New SIM Builder

[Dunny]

Hi all,

I am new to the forum and also new to SIM building. I am a qualified commercial pilot with a fair amount of flying experience and would now like to look at building my own SIM. I have been amassing bits over time and have got a set of simkit instruments ( the main 6 pack) plus some gauges, a flap switch, a trimmer control, an AP2000 (I think) avionics stack and a couple of other bits and pieces. I have got the main instruments working and my controller board has 38 interfaces so can be extended.

I am not overly happy with the AP2000 as it still needs the separate display to be shown and I would like, if possible to use a separate monitor for the NAV instruments - is this possible?

I have a couple of throttle quadrants plus the CH Yoke.

What suggestions do you guys have in terms of how best to start outing this together into a SIM?

I thought about using a couple of old PC cases as the material for building the panels to hold the gauges - is this common?

Thanks

D

[Dunny]

No comments?

Thanks

D

[spiliot]

Hi Dunny. In general you should be patient, two days of waiting is not much in a niche and therefore rather low volume forum like this one. In general people are helpful though and if you get no answers (in maybe 10 days) it means something is wrong with your questions.

You don't seem to provide any information on what kind of sim you're building, the platform, your expectations, goals, etc. So I don't know what answers could be given even if someone got down to it.

[Geremy Britton]

Hi D!
Welcome to MyCockpit, your project sounds intriguing. What aircraft are you building?
What type of aircraft do you fly for your job?
And if the above are not the same, why not!? :-P

[Dunny]

Spiliot - fair comment, didn't appreciate that the forum was low volume.

Geremy - I want to build a Cessna 172 in the first instance as I will be doing the FI course shortly and also it's useful for practicing procedures. I normally fly PA28 or PA34 plus a C172 and a C182.

I have got the main 6 pack instruments working, plus an RPM gauge - they connect to a USB controller which I think will only run under XP and therefore I am running FS2004 with XP. I have a few other gauges plus a Cessna style flap switch and a trim wheel. The controller has a separate power supply (ATX).

My basic plan at the moment (concocted from a position of little knowledge!) is to make the cockpit frame out of wood then use the sides of old PC's to create the dashboard panel into which I will fit the 6 pack and RPM gauge. I haven't yet tested the smaller gauges but I plan to put them next to them on the left of the main instruments (like a normal Cessna panel). The throttle, at least for now, will probably be the Saitek one I have so will be more like a Piper but will suffice for now. Rudder pedals are CH which I am not overly happy with as they don't really have any feel. Yoke will also be CH but I am not happy with this yoke at all as it feels nothing like a proper aircraft I am finding it impossible to fly accurately with this.

I have an issue with the heading bug jumping all over the place since I added the SimKits DI so I need to sort this out - grateful for any input on this.

I would like to use an additional monitor to display the NAV instruments through the dash panel but I don't have any knowledge of how I could achieve this?

I have a projector for the main display (I haven't tried it yet) and ideally would like to add some other screens to improve the experience but again I have no knowledge on how to do this so some help on this would be appreciated.

I am concerned that the performance of my old XP box wont be up to the demands placed on it so any advice on this would be good.

I am sure I will have tons of other questions but some pointers on the above would be great.

Thanks

D

[albeagle]

Hi there, please check my website, you may find some help there ;)

http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=11844&stc=1

http://flyingforfun.weebly.com/cessna-172-cockpit.html

AlbEagle

[Dunny]

Hi there, please check my website, you may find some help there ;)


http://flyingforfun.weebly.com/cessna-172-cockpit.html

AlbEagle

Thanks. I had found my way to your site...looks good!

Not sure what Arduino is all about?

Thanks

D

[BushPilotWannabe]

The biggest problem of anything nowadays is the sheer volume of media available. This includes Flight Sim and Arduino. Everybody - like me - is able to post. A US$ 2.00 Arduino Pro MIni can be a cheap replacement for a 7 input NAND gate or a US$ 3.50 Nano can run four, almost full function, simulated King radios.

Much of the media could be improved in production and content. The benchmark site for Arduino is of course Arduino.org and playground.arduino.cc/. A good visual resource is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCxzA9_kg6s.

There are do-it-yourself articles of varying quality for almost anything you need, and if they are buried too deeply, Arduino is do it your way. A whole new experience if you have the time and maybe the patience.

Hugh

[Geremy Britton]

Your XP machine should be able to run FS2004 and the small collection of hardware you mentioned. If you were to upgrade in the future you should firstly look to upgrade your machine, before any FS Hardware.

[Steve Eisenberg]

Hi Dunny,

I agree that your XP machine should be fine for now but the video card and graphics memory may determine how many monitors you can comfortably run. All of the current flight sims are 32 bit so anything more than 4 gb of memory cannot be used anyway. 64 bit versions of P3D, FSX, and Xplane are supposedly in the works but until they come out, folks like me running state of the art hardware with megaram and I7 chips are really not taking any advantage of the xtra power anyway.

One thing, you referenced an AP2000 avionics stack. To my knowledge the only AP2000 avionics stack that I know of is an Elite stack (actually originally made by PFC) and, again to my knowledge, it does not require nor is able to display on a separate monitor and it is not compatible with any flight sim software other than Elite, itself.

Steve

[xplanematt]

Hi Dunny, welcome to the forums! Good to have another real-world pilot join the craziness here.

You've already got some good advice, so I won't repeat a bunch of stuff. I just wanted to throw out the idea of using a real cockpit instead of building one from scratch. I went the scratch-built route initially, and that sim is still running and is fine, but I later got the front of a Sabreliner and it's 100x a better deal. :) The cockpit build was an enormous amount of time and effort....time and effort that could have been better spent refreshing a real cockpit, writing code, interfacing gauges, etc. Sticking a real plane in your garage/house/neighbor's driveway may seem extreme at first, but it's really not. Old fuselages and cockpits, especially for small aircraft like the 172, can be had for next to nothing if you are patient and nosy. I see you're in the UK, I know of quite a few guys in Europe who have managed to get their hands on a real cockpit.

Here's my current site for some inspiration (it's sorta set up like a commercial deal, but it's not..yet):

http://www.baileyjets.com/

Matt