Simviation Forum - Over head panel half way

Aug 27^th, 2008 at 4:55pm

ermias Offline
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Hi,
Well summer is almost gone and wife hasn't killed me yet. Not much has been done around my simulator. My plan was to wire the throttle, but I was away for a length of time. In June I managed to half finish the over head panel which is roughly a replica of boeing 737. Its wiring is only at the beginning stage. I used switches and lamps mostly from all electronics and radioshack. The panel will interface with fs9 using fsuipc. All the lamps are 12VAC, and the LEDs used with switches are 5VAC. I use STX power supply for them.

I have added two night lamps and a key pad from an old home security circuit. I am planning to adapt the circuit as warning system for switches left out from either turned on or off. I don't still know how to do that; I don't have its original manual. My present idea is each button activates some thing and sets off the alarm after some delay if the related part is not used properly.

The other thing I have in mind is to create a cockpit voice recorder using an old phone which records the crew voice as if recording a message. If this doesn't work I will have to use my rather expensive Olympus voice recorder which records for two hours.

I still don't know what to do with the guages, but I need some help. If there is some one with electronics knowledge to drow me a simple diagream to use rotary swicheds and 7 segment leds to increase or decrease values. I want this for the cabin pressure and destination airport altitude settings on the over head panel. (This will not have effect on the simulation; somewhat ey candy

)
Here are some pictues...

Any help or comment is welcome.

Regards, Ermias

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Reply #1 - Aug 27^th, 2008 at 5:59pm

JBaymore Offline
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Looking good, Ermias! You are off to a great start.

And you are starting to learn about "overhead spaggetti"! Wink

One thought on the pressurization "fake" gauge is to use a potentiometer as a variable resistor to vary the current in a simple circuit. Then use a miliamp meter as the visual display "altitude" indicator. As the resistance of the potentiometer increases the current flow in the circuit decreases. So you just put a facing on the milliampmeter that displayes "altitude" instead of milliamps, and you wire the direction of turning of the potentiometer so that as you turn the knob clockwise, the resistance goes DOWN....and thereby the displayed altitude setting goes up.

As to getting the OTHER typical pointers (current real altitude and current cabin altitude) to actually change as the simulated aircraft climbs or decends... that is another whole ball of wax. THAT will take some serious electronic interfacing and reading a data stream out of FSUIPC.

One big hint: Start now to make a written wiring diagram and component spec book. A simpit actually needs manuals just like a real aircraft. I have three distinct "books" (black looseleaf binders) for my pit. I GUARANTEE that you will be going back in and fixing things at some later point and will find that "manual" invaluable.

Hope those thoughts help.

best,

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

PS: I always love it when a new builder starts doing stuff like this and posting pictures. It makes me feel more sane. Wink

Intel i7 960 quad 3.2G LGA 1366, Asus P6X58D Premium, 750W Corsair, 6 gig 1600 DDR3, Spinpoint 1TB 7200 HD, Caviar 500G 7200 HD, GTX275 1280M, Logitec Z640, Win7 Pro 64b, CH Products yoke, pedals + throttle quad, simpit

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Reply #2 - Aug 27^th, 2008 at 7:12pm

ermias Offline
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John,
I like the idea of using milliampmeter with a pot. That solves the problem with gaues.
Regarding using the LED digital readout, I was thinking just to have it there and simply turning the rotary switches and changing the figures as part of the overhead panel routine.
Documentation is vital here. There is no way to remember everything. I have some printed material, but most of the staff is in digital format. I will print and save them for reference.

Thanks for your help and advise.
Ermias

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Reply #3 - Aug 28^th, 2008 at 12:43pm

JBaymore Offline
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ermias,

If you want to spend a WHOLE lot of money on the cabin pressurization istuation....... look at the cabin altitude and cabin climb and altitude "physical" gauges (stand alone active mock ups) available from here:

http://www.flightillusion.com/gallery2.htm

All of that stuff makes me DROOL........ but it is WAY outside my budget range... until I win the Powerball Lottery. Wink

best,

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

Intel i7 960 quad 3.2G LGA 1366, Asus P6X58D Premium, 750W Corsair, 6 gig 1600 DDR3, Spinpoint 1TB 7200 HD, Caviar 500G 7200 HD, GTX275 1280M, Logitec Z640, Win7 Pro 64b, CH Products yoke, pedals + throttle quad, simpit

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Reply #4 - Aug 30^th, 2008 at 10:43pm

ermias Offline
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John,

Thanks for the link. It is really amaizing how much little things can cost. I think I can fly a Cessna 172 for four hours for the price of the two gauges and the central interface module.
I will stick to the milliampere gauge and keep things simpler. There is virtually no way for me to afford this. May be as you have said it the lottery....?

Regards, ermias.

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Reply #5 - Sep 20^th, 2008 at 9:35am

BAW19 Offline
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Southend Essex UK

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You can always buy nice cheap (but excellent) backlit panels from Hispapanels then motorise the phsyical gauges with the aircore driver from BetaInnovations. They're stuff is pretty cheap too compared to most and the SDK makes it a breeze to interface Cheesy

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