Building a somethat "generic" pit... I can custom build my aircraft any way I like to.  Which is nice.    After spending all day finishing a major proposal for a presentation next year relative to my pottery business and a residency I spent in Japan, I got to work on (read "play with") the pit.  

A long time ago (see WAY older threads) I lifted the basic design concept for the ice protection panel from some aircraft I saw on Airliner.net simply because I really liked the look of the general design.  This one  is not an exact copy, but it's close.  Can't remember the plane for the life of me .

Tonight I finally got around to starting on the wiring of this panel, since it is a somewhat complex layout featuring a lot of LEDs and a situation where the LEDs are driven from two separate and independent sets of switch contacts.  It is a pile of spagetti on the back!

To give you prospective simpit builders reading this an idea of the TIME involved in this kind of work, the results you see here for just the wiring done to the already built panel took four hours of steady work tonight.  Simpit building is s....l....o...w work, usually over years.    ()
 
The first of two major steps involved for this particular panel is wiring up the LED indicators that show the status of the components that are switched on.  These include the 2 pitot heaters, the static port heater, four engine anti-ice controls, a complex airframe anti-ice system, and the TAT test indicator.  Looking at the FSUIPC offsets I find that there are apparently two pitot heater status indicators, and there apparently IS one level of airframe anti-ice.  There are some controls on this panel that are "for effect" only and will have no function in the sim.  The rest of the controls (like engine anti-ice) are pretty "stock" fs2004 panel gauge type controls that have easily assigned connections to the sim.

These LEDs on the panel are driven by the main +12V DC buss in the pit, and that buss is turned on when the Master Battery switch is set to "on", when the Ground Power is connected and the parking brake is set, or when the APU Generator or an Engine Generator is set to "on".


Below you can see the panel in an initial stage, with the components mounted, but almost no wiring hookup done yet (one -12V ground lead bundle set has been soldered and taped).  The panel is upside down from the position in which it is mounted on the overhead.  The row of double pole double throw switches along the top edge in the picture (which is the bottom on the overhead) are the pitot heaters on the left and right ends and the four engine anti-ice in the center between them.  Below them on the picture is an array of LEDs that form a sort of synoptic function display.  Next on the way down on the left and right is a pair of rotary wafer switches.  In the center you can see the main 12V DC power connector block.  On the lower right is the TAT test button and LED, and on the lower left is the static port heater switch.





In the shot below you see a closeup of the wiring for the manual control of the airframe anti-ice functions controlled by a six position wafer rotary switch.  This control allows the application of anti-ice to selected areas of the airframe.  Therefore it has to supply 12V to specific sets of LEDs to indicate WHERE the heat is.  This requires a LOT of wires to the individual LEDs.  Note my written comments on the back of the panel as to which contact is for what function.





In the next shot note the five vertically mounted diodes added on the manual control switch contacts.  This is necessary because all of the LEDs are also fed +12V DC from the other six position rotary switch that controls the AUTOMATIC functions for the anit-ice system.  The auto system results in all of the airframe LEDs being lit up at the same time.  So this has to have +12V connections to each of the individual LEDs....... which would cause problems with the manual switch if it were not for the diodes acting as one-way valves for the flow of current.

Without the diodes, because of the wiring connections from the "auto" switch, when the manual switch was placed in any position, it too would light ALL the LEDs.  NOT what I want!  So the diodes are inserted in the +12V feed to the LEDs from the "auto" switch to block the lighting up of the leds.  Simple and VERY useful trick for pit building.  





Below you can see the panel with all of the 12V DC wiring in place.  The large balck and red wire is the master 12V supply buss for the panel.  Note that a number of places the wires have been bundled and some exposed surfaces are taped to prevent possible shorts.  

The control wiring for the actual simulator functions (communicated via the Hagstrom KE72 card) still has to be mounted.  That wiring goes on the OTHER set of contacts on the wafer switches and the DPDT toggles.  That work will get done tomorrow or the next day (hopefully).

Wiring It Into The Sim Via the KE72

So here below is the last step in putting this panel into use.  I use CAT 5 wire with 4 twisted pairs (8 wires) and strapped an extra wire to it with electrical tape for the ground connection in order to to cover this panel's needs.  Here you can see the partially completed board from yesterday.... or the day before ....can't remember  ...... with the CAT 5 wire ready to go.  I next epoxied a strain relief into the center of the panel to "hold" the end of the CAT 5 wire onto the panel.





And after about another 2 1/2 hour's tedious wire stripping and soldering work ..... after checking carefully with ah multimeter to make sure I am getting it right......... below is the finished panel ready to mount and attach to the Hagstrom KE72 and main +12V DC power buss.

A little vino to go with this pile of spagetti?  

Hagstrom KE 72 Code

Below is an example which I have cut out of the ASCII text file that is used to program a Hagstrom KE72 keyboard encoder card.  These cards are GREAT!  Well worth the money.....even if you are just making a desktop type cockpit with a few switch boxes.  

In the listing below, just after the APU panel listing at the top, you can see the actual programming for the new Ice Protection panel I just did.

The "INXX" identifies the hardware input number to use.  The ":" after the location means -do this when the switch is pressed/latched.  The "|" on the next line means -do this when the switch is released.  The stuff contained in a bracket (  for example [X]  ) is the key press to send.  There are ways to add shift and control and other stuff which you can see if you look at input 48........which sends a shift H when it is toggled on, and a shift H when it is toggled off.  That turns the pitot heater on and off.  

The colors are the color coding for the wires in the Cat5 cable that I used for the connections.

You could type this whole reply by flipping a switch simply by defining it in the configuration file, if you really wanted to.  

Excerpt from Hagstrom KE-72 Configuration Programming


APU PANEL

41                                    Ground Power Toggle ON  (brown)
41                                    Ground Power Toggle OFF

42                                    APU Pump Toggle ON (orange)
42                                    APU Pump Toggle OFF

IN43:[(+)Shift][F4][(-)Shift]                                  APU Run Toggle ON (orange/white)
IN43|[(+)Shift][F4][(-)Shift]                                  APU Run Toggle OFF

IN44:[(+)Shift][W][(-)Shift]                                  APU Generator Toggle ON (green/white)
IN44|[(+)Shift][W][(-)Shift]                                  APU Generator Toggle OFF


IN45                                    OPEN TO USE  / Not Assigned Yet
IN45                                    OPEN TO USE  / Not Assigned Yet


ICE PROTECTION PANEL

IN46:[9]                                              Static Port Heat Toggle ON (orange)
IN46|[9]                                              Static Port Heat Toggle OFF (orange)

IN47:[0]                                              Airframe Anti-ice Toggle ON  (orange/white)
IN47|[0]                                              Airframe Anti-ice Toggle OFF  (orange/white)

IN48:[(+)Shift][H][(-)Shift]                                  Pitot Heat #1 Toggle ON  (green)
IN48|[(+)Shift][H][(-)Shift]                                  Pitot Heat #1 Toggle OFF  (green)

IN49                                              Pitot Heat #2 Toggle ON  (green/white) not assigned yet
IN49                                    Pitot Heat #2 Toggle ON  (green/white) not assigned yet

IN50:[E][1][H]                              Engine #1 Anti-ice Toggle ON   (blue)
IN50|[E][1][H]                              Engine #1 Anti-ice Toggle OFF   (blue)

IN51:[E][2][H]                              Engine #2 Anti-ice Toggle ON  (blue/white)
IN51|[E][2][H]                              Engine #2 Anti-ice Toggle OFF  (blue/white)

IN52:[E][3][H]                              Engine #3 Anti-ice Toggle ON  (brown)
IN52|[E][3][H]                              Engine #3 Anti-ice Toggle OFF  (brown)

IN53:[E][4][H]                              Engine #4 Anti-ice Toggle ON  (brown/white)
IN53|[E][4][H]                              Engine #4 Anti-ice Toggle OFF  (brown/white)


(Sorry about the formatting above!)


And back to the concept of how much WORK goes into this kind of stuff......... counting the time to write the config additions and load them into the Hagstrom and a few other misc. bits of time involved in this ...... this "little" part of the pit took almost a full day's work!


So there you have the next installment.  This thread is stuffed with the max of images... so no more will go here.


best,

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

tunatuk,

ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE for the KE72.  I think it IS true for the 24.....which is a matrixed real keyboard type controller.  Hagstrom has an assortment of stuff.... go to the website.

I have toggles, momentarys, and rotary wafer switches on the two KE72's I have.  All work fine.  They support different functions on make and break..... macros... and so on. 

You won't be unhappy with the 72s. 

best,

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

Well.... I just discovered that for the particular panel that I am using in the BAe 146-200, I have to add a DELAY into the keypress sequence between the engine selection (  [E] [1]  ) and the antiice command (  [H]  ).  Otherwise the encoder is sending the keypresses too fast for the panel to "accept" them.......... with weird results.  This delay function is expressed as [(D)100] where a value of 100 gives a one second delay.

Even though the panels are not displayed on a screen.... they still govern how an aircraft functions.

So now it last part looks like this:

IN50:[E][1][(D)100][H]                              Engine #1 Anti-ice Toggle ON   (blue)
IN50|[E][1][(D)100][H]                              Engine #1 Anti-ice Toggle OFF   (blue)

IN51:[E][2][(D)100][H]                              Engine #2 Anti-ice Toggle ON  (blue/white)
IN51|[E][2][(D)100][H]                              Engine #2 Anti-ice Toggle OFF  (blue/white)

IN52:[E][3][(D)100][H]                              Engine #3 Anti-ice Toggle ON  (brown)
IN52|[E][3][(D)100][H]                              Engine #3 Anti-ice Toggle OFF  (brown)

IN53:[E][4][(D)100][H]                              Engine #4 Anti-ice Toggle ON  (brown/white)
IN53|[E][4][(D)100][H]                              Engine #4 Anti-ice Toggle OFF  (brown/white)



best,

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

Seriously John, when are you gonna throw a party so we can all fly this thing?  Impressive work!!!

Jayhawk Jake wrote on May 10^th, 2007 at 8:17am:


Thanks!   

On to part 33.