if approval for final design plans are going to succeed.-- schedule regular outings for dinner etc as this will help a lot with the approval process !!!! )

cheers
chuck



 

Hi Andrew
hope you had a nice holiday.

To get the info on USB controllers have a look at this link.

http://www.betainnovations.com/
The Plasma Lite was getting a software upgrade that allowed for toggle switches to interface directly to it with no other hardware.

There is a usb controller home made kit called the "mjoy"  I don't have the link at the moment and there is another over at Ubizoo forum-- made by Leo Ionbar (I think??) but I think that needs a diode matrix.

Anyhow have a look at the Beta Innovations stuff and see what you think.

The choice gets down to cost and how handy you are with a soldering iron.

About the book idea -- I'm not sure -- as there is so many ways you can build this stuff. This is what this forum is about -- getting ideas from everyone and then selecting the one that works for you.

cheers
chuck

Just a shot out of a dry run with CFS1; I'll repeat the experiment with IL2 and attach a pic of it too.

Bye everybody!!!
A.

Andrew,

Looked at one of the videos.... wow..... pretty interesting.

I'm trying to visualize how this would "feel" in a simpit environment.  Not sure I'd want the outside visual display moving the viewpoint around as I turned my head.

I'd appreciate your thoughts about how to use this in a pit.

But for someone just flying with single or multiple monitors and the 2-d or virtual cockpit..... looks like a real "winner" to me.

best,

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

Quote:


Hiya,

The chap's name is Leo Bodnar and you can find his joystick controller here: http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/joystick/

It's a snip at £20 and works very well - I've used two to date for a trim control and switch box (pics here - http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=homebuild;action=display;n...) and more recently for a long shaft joystick. Leo is also very helpful and was more than willing to answer questions, give advice, too. I was really pleased with the results.

6 x 6 switch matrix (32 + 4 high hat) & room for up to 8 potentiometers (10k linear recommended).

You would need diodes if you intend to use switches that will remain in an 'on' state. This isn't difficult though - even for someone with such limited (non-existent) electronics knowledge as myself...

TTFN

Pads

Quote:


The "Cockpit Building Resources" sticky at the top of this forum has a lot of links to this kind of stuff...... including the mjoy card.

best,

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

Looking good Andrew

Well done.

cheers
chuck

Wow; looking good! The "LCD sixpack" concept seems to be well-suited for your 'pit...by all means, show us how you confihured that when you have time- I'm planning something similar for mine.
  And I like the raw aluminum look- mine will be clad in sheet metal, also.
Where did you get that stick grip from? I like that.

Excellent; thanks!!

BTW, the throttle quadrant idea is history; I'll have to make it from scratch. But it was worth checking out, and I'm sure some bits and pieces of that thing will find their way into my 'pit.

However, since you're building a single-engine fighter cockpit, you might want to check here: they have sweet, simple power/prop/mix setups, readymade for real aircraft (homebuilts)- but not very expensive:

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/ap/throttle.html


Lots of other neat parts, too..

Looking good Andrew.

Would you be able to do that split screen with the instruments for CFS3 ?

I would love to be able to fly online one day,  but at the moment we have sold our house and we are now looking around for a new house. Also my flight sim PC has bare minimum software on it, ie no anti virus software etc and I only run XPsp1 so I would have to update before I could connect to the internet.

The new place will have to have a workshop of course but until then I'm afraid the Mustang will have to go into storage , so I won't be building anything for some time , however I can still dream of stuff I suppose.

cheers
chuck

Hello everybody!!!

Here below the data fro my experiment in CFS2: first I made a panel_background_1024 file as it was the base of an instrument panel, then I modified the panel.cfg. Here below a copy of my new panel.cfg for the F4UCorsair:

// Panel Configuration file
// F4U1A Corsair

[Window Titles]
Window00=%window_title_00%
Window01=%window_title_01%


[Window00]
file_1024=Panel_Background_1024.BMP
position=4
size_mm=640,480
window_pos=0.0,0.0
window_size=1.000,1.000
render_3d_window=1
sizeable=1
visible=1
ident=MAIN_PANEL

gauge01=F4U1A_Corsair!Tach,30,60,170
gauge02=F4U1A_Corsair!Altimeter,250,60,170
gauge03=F4U1A_Corsair!Airspeed,470,60,170
gauge04=F4U1A_Corsair!Attitude,250,300,170
gauge05=F4U1A_Corsair!Turn_Coordinator,470,300,170
gauge06=F4U1A_Corsair!Vertical_Speed,30,300,170

[Window01]
file=ECU_background_640.bmp
file_1024=ECU_background_1024.BMP
position=6
size_mm=188.187
window_pos=0.0,0.6
window_size=0.25,0.4
sizeable=1
visible=0
ident=THROTTLE_PANEL

gauge00=F4U1A_Corsair!ECU,0,0

[VCockpit01]
size_mm=256,256
pixel_size=256,256
texture=$F4U1A
background_color=0,0,0
visible=0

gauge00=F4U1A_Corsair!Manifold_Pressure, 0, 0, 64, 64
gauge01=F4U1A_Corsair!Tach, 0, 64, 64, 64
gauge02=F4U1A_Corsair!Airspeed, 0, 128, 64, 64
gauge03=F4U1A_Corsair!CHT, 0, 192, 64, 64
gauge04=F4U1A_Corsair!Turn_Coordinator, 64, 0, 64, 64
gauge05=F4U1A_Corsair!Altimeter, 64, 64, 64, 64
gauge06=F4U1A_Corsair!Oil_Temperature, 64, 128, 64, 64
gauge07=F4U1A_Corsair!Ignition, 64, 192, 64, 64
gauge08=F4U1A_Corsair!Fuel_Quantity, 128, 0, 64, 64
gauge09=F4U1A_Corsair!Attitude, 128, 64, 64, 64
gauge10=F4U1A_Corsair!Oil_Pressure, 128, 128, 64, 64
gauge11=F4U1A_Corsair!Tail_Gear, 128, 192, 64, 64
gauge12=F4U1A_Corsair!Fuel_Selector, 192, 0, 64, 64
gauge13=F4U1A_Corsair!Vertical_Speed, 192, 64, 64, 64
gauge14=F4U1A_Corsair!Clock, 192, 128, 64, 64
gauge15=F4U1A_Corsair!Compass, 192, 192, 64, 64


[VCockpit02]
size_mm=128,128
pixel_size=128,128
texture=$F4U1A_2
background_color=0,0,0
visible=0

gauge00=F4U1A_Corsair!DG, 0, 0, 64, 64
gauge01=F4U1A_Corsair!Fuel_Pressure, 0, 64, 64, 64
gauge02=F4U1A_Corsair!Master_Switch, 64, 0, 64, 64
gauge03=F4U1A_Corsair!Starter, 64, 64, 64, 64

[VCockpit03]
size_mm=32,32
pixel_size=32,32
texture=$F4U1A_3
background_color=0,0,0
visible=0

gauge00=F4U1A_Corsair!Stall, 16, 0, 16, 16
gauge01=F4U1A_Corsair!Hydraulic_Pressure_Warning, 0, 16, 16, 16
gauge02=F4U1A_Corsair!Carb_Heat, 0, 0, 16, 16

[Default View]
X=0
Y=0
SIZE_X=8191
SIZE_Y=5000


[Strings]
"window_title_00"=F4U1A Corsair -- Main Panel
"window_title_01"=F4U1A Corsair -- Engine Controls


Hope will result useful.

Bye!
A.

bump