Simviation Forum - My new pit..sort of

Feb 5^th, 2007 at 6:25pm

gokhotit Offline
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I don't have the money for a big full cockpit, so i am starting to build a generic console.

I am starting with the go fligth console as a base, putting sheet metal over the top, and then putting in my switches, annunciator panel, throttle, mixture, etc. into that.

However, I have run into a slight snag. I "acquired" an annunciator out of an OV-1 Mohawk. It is 4 across and 6 down. I am looking for ideas as to how to relabel it. It needs to be able to be used on all aircraft ranging from the p-26 to a 747. How should I label it?

If you are interested i will get pictures and post them of my little project.

And forthose wondering I am using phidgets as the interface cards.

Thanx in advance,

The Sim Console..."outside the box", within a box http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u185/gokhotit/th_sim.jpg

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Reply #1 - Feb 5^th, 2007 at 9:47pm

beaky Offline
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By "how should I relable it?" do you mean what designations, or what kind of label?
How is it labelled now?Is it engraved? Stick-on engraved labels?

If you mean what annunciator functions are most likely to serve most aircraft, I'd say if you stick with the existing labels you should be more or less set, as a military panel will have the usual stuff plus a few other things... only thing missing will be some intercom stuff as you'd find in an airliner.

Can you show us a picture?

My panel will be pretty basic "GA"-type: no SPKR/PHONE toggle, and just "Com 1, Nav 1, Com 2, Nav 2, DME, MKR, ADF".

Unless I find a cheap panel from a real aircraft... Grin

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Reply #2 - Feb 5^th, 2007 at 11:06pm

gokhotit Offline
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the current labels are painted on. they are off a recon aircraft so they have camera temp lights, IFF, chip detect, Drop tanks L and R, etc.
By "relabeling" I mean that i am going to strip off teh paint on all the light panels, and redo them, what should they say??

The Sim Console..."outside the box", within a box http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u185/gokhotit/th_sim.jpg

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Reply #3 - Feb 6^th, 2007 at 8:44am

beaky Offline
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gokhotit wrote on Feb 5^th, 2007 at 11:06pm:

the current labels are painted on. they are off a recon aircraft so they have camera temp lights, IFF, chip detect, Drop tanks L and R, etc.
By "relabeling" I mean that i am going to strip off teh paint on all the light panels, and redo them, what should they say??

I misunderstood; I thought you meant it was an audio annunciator panel... this is an annunciator panel with indicator/warning lights...

I can't really say in that case what you should use them for; remember also that using those lights will require either making sure you're providing the correct voltage to the lamps (no idea what that would be on a Mohawk, but it's probably over 24V), or re-wiring it with new lamps to run off a known voltage... then there's the closure circuits needed so they light up when you use certain switches... complicated.

And if this panel will not just be for show, and you want them to act as real warning or indicator lights,you may need to run a separate program so that they react to situations in the sim... such as you might use to run virtual gauges.

I'm sure one of the fancy-airliner 'pit guys here can advise you further on that; that is where I get off the bus. Grin

If you just want it to sit there and look cool, I'd advise going to airliners.net and running a photo search under "cockpits". Look for one that you like, and check the list of labels shown there.

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Reply #4 - Feb 6^th, 2007 at 3:38pm

gokhotit Offline
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I am converting it over to LEDs so I can use my phidgets LED board with it. I stripped all the "stuff" off the circuit panels and made direct connection to the contacts on the other side.

It will look the same as it did when it was pulled off the aircraft, but internally it is completely different.
This raises another question..Will the LED64 board be able to run 2 LEDs off of one output?

All Im looking for is generic labels I can put on it, as I tried labeling it but ran out of ideas of to put on them that would keep it generic.

The Sim Console..."outside the box", within a box http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u185/gokhotit/th_sim.jpg

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Reply #5 - Feb 6^th, 2007 at 4:12pm

beaky Offline
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gokhotit wrote on Feb 6^th, 2007 at 3:38pm:

I am converting it over to LEDs so I can use my phidgets LED board with it. I stripped all the "stuff" off the circuit panels and made direct connection to the contacts on the other side.

It will look the same as it did when it was pulled off the aircraft, but internally it is completely different.
This raises another question..Will the LED64 board be able to run 2 LEDs off of one output?

All Im looking for is generic labels I can put on it, as I tried labeling it but ran out of ideas of to put on them that would keep it generic.

I don't know anything about Phidgets; can't answer your LED question.
I think you will ultimately have to flip a coin or whatever as far as the labels go... but I will suggest that you think of the last, say, five flights you made in the sim. What indicators or warning lights were most important on each of the aircraft?

I'm making a generic 'pit myself, and found that line of thought really helps: just asking "what do I use now?"

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Reply #6 - Feb 7^th, 2007 at 9:46am

JBaymore Offline
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gokhotit,

If you go to the Phidgets website there is a lot of information in the forums.

http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/

The question of two LEDs has come up there and there are threads with lots of info on it. The issue is usually one of the two will turn on first..... unless they are VERY well matched in current draw. You also have to be sure to not exceed the LED64 current handling capacity in the LED selection.

You could also run one annunciator with TWO outputs. That also allows stuff like an annunciator to go from amber to red/orange by illuminating two different LEDs (one yellow and one red). The LED64 already allows brightness levels to be varied on a single LED output.

For setting up the logic for the illumination of the LED annunciators to fit more "generic" situations (multi-plane pit).... the freeware FS2Phidget software by Alan Dyer is just the ticket to set custom values. SOrt of like a poor man's Project Magenta Wink

.

best,

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

« Last Edit: Feb 7^th, 2007 at 2:43pm by JBaymore »

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