Building MikesFlightDeck Instruments???

[Tripacer]

Is anyone building instruments as described by Mike Powell, a sim genius, in his first book "Building Simulated Aircraft Instruments"? I have built three 3 at present; well at least through the mechanical stage. Now it is time to attack the electronics. Has anyone designed circuit boards to his designs? Anyone willing to share the designs. I would like to get some boards, perhaps using a service like ExpressPCB.

Tripacer

[Matt Olieman]

Interesting Tripacer :) :) :)

Please keep us up to date and take pics. Love to see how you're getting along.

You're right, Mike IS a genius :)

Matt Olieman

[RobiD]

Hi Tripacer,

I have built all but Altimeter, ADF/RMI and Turbine Tacho. I have changed the design to interface them to FSBus and the Airspeed indicator is now servo and not Aircore, but I used Mike's aircore idea to design my Fuel, Oil pressue amps etc gauges.

I'll see if an upload of an image works so you can get an idea of what I have done.

Good luck and enjoy building them, I know I did.

David

[Matt Olieman]

WOW!!!! Nice job David :) :)

Would love to see them in action....

Thanks for the pics :)

Matt Olieman

[Tripacer]

David,
Awesome looking cockpit. I have completed a turn & bank servo driven and two fuel gages. I have interfaced them to Opencockpits boards for the time being. I am beginning to assemble parts and pieces for a stepper motor driven guage. Mine have red backlights using Mike's dimmer circuit with a dimmer pot on the panel for the lighting level. I will try to get some pic together and post them if I can figure out how!.
Been busy this week working on the upholstery for the sim. I have a auto trim shop that has agreed to teach me what I don't know about upholstery. I have done chairs and furniture but not cars and airplanes.
William

[RobiD]

Just thought I'd add an interesting story about the RPM Gauge in the images I've posted.

This is actually the real Tacho out of the Cessna that was crashed in the movie Fools Gold with Kate Hudson.

A friend of mine is a SFX guy and he salvaged it and some other parts out of it after it was dragged out of the water in the Whitsundays here in Australia.

There you go. Just a bit of trivia.

David

[Matt Olieman]

David, nice bit of trivia :) Thanks for sharing :)

Matt Olieman

[MechDave]

Hey All,
I am part way through building the Stepping Motor Gyro Compas from the book. I would be interested in going part cost with someone else to get some boards made up for this instrument. I am currently working on getting the heading data out of FSX so I can translate it to what the PIC understands, dunno how I am going to do it yet though. So far I have just got MS VS C++ to compile the sources in the SDK and my own server open / close connection program. Next is to print the heading data to the terminal as I am flying the plane around... Then I will worry about getting the data into a format the PIC can understand. If anyone has any pointers on this I would appreciate the help. If people are interested I could write a small tutorial on how I got MS VS C++ going with the FSX SDK. Let me know...

Cheers All,
Dave...

[Tripacer]

Dave,
I am also working on a stepping motor gyro compass. I am ordering parts and would be interested in a board in a 3.25" format. I will be using an RS 485/422 network as Mike has decribed on his website. I believe that his new book will go into further detail. It would also be very helpful to everyone if you can share how you got the data out of FSX (using Simconnect, I presume).
Are you using a PIC 16F648A mcu?

Thanks,
William, Tripacer builder.

[Mike.Powell]

The new book, Building Recreational Flight Simulators, includes an updated version of the stepping motor sim instrument designed to operate across RS-485. (RS-485 allows lots of devices to hang off a single serial port.) The book includes a serial port to RS-485 converter project, and sample C++ software that extracts data from FSX using SimConnect, formats the data, and transmits it through the serial port. Circuit board artwork is part of the project documentation. However, the stepping motor instrument project is configured as a 2" gauge rather than as the 3" DG in Building Simulated Aircraft Instrumentation.

I just approved the production proofs for the new book. Although I do not have a firm shipping date, my understanding is that I'll have the books in early August. When they are available, I will be announcing here on MyCockpit.

[iwik]

Hi Guys,
Just thought id chip in here.Ive started building Mikes gauges also.Progress is slow,im interfacing my ones to iocards.
One thing i did find though when using a servo.Using cheap brands when one first powers up the board /servo combination that the servo
wanted to move in one direction.In my case of the turn Coordinator,
damage to the mech would be caused by this unwanted movement.
Hitec/Futaba servos did not show this tendancy.So watch out for this.

Mike:Looking for ward to the release of the new book.Been following its progress for a while now.Have the other book and now eagerly await
the second.
One question that has puzzled me with regards to interfacing.Some
developers use USB and others like yourself use Serial.Would you care
to explain why this is.To most USB seem to be more easily accommadated.

Rgds
Les

[MechDave]

Awesome Mike, Count me in on a copy :)
Tripacer, All I have done so far is to work out how to open a connection to the server and then close it 9000 ms later. Shall post it in here under it's own thread. As for getting MS VS C++ working I can post that too :)
I shall have a look at Mike's site to sort out the RS 485/422 networking.
Sounds better than the RS 232 stuff. Luckily all I have done is type out the firmware and compile it in MPLAB for the 16F628A PIC. It all compiles, (after correcting a few typos) :)

Cheers,
Dave

[Mike.Powell]

Mike:Looking for ward to the release of the new book.Been following its progress for a while now.Have the other book and now eagerly await
the second.
One question that has puzzled me with regards to interfacing.Some
developers use USB and others like yourself use Serial.Would you care
to explain why this is.To most USB seem to be more easily accommadated.

Rgds
Les

My goal is to present flight sim technology in a widely accessible manner. The learning curve for coding against the serial port is smaller than that of USB. I think there are more USB resources than when I started, but serial port is still easier.

In book 2, the hardware interfacing emphasis is really on the RS-485 serial connection. It forms an instrument/device interconnect bus which supports multiple devices, but it does require some sort of converter or interface to the computer. I went with a simple RS-485 to serial port converter because it is an easier project.

I got some early book 2 feedback that most emphatically said to back off the complexity of the electronics. I took that to heart, and have simplified as much as I could. But that doesn't mean it's "simple". Even "hobby" flight simulation remains a complex, multi-disciplinary subject. The focus throughout book 2 is the flight sim experience. Each chapter has a different topic, and each topic is always presented as a means of making the FS experience better. I might have added coverage of USB, but I don't think the added complexity would have improved the book.

That said, the use of an RS-485 interconnection leaves open an upgrade path to USB. A knowledgeable person might develop a USB to RS-485 adapter. Possibly an off-the-shelf USB to serial port adapter might be used.

[Kerbo]

I have built the ASI and will build more instruments. The book is a great resource. I'm using my own USB controller boards but the mechanical designs alone are worth the book price.

http://mycockpit.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2319&stc=1&d=1254487448
http://mycockpit.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2320&stc=1&d=1254487448

[Mike.Powell]

Nicely done!

[sandwich.islands]

Hello where can I order Mike's books?

[iwik]

Here
http://www.mikesflightdeck.com/

Les