Very interesting for PMDG

[fweinrebe]

If there is problem accessing because of your location, you can try using anonymous access portals such as vtunnel.com, ztunnel.com etc. That might help you get to the site.

Wow, thanks !! That worked.

[Tomlin]

Very interesting and something that I had wondered about for a long time. However, is it just me or is the whole unit a bit bigger than the real size? The width for a CDU is 5.75".

[NigelD]

For my two cents worth, I think I could build the same for less. And by 'build' I mean plug in a cheaper touchscreen! This was an idea I had a while ago for my FMS, but I saw the notion getting a pounding on a few forums. Might reconsider it now and actually test it!

Nigel.

[Mr. Midnight]

I Like there idea but that is way too much money for a touch screen.
I have a keytec 15" magic touch screen that works just fine and I paid 159.00 for it.
And I use it just like they do, but 899 for it is a little no that is way too high for my blood.

Maybe it’s just me but there seems to be no middle ground in this hobby.
there is no average range for us average go to work then come home and justify to our other halves if I can spend several hundred dollar on a part just to make it look more real while we fly.

It seems it getting harder and harder to justify this, can anyone come up with any more good reasons to explain to our better halves why we need the important parts to fly.

I just have plum ran out of lies I mean ideas to tell , heh heh heh

Robert

[Michael Carter]

I don't have that problem. But I do have a problem justifying $645 US for a 12.1 WS monitor that I found.

I can buy a 24" WS Samsung for half of that with tripple the specs. I can't understand how they can charge rediculous prices for an open-frame monitor with half of the real estate of the above and sub-par specifications.

According to the laws of supply & demand, you'd think they'd practically be giving away a monitor system that small and charge twice the price for a 24"

I'm going to have to figure out another way to set up my engine stack or keep scouring e-Bay twice a day.

[Efe Cem Elci]

Michael you have to think beyond the desktop applications. For one thing, right now there is a rising popularity for mini laptops like the Acer EEEPC for their practicality. Also, smaller screens have always been high in demand for kiosks and similar applications beyond that of desktop computing. Many banks use smaller screens in their consoles since there is no need for more real estate in their system with their dedicated software.

[dnoize]

According to the laws of supply & demand, you'd think they'd practically be giving away a monitor system that small and charge twice the price for a 24"

Number of reasons:

supply is rather low....demand is reasonably high ( custom displays, netbooks, cash registers, etc)
...ergo: High price.

Production line/ startup investments arent that much lower than for a 24" production line. Initial engineering costs. costs for the machines to make the plates, develop electronics, etc. Hower, production batches are much smaller ! thus huge investments have to be spun off on low production volumes....ergo: high price.

Photoframes that size use different lcd's. refresh rates are terrible...so these (high volume) lcd's can not be used unfortunately to produce vga monitors.


its a niche market....your 24" lcd tv gets sold by the millions....that small screen by the 10 thousands.

Niche market products are always priced "unreasonably" higher.

however, in this case a 150$ stock touchscreen is charged for over 800 $ only because it has a plastic overlay with buttons....650 $ for the overlay ?

it also seems like they are selling Open cockpits based products for tripple the price.

[Jackpilot]

I Email these guys and apparently the "plastic overlay" is not a simple sheet of molded repro.
Keys have the right feel and the overlay cannot be used on any touchscreen, the touch system of the screen has to be specifically setup for that, hence the cost.
Besides it appears that their prices include VAT which means that you have to remove about 20% of the total!!!
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BTW as it is virtually impossible to find a monitor of the proper size here is a way to do it with a 17" touchscreen, real FMS on the left , "Whatever you want"and "FO FMS with a thin overlay" undocked side by side in the lower part to show in the Lower DU and right FMS , ..Basically an idea that can be worked on and adapted to specific needs/choices....just for fun

[dnoize]

for 832 $ you have the "standard" version without the frame overlay:

MODULE FMC TACTILE 10,4" VGA STANDARD EDITION Version delivered with standard front face. Touchscreen working with finger contact , no pen needed Frame overlay for FMS or MCDU VGA 10.4",

The frame overlay is the "premium" version. couldnt find any pricing info on that.

For that amount of money i'd rater use the solution you described above. Thanks for that !

They also have a real hardware cdu at 1107 $ but thats only compatible with PM.
Besides for less money (FDS) or the same money (engravity) you can have much better looking cdu's truly plug and play compatible with more software.....but i guess im biased here

btw...is it just me ? Or is their mcp really looking exactly the same as the open cockpits one at double the price ?

Plug&fly - 919 $ (714 euro's):








open cockpits 482 $ (375 euros)







Even the screws in the case and the frontplate are placed exactly the same.
can be coincidence ofcourse.....


Stef