Triggering / powering aircraft components only in "energized state"

[iwik]

Ben,
The o/c relay card would do the trick alright. It handles offsets fine . The catch is learning SIOC. It can be a bit of a learning curve but very handy. i am no expert at it and struggle when ever i have to use it. When it comes to wanting to do things like you are finding out needed it sure is an advantage. Everything comes at a price.
The FDS card is the way to go to avoid this but as you point out it cost dearly because they have done all the hard work.
It might pay for you to have a look at what you might like to do in the future and consider
learning it. As something like this affords you great flexibility as i have found out.
If you can keep your requirements simple then sioc can be reasonably easy to use. There are
plenty of examples out there. Others on this site have been very helpful to me when in difficulty.
Les

[OmniAtlas]

Thanks Les -- Simon has his whole setup with SIOC, so I will need to have a good chat with him about the scripts.

I will place an order for the OC relay; actually more excited in using it for the sidesticks and A/P solenoid lock.

Any idea if a diode is needed for OC to prevent EMF, or are they built in?

Regards.

Ben

[iwik]

Ben,
The diode john was talking about will be on the pcb so not needed.

On an unrelated point, i read that you will in the future add more pc's to your mix. Did'nt you have more and decided you wanted less hassle .What has happened to change your mind.
Les

[OmniAtlas]

Cheers Les, I will place an order for the OC boards this evening.

At this stage I am happy with running on one computer, however I do lose about ~10 frames, which becomes quite noticeable when I am flying into commercial payware airports. When I have the space to setup 2 or 3 projectors it will be impossible (well not very fun) to run off one computer.

I have also noticed the ND/PFD lags if they are not in focus -- you will need to click on the windows to bring back smooth speed. Hopefully this can be eliminated if they run on a separate system.

I will probably try and purchase one of those second hand Dells on the ebay market and stick in a cheap video card, one with lots of ports.

Will need at least 5 video outputs (PFD/ND, MCDU).

[iwik]

Thanks Ben,
I am hoping to get onto the A320 shortly so was curious. Have fun
Les

[Knoepflesdruecker]

Very interesting Thread! I will surely need this information in the future, too. Thanks to all of you!
Best regards,
Marco

[Fritz]

Hello Ben,

I use an OC relay card, which turns on the power supply of individual components:
Bat1 switches the power supply for Cpt, FO and EWD/SD monitor and Bat2 switches the power supply
for the background lighting as well as Boddy Shaker.

Originally, I had the idea that Bat1 and Bat2 turns on the power of the computer, then the
Programs should starts by autostart. Didn't get this to work correctly, since the program also need to starts in a certain
Order. Here is a program necessary to do this.

[OmniAtlas]

Thank you Fritz. I'm putting off on the OC relay card, doing my research with Simulator Solutions Simstack cards first - they maybe able to perform relay functions in addition to providing the correct amperage required for genuine panels at +5v.

[OmniAtlas]

Hi all - just an update on the solenoid - this was successfully implemented using Arduino's, Mobiflight and the Arduino Solenoid relay.

This was the first time I am using arduino and mobiflight and I am pretty impressed. So impressed in fact that I am in the process of designing a shield to help with one critical aspect of the simulator (no solution in the market is available so far) - more on this later.

The schematics and logic for the solenoid can be found here - https://soarbywire.wordpress.com/201...solenoid-lock/

The next step is going to figure out which offsets activate the aircraft power on state. Mobiflight allows != or 'NOT' states. The published offsets by Jean Luc have the following which would be useful:

Offset 7396 (byte 3 - Battery 1, and byte -5 Battery 2 off states)
Offset 7397 (byte 7 - Elec Ext Pwr Avail)
Offset 7397 (Byte 5 - Elec APU Gen OFF)
Offset 7398 (byte 1 - Rat & Emerg Gen Fault)

Using these offsets we can program the aircraft to turn on systems using simple logic.

Is anyone familiar which systems are activated when battery 1 or 2 is turned on?

For example (and I have to double check), only the overhead flood lights turn on with battery 1 and/or 2.

Integral (panel backlight) lighting is only turned on with ext pwr, elec apu on.

When would the trim display, FCU, ATC/TCAS, weather, clock systems power on?

[cmdr114b]

I have written a little app to turn ON/OFF the ground power over the network which some might find useful.

You can download it from here http://www.fda-engineering.co.uk/GNDPWRConnect.exe
John