Arduino mega 2560, mastercard OC, SIOC and tons of basic, essential questions

[Jahanzeb]

Hi,

After building my first overhead panel with complex methods involving joystick and keyboard hacks, capacitors and relays, like all builders, my "hunger for more" is famished. I want physical moving guages. backlit panels. Pots. Rotary encoders. Displays showing numerical values.

After reading and researching, ive noticed people use mastercards (OC) along with servo cards and motor cards by OC. i dont want to jump into servos and motors immediately. i want to start with toggle switches. then, backlit panels, then rotary encoders and display for the MCP.

My questions are:
1. can i start with the arduino mega 2560? without a mastercard?
2. what is the difference between R1, R2 and R3 for the 2560?
3. i studied C++ 10 years ago in high school. im rusty. will i be need a lot of programming background to writes codes (SIOC)? are generic codes available online?
4. does the arduino card support 54 buttons? can i interface it with FSUIPC? what Pot value does it use? can i use encoders with it? can i use pots as encoders?
5. i've read that the arduino has display out. For the MCP, can i use it for numeric values, say, for setting altitude?
6. can i control small LED's with an arduino?
7. what does the OC mastercard do? why is it so important?
8. what is the difference between serial and USb Arduino Mega2560?
9. I visited my flight school to grab an old VSI and Altimeter, but they cant let me have it by law in my country. so is there a way to make your own? (maybe with a small bedside clock or something) i know OC has these in stock. but im looking for other options.
10. i want a B737-800 cockpit. at the moment im using PMDG. i've seen cockpit builders use Prosim 737 and project magenta. when i visited their sites, it seemed as if they offer guages and not the actual airplane. so the guages are used in the physical cockpit that you build, interfaced through FSUIPC to FSX to use FSX scenery right? you cant see a virtual, or a 2D cockpit in FSX if you use prosim and PM right?


i'm just starting out. so a lot of the questions might seem stupid to you guys. but thats how you learn.
Any help would really be appreciated.

[Jahanzeb]

anyone? answer to any one question would be appreciated.

[Sammy-E]

anyone? answer to any one question would be appreciated.

For the Arduino side check out this Forum thread. Might have more luck getting some answers.
I use Arduino, but I am 'out of it' due to time reasons. will get up to speed again this winter. But I do know many answers will be 'yes'

http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/arduino-cards-link2fs/

Eric

[tiburon]

Prosim and project Magenta simulate the aircraft logic. I don't know about Project Magenta but Prosim has an aircraft model (very basic, but that's not important when you only use FSX for the outside view) that you can use with their software. You can use their gauges on a monitor or you can interface your hardware which is, of course, your ultimate goal.

[tiburon]

To interface your switches I advise you to take a look at these : cheap, reliable and very easy to use (no scripts)

http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index....index&cPath=86

[Jahanzeb]

For the Arduino side check out this Forum thread. Might have more luck getting some answers.
I use Arduino, but I am 'out of it' due to time reasons. will get up to speed again this winter. But I do know many answers will be 'yes'

http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/arduino-cards-link2fs/

Eric

much appreciated. Thanks

Prosim and project Magenta simulate the aircraft logic. I don't know about Project Magenta but Prosim has an aircraft model (very basic, but that's not important when you only use FSX for the outside view) that you can use with their software. You can use their gauges on a monitor or you can interface your hardware which is, of course, your ultimate goal.

Ok so, can't I do the same thing with the PMDG model? You can switch to 2d cockpit and close the cockpit window to get just the scenery, while get the gauges on a separate screen by undocking them.

[tiburon]

You would have to learn how to use the PMDG SDK's and even then I doubt if you can get the full functionality of the cockpit.
No gauges, only the displays. I don't think it's possible to extract the code from PMDG to interface your hardware steam gauges.

[Avro748]

Just remember that you don't even need physical gauges. PMDG's 2d panel gauges are very high-res, and can be undocked and placed behind a panel. A lot of cockpit projects do this. That's what I'll be doing as soon as my financial issues clear up.

[tiburon]

well, that's the risk of asking questions in a forum. A lot of contradicting information.You can only undock the glass displays, not gauges

[Avro748]

But you could turn the analogue gauges into their own windows in FSPS.