Cessna 172 simpit glareshield

[cjellwood]

I bought the glareshield from cockpitsonic view here but after 3 weeks of waiting nothing has arrived. No contact from the seller either so will be issuing a chargeback.

Gripe #2

Simkits are a bunch of tards! I bought the cessna trim wheel and flaps switch second hand that included the simkits stencils of which I based my design on. Upon fitting the parts to my cockpit I find that there is a massive error in the cutout caused by the stencils simkits provide being completely wrong! Simkits deny any responsibility even though I sent them these pictures. They said, "the stencils are to be used as a guide only and may need modification" WTF
btw, the trim wheel is clever but the flaps switch is seriously bad design and not worth the money.




oh and guess what, they removed my post on their forum about the error stating that the simkits support forum was the wrong place to post support queries. Somehow I think they need a bit of competition in the sim market

Chris

[Eviljonbob]

....

Simkits are a bunch of tards!
....

oh and guess what, they removed my post on their forum about the error stating that the simkits support forum was the wrong place to post support queries. Somehow I think they need a bit of competition in the sim market

Chris

Well theres your problem. You shouldn't have put a support question in the support forum. It needs to go in the "Builders that we don't care about" forum.

For me Simkits is a great idea and concept, but when the gear costs more than the aircraft it is simulating, then I have real issues with it for the home builder market.

I realize that in order to come up with a quality product and design, it takes time, effort and money to tool up for it however. They appear to be going well in that they are still around, so more power to them.

With Saitek jumping on board and coming out with instruments and radio/nav panels for a very competitive price (and real cheap compared to $imkits), I hope to support them in competing in that market, which will hopefully mean that they will come out with more for the home pit builder. I just bought a saitek pro flight yoke, throttle quad and pedals to replace my old CH gear. I am going to get the radio and nav panel next. My plans for the instrument panel are to use an lcd monitor behind a cut-out with rotary encoders. I will mount the saitek radio and avionics panels next to the monitor in the appropriate places. It isn't going to be a 1:1 scale of a Cessna 172, but it will be close enough. The increase in fidelity to get it 1:1 with every nut, bolt and instrument in exact place is a cost factor of at least one zero in the cost. I will be using that differential to actually pay for time in a real aircraft and fly (hopefully!). I may look at a separate Tach and ADF gauge next to the yoke so that I can mount the yoke in the right spot and place the LCD above. That way at least I will save on the cost of the other gauges and indicators.



I am looking forward to seeing how you progress with your project!

[cjellwood]

Either way you look at it, there is money to fork out. Personally I am suprised the Chinese have not jumped on the simulator band wagon. So far I have done well avoiding simkits by sourcing various gauges and parts from other suppliers but the trim wheel and flaps switch had to be bought from them. An alternative to the flaps switch is a simple 3 pole circular switch connected to a lever. The simkits flaps switch does not have any 'click' or any resistance whatsoever actually which is not good.

For the glareshield it may be a case of having a custom prototype made from foam or fibreglass.

Chris

[No Longer Active]

You should of got Chris @ inflight simulations to order the glareshield for you through his cockpitsonic uk distribution website (www.cockpitsonic.co.uk), that way Chris would of tracked your order every minute of the way, and he and his wife will always alnswer the phone in the office, he is a top bloke. Maybe contact Chris through his Cockpitsonic UK website because I know that he will certainly be able to contact them.

By the way, I never knew about the stencil thing, why sell simkits stencils if they don't represent the product they are designed for.....Stencils to make your own MIP so that you can use Simkits gauges..... but the instruments won't fit what you have just cut out.......because the simkits stencil needs modifying to fit the simkits gauges......that is one BIG flaw here!

I will say no more about simkits........

[cjellwood]

funny you mention the UK cockpitsonic.co.uk because I tried calling them earlier to see if they sell the glareshield but they not answer the phone lol. The glareshiled is not listed on their website so I wondered if they could get one. I emailed them instead, waiting for reply.

The irony here is that if all the cockpit builders put their heads and money together, there would be no need for all these expensive niche items. The companies are already waiting for bulk orders before they ship anyway. Take FlightIllusion for example, 8 week delay before shipping any item. That is because they are storing 8 weeks worth of orders so to bulk buy the PCB's etc with customers money. Not because it takes 8 weeks to produce the parts.

Oh and where is this motorized force feedback cessna yoke that FlightIllusion were teasing us with a few months ago? Obviously they are taking orders and deposits which is actually paying for its development

Say for example we all needed a glareshield for a Cessna cockpit like I do. We can pay £300 - £400 each for a piece of plastic, or all agree on a design and manufacturer to then each pay £100 for the part to be custom made. (£500 estimated cost for 5-off production). Then there is a mould left over for any future orders where each part ordered will only be around £70 if a few are ordered. The same goes for electronics for radios etc. Where the **** do simkits get off charging £400 for a single AP or radio unit without control board? It is buttons and LED segments ffs! 1980's technology lol

Chris

[Eviljonbob]

The irony here is that if all the cockpit builders put their heads and money together, there would be no need for all these expensive niche items. The companies are already waiting for bulk orders before they ship anyway. Take FlightIllusion for example, 8 week delay before shipping any item. That is because they are storing 8 weeks worth of orders so to bulk buy the PCB's etc with customers money. Not because it takes 8 weeks to produce the parts.

Chris

Chris,

You hit it on the head and I have been looking at crowdsourcing for a while now, but didn't really think about it again until you triggered it with this post. I am a subscriber to Make magazine as well and consider myself handy, but there are times when we just don't have the time or tools for stuff that we need. A while ago I looked at a site called Ponoko http://www.ponoko.com/ .

It is basically a front end to manufacturers and 3D fabricators for small production projects. This could be one answer..... We could upload some designs, get some prices and just do it ourselves. Some sort of shop or link to the manufacturers could be put up in the forum with minimum orders required (if any). Food for thought

EJB

[cjellwood]

hmmm, sounds good but this sort of action requires trust on behalf of all parties to work fluidly. Earlier in the day I sent details of the simkits glareshield to a fabrication company local to me so will be interesting to hear what they say about it and the price they quote from simkits example picture. For my part I can make a 2D dxf file of the glareshield base so all is then required is for it to be raised into a 3D sketch (which I am no good at).

I also havea good idea for a flaps switch which is very simple but everytime I pay someone to design the electronics for a radio etc they disapear off the face of the earth half way through the project. I may strike lucky soon. But for now lets tinker with the glareshield idea and see where it goes.

Here is a pic of my cockpit showing just the gauges that arrived today from a good small company www.homesim.de
It took them a few weeks to make these gauges for me which is ok but unfortunately they only build half size cockpits which leaves several open holes in my design that will be filled by FlightIllusion reluctantly.


Forgive the rust, this is only a test cut. If anyone fancies a go at this design, the laser cutting cost is around £100 all in. The square cutout at the bottom left is for a Saitek control panel which is shown in one of my earlier posts.

Oh and by the way, I have 2 x 32" LCD screens going cheap if anyone is looking for a dual screen setup display


Chris

[AK Mongo]

Never heard of home sim, but their prices seem very reasonable! You have any feedback on how they are performing? The website shows full size instruments, are they not available yet? Sorry to hijack the thread, but this is pretty interesting and I would like to know more!

[cjellwood]

The only homesim parts that I have tested so far is the radio module, a small gauge and VS gauge.


It takes a while to set up the control panel with all the parts so I will be testing next week some time when my final cockpit cut is made. HomeSim are not really into selling one-off parts, they prefer to sell bulk items. The control panel that runs all of their gear requires input from their switchboard to operate properly, but on my cockpit there is a Saitek switch board doing the switch work. HomeSim were great and created custom firmware for me so that the switchboard could be left out of the equation and work from FSUIPC data, not the HomeSim switchboard.

Today I got a tracking number for the glareshield so will do a quick review for that once it arrives.

Chris

[cjellwood]

oh and btw, you can only pay them by wire transfer. Here is a couple of pics of their mixture stick which is just simple good design and cheap The throttle stick is the same but with red knob. I have some original Cessna knobs but they want a 6mm shaft, this is 4mm. May need to drill it out




Chris