Bendix Nav/Com KX-165A project

[Kerbo]

All I have so far is some front panel art and a half finished schematic. I will add to the thread as the project progresses.

The goal is to create a circuit board with display, encoders and buttons along with an optional faceplate that people can then integrate into their avionics panel. The current design includes 20 digit display (4 separate frequencies), 2 dual encoders and two frequency swap buttons.

[No Longer Active]

Hi,

What I have done, which makes life so much easier is to build the radio equipment as 1 panel, you could simply design the whole radio stack as 1 which I have done.

You dont really need to display the whole 20 digits width ways you could have 2 layers of 10, or dont display the standby digits at all.

I have this idea where I can display the standby digits of the NAV1/COM1 on the NAV2/COM2 from NAV1/COM1 if I needed the standy digits displayed. I dont really use NAV2/COM2 due to the fact that I do a lot of VFR flying, so my clever idea is to display the standbys on the second radio! But if I did want to use NAV2 /COM2 I would simply do so, but I wouldn't have the standbys.

[Kerbo]

Why go the easy way? That's no fun!

I really like the look of having all four frequencies on one line. I am giving up a CDI and other display items but don't want to compromise on the digits.

[No Longer Active]

Why go the easy way?

I am a man of simplicity! lol

The costing so far for my entire radio stack so far:

Acrylic and printing of entire radio stack onto panel: £19
Encoders: £14
Toggles: £10
Encoder Knobs: £6

Total = £49 ($7

Getting there!!!! Slowly!

Will post pics next week of the panel for you!

Cheers.

Alex

[Kerbo]

My LED displays arrived yesterday and I am looking forward to getting this project rolling. The next step will be breadboarding the prototype circuit I have designed and checking functionality.

[DanTheSasquatch]

If you get this thing working that would be a huge help to me, this is exactly what I wanted to make for myself. I'll be sure to follow this pretty closely, and good luck!

[Kerbo]

Test fitting the LEDs with a paper cutout. I really need to get a bigger breadboard.

These are the modules I found here and are just the right size.



This is a test image I created to see what 5 of these modules would look like end to end. I was concerned there would not be enough space between the frequencies but think it looks fine.

The first draft schematic is pretty well finished but I don't seem to have any shift registers in my stock so lighting this up will have to wait a while. I am really anxious to see if my design for driving 20 digits is sound.

[DanTheSasquatch]

Lookin good so far! This is exactly what I had in mind for one of my first projects. if you would like to share any schematics and or coding you use that would be wonderful and make my life so much simpler lol.

[Kerbo]

Lookin good so far! This is exactly what I had in mind for one of my first projects. if you would like to share any schematics and or coding you use that would be wonderful and make my life so much simpler lol.

Hi Dan,
I will definitely be sharing the details once the design works. If there is interest I plan to sell circuit boards (maybe even kits) but the project will be open source for the people that want to roll their own from scratch.

[Ronson2k9]

I redrew your template for you with arial narrow fonts. I think the correct font would be a block font but I couldn't find one as close to this with the range of arial narrow. I made a few custom graphics and hand kerned the text as well to match that as best I can of the BK radio faceplate. Hope you like.. I've sent the TIFF format version to your email address. I know you can't display TIFF images here? Well I know I can't upload them to photobucket anyway but it's the best for doing this kind of stuff. You get compression with no loss or degradation to the image.