Starting over... Vidar's 737

[vidarf]

Hi folks! I've been off the simbuilder arena for some years now, but I'm back! And here are some images. More to come, especially on the wiring part.

Here's a sneak preview:



Now, THAT'S eye candy for ya!

[Matt Olieman]

Welcome back Vidar and best of luck with your continued sim building

Matt Olieman

[vybhav]

Welcome Vidar

[vidarf]

A new update!

I finally got my christmas tree!



Check out the nifty little board I made for dual brightness annunciators!

[vidarf]

WIRED UP! The overhead is now wired up. I do not want to see another zip-tie for a LONG time!



(click on the image to read more at my website)

The combo FDS SYS cards and InterfaceIT proves yet again to be a breeze to use! I tried to wire the annunciators in order (neighboring annunciators to neighboring outputs), but for the switches I zip-tied the wires, fed them to the correct place and wired them up at random. The "identify input" function proved to be invaluable here; no need for writing down which input goes to what switch - just flick the switch with InterfaceIT set to "identify input", and then import the correct XML (BTW: quite a few switches are missing in the XML files. I'll send them to FDS when they have been confirmed working).

[vidarf]

I've mounted the displays for the ELEC and FLT/LAND ALT (pressurization) panels:


Click on the image for the full story. The overhead is nearly completed now, and is operational for the most part. The gauges aren't mounted yet, but that's the next task. It will take some time, but should be a fairly easy job. Stay tuned!

[Norwegian737project]

I really am putzzled of why nobody bothers to leave any comments to any updates anymore.. It's like everybody has seen everything already, so unless we bring anything new that nobody has seen before, they won't offer any comments on it.. If that's the way everybody want's it, we might as well just stop posting anything at all...

I love your overhead. I think you have done a super job with it. Those OpenCockpit gauges looks better than expected. I can't wait to get my overhead up to par. I think I will do the same thing as you have done when it comes to the ELEC panel. It looks really good. Can't really tell the difference between this, and an original panel.

[vidarf]

I take people are so awe inspired by my unbelievable craftsmanship that they are too ashamed to comment. :P

Seriously, it seems that simbuilding is not what it was. Then again, that sentence has been uttered every year for as long as I have been in "the trade". Ah well, I still love to do it and post images for others enjoyment. Heck, if I can make another poor chap spend his money on this, I'm good.

Thanks for your kind comments. If you have a choice, go for the FDS ELEC unit in stead. I only chose OC because I had some master/usb/displays cards lying around. SIOC might be very powerful, and the OC cards are very good too. But they are NOT as user-friendly as the FDS stuff. Plug and pray, baby!

My overhead. Yeah. I have done a LOT of work on it. All the DZUS replicas for instance - they all have the screwdriver slot oriented correctly, just like real DZUS. I plan to build a small vaccuu-form thingy to make the glass bezels for the gauges, just to make them look as real as possible. But I love to do stuff like that, so it's OK.

BTW: I have a complete set of roof liners and trims from the aft overhead to the centre window frame, all from real aircraft. As real as it gets!

PS: I have promised measurements of those parts. I _will_ do that, but I am building and that's more important. Sorry for the wait!

[JWS]

A fine piece of art. How's that for a comment?

JWS

[Efe Cem Elci]

Beautiful! The grace and elegance of someone who has done it once before and want it to look more organized and easier to troubleshoot the next time around. Great work Vidar, looking forward to more developments.

I think that as the hobby develops into an industry (as it has in the past 5 years) we have more people buying parts that are pretty much plug and play. And I'm not criticizing these people, all the power to them. But as this happens, the cockpit building of our days where you were lucky to get panels from a company much less the interfacing and coding starts to fade away. To many new builders in my opinion this becomes old school and much less appreciated.