737 TQ Update

[diegov]

Hello Fellow Cockpit Builders,

After seeing other members contribute tutorials and videos of their 737 TQ construction i promised myself that i would post a video of mine when I had made substantial progress. I bought a simparts kit last year in December and now nearly 9 months later I have something that i am proud to share with the community. Its still not finished but it is 90% there. A little background.. I had bought the Simparts 737 TQ from Jorg @ simparts.de in kit form and gave building it from scratch a go. I didnt think it would take this long.:-? The kit is fairly good, but be prepared to do a lot of work. The result none the less are great. I went down the servo and phidgets route. I wrote my own software to interface phidgets to fsx. (software is available in another thread ;)) Here is a link to a video i took on my camera phone. Its not the best, but hopefully enough for you all to see my progress.

http://au.video.yahoo.com/watch/5713810/14969880

Enjoy

Diego

[Padraig]

Very nice indeed. You did a great job!

[Anderson/SBSP]

Amazing job!!!

[diegov]

Thanks Gents!

[Geremy Britton]

Lovelly Job there. Well done. :)

[wazjones]

G'Day Diego,

That looks great mate........

How much in AUD did it cost you to get it to the present working state???

Where did you get your MIP set-up from???

I'd be interested to see some more pics of your set-up as I am keen to build a 737 Sim.

Cheers, Warren.

[diegov]

Hi Warren,

Good to see your thinking of building a 737 sim. Ive been taking my time and it is a great outlet to unwind.

The throttle kit cost me approx $2200 AUD to ship to Australia. Then it was approximately $600 worth of phidget parts and paint to finish it up.

Im using an FDS MIP which still needs to be worked on.

Once i finish the throttle, my next step will be to buy the MCP and glareshield for the MIP and then choose an avionics sweet.

You chosen an expensive hobby mate... be prepared to part with the $$$$$ :)

Cheers

Diego

[Melnato]

Hey Looking good Diego!

Ive got the same TQ, but I think the newer Servo card must be higher
resolution...your servos seem smoother than mine...could be your software too...
Im stuck with FS2phidgets because of older gen. cards...

Congrats!

Nat

[diegov]

Hey Nat,

Thanks mate. No time like the present to upgrade your servo card :). I think the smoothness is attributed to the new acceleration and velocity paramaters which are customizable.

Quick question for you sir.. How quick are your trim wheels? I think mine are too slow. I might swap the gears around to get a higher teeth count on the dc motor see if i can speed it up.

Cheers

Diego

[Melnato]

I thought you had magically slowed them down with your software:).

Mine are probably 2-3 times faster, but you know the REAL ones are variable...sigh...
they vary from deadly to quite slow like in your video,
If only that could be emulated:-|

Nat

[diegov]

Hi Nat,

No magic mate.. Those are the wheels running at 100% velocity..unfortunately.

In all the reference videos I have seen, the rotation has been very high or deadly as you put it! again i think i need to switch the teeth count...

In saying that.. the phidget motor card that i use allows you to apply velocity from 0% to 100% to the dc motor to give you variable speed.

I reckon I could actually write the software to spin the wheels at different speeds based on the rate of change of the trim value.

At the moment I check the value every FSUIPC refresh cycle and if the old value is greater than new value then i move the wheels in a negative direction, if the old value is less than the new value, i move the wheels in a positive direction, no difference stops the wheel.

What i could do is also check the rate of change of the trim values.. ie if the old and new values differ by maybe 500+, spin the wheel very fast.. if the value differ by 100 or less then spin the wheel slow and anywhere in between spin normally.. Just an idea.. Would make the trim wheels that much more authentic :)

Diego

[Melnato]

Now that sounds like a GREAT IDEA!

As far as I can tell, that's how the big boys work...

You gotta love brainstorming ha?

Luckily there are Software Gods like you around:)

Nat

PS. Found this old video...its about 18 months old...Apologies for the sore neck :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh4QVqa6K7c

[diegov]

Thanks for the video Nat.. I definately need to speed up my trim wheels!

I just saw your Kai Tak video. :eek:. Im jealous! You have an excellent setup! Ive still got so much work ahead of me!!!!