
MyCockpit.org is proud to join hands with none other than Nico Kaan. Nico, is a reputed 767 home cockpit builder. He has a unique 767 Cockpit. Besides this has been serving the community with his amazing utilities such as Lekseecon, FSCONV.
Nico Kaan's software, tutorials will now be exclusively available on Mycockpit.org and also Nico Kaan will also provide support to members in an exclusive Mycockpit.org forum.
We are excited to welcome Nico Kaan to the Mycockpit.org team.
More on what Nico Kaan has to say.
Nico Kaan writes..................................
I’m 56 years old/young and live in The Netherlands together with my wife. My passion for flight simulators started long ago but became much stronger when the 767 Pilot in Command was released back in 2001. At that time I started to build a home cockpit.
The interfacing had to be done sending keys because that was the only way forward in these days, except for a few FSUIPC offsets. A working CDU based on a 5 inch Black and White TV and 69 push buttons was my first accomplishment. I was as happy as a child with this CDU and discovered all corners of the 767 FMC while flying on the VATSIM network.
Some time later Wade Chafe and his team released the Level-D 767 for FS2004 with a software development kit (SDK). It was the first, and so far the only, add-on for Microsoft Simulator that delivered an SDK. A wealth of digital interfacing possibilities, as well states as controls, became available!
While I’m educated in software engineering I wrote a C++ program that connected the SDK with a new range of FSUIPC offsets, kindly provided by Peter Dowson, just for the Level-D 767. This freeware program, called FSCONV, is still in use these days, in particular by commercial add-ons like It’s Your Plane and Flight Deck Companion.
My cockpit started to grow and I was looking for ways to control leds based on information in the flight simulator panel. I selected the Opencockpits MasterCard for that, and that turned out to be a very good choice. At first I programmed this card in a GUI like interface but after a while I discovered the power of another Opencockpits programming option, the SIOC programming system.
A guy in Austria (I forgot his name, but I’m still thankful for that) gave me the insight to use the IOCP protocol to connect to the SIOC system, and then the idea of lekseecon was born!
http://www.mycockpit.org/images/nico/2.gif
Lekseecon connects the SIOC system with the Level-D SDK and provides approximately 900 pre-defined SIOC variables representing the Level-D SDK. The beauty of lekseecon is that it does its job silently. While running in the background, it scans the SIOC file that you are going to run and it detects which pre-defined SIOC variables for the Level-D you are using in the SIOC script for your cockpit. Then it makes and maintains the connections between these variables and the SDK, no manual configuration actions needed.
Lekseecon is freeware if you download it from my site or from www.mycockpit.org, and it is in use all over the world. The most impressive cockpit built with lekseecon that I’ve seen so far is the cockpit of Ian Cameron (Featured builder January 2006)
My home (desk top based) ‘cockpit’ is quite different:
http://www.mycockpit.org/images/nico/3.jpg
I’m not so good at mechanical and construction work, so the hardware in my cockpit is very basic. However, every switch, led, button, digit you see is working. It’s great flying with it!
Another interesting thing you might want to hear is that I’m one of the beta testers of the Level-D team, and fully prepared to start to work on a lekseecon version for the planned Level-D 757 for FSX…
Last year I met Matt Olieman at the FSWeekend in Lelystad. He’s a nice guy, so when I was wondering how to move forward with the forum at my website, I thought it would be better to move to www.mycockpit.org. This transfer relieves me from technical and maintenance and many more people may get to know about and benefit from lekseecon.
At this moment in time (April 2010) lekseecon has arrived at version 6.0; while it was first released in August 2007. The software package contains versions for the Level-D 767 in as well FS2004 as FSX. Its development has concluded; there are no known bugs pending. Also good to know: its CPU load can be neglected; it has no impact on your frames per second.
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