Yet another 737 cockpit

[milezee]

So here it is from the beginning. - I've also started a blog duplicating this - milezee737.wordpress.com


I tried cutting the MIP from a left over bit of wood from some disassembled drawers but realised this wasn't the way to go.

After a bit of googling I decided to use acrylic/perspex for the MIP and get it laser cut. There are loads of places online and in london that can do this. I found various illustrator files but found the scales were all a bit dodgy so I created my own. Its attached here.

I only drew the outline and the cutouts for the LCD screens as I wasn't sure on the measurements. This was a mistake, cutting the other various holes has been a bit of a nightmare, particularly the smaller ones like for the "below GS inhib",   so the next panel will have all the cutouts marked from the start for the laser cut. For example, because the cut for the "below GS inhib" was a bit ragged I cut a small outline panel/frame to cover it from 0.5mm ABS.

The MIP cost about 30 quid to cut including the perspex, it was 8mm thick.

The first switch I've put in as I mentioned is the below GS inhibit. This is both an annunciator and switch. I bought the Captains Panel set from opencockpits.

After cutting the hole I cut some smaller peices of perspex to make the back to mount the switch, welded using some plastic weld - great stuff. I used a MEC5G illuminated switch, soldered up the wires from the LED and switch and terminated them on a bit of veroboard.

First switch


Bits needed so far: Jigsaw, dremel, soldering iron, craft knife, wire - I'm using some old cat5 cable,

[milezee]

This my proposed PC architecture.
I've got all this stuff but none of it is up yet until I move house - I've been granted use of the converted attic until my girlfriend says otherwise 

The HP DL360G4 was an interesting purchase for 30 quid on ebay. 2 x 3.8Ghz xeons, its going to run the weather and maybe a prosim display. Problem is, being a rack server, it sounds like an APU on startup!

[tennyson]

I hate to tell you this, mate, but ProSim doesn't support P3D.

Or do you know something that us 20,000 users don't?

I think they are working on it, tho!


Frank Cooper

[Bob Reed]

I hate to tell you this, mate, but ProSim doesn't support P3D.

Or do you know something that us 20,000 users don't?

I think they are working on it, tho!


Frank Cooper

According to their website, it does........

[jskibo]

It absolutely does!  I use it.

It doesn't support XP10 yet though....

[tennyson]

Sorry, I stand corrected. it was XP10 I was thinking of, but I do believe they are working towards it.

I'm sure I read that on the ProSim Forum.


Frank Cooper

[milezee]

I would love to see x-plane support in prosim but development seems to have gone pretty quiet.
I did hook it in once, but it was pretty flakey.

[XOrionFE]

I would love to see x-plane support in prosim but development seems to have gone pretty quiet.
I did hook it in once, but it was pretty flakey.

My understanding is that they are working on it but had to finish some major improvements/enhancements in the instructor station module as well as some tweaks to their code base for even better performance (hard to believe they needed any improvement since IMHO it is fantastic already).  Anyway, I believe they are working on XP in the background quietly and eventually we will see full support.  Just may take another 6 months or so.

Scott

[milezee]

Thats some encouraging news!
I'm happy waiting for now, I've got a lot more building to do before I'll be atbthe stage where my visuals become more important.

[milezee]

So I got 2 hours yesterday for some more work. Girlfriend took baby out so I could do some more cutting on my MIP.

I suck at small cutting on the perspex.

I've been drilling small holes and joining-the-dots. I got the stab-out of trim and speedbreak annunciators cut but its very ragged. I'm going to have to make a small outline frames from the thin ABS again to mask the rough edges.

I've seen the saw attachments you can get for the Dremmel  but the radius of the disc of these is too big.
What is a good tool to have for making small cuts in plastic?

[milezee]

Yay.
Tamiya Gunship grey AS25 didn't melt the perspex (after a test on some offcuts). Second layer going on as soon as this dries.
Also did a bunch of soldering on the annunciators.

[milezee]

Correction. Gunship grey as27. Ordering some more now for the centre and right panels.

[milezee]

I got some panel bezel frames cut. Went to plastic weld them on and the whole bottle had evaporated in 2 months! Glad i stored it outside on the balcony. Bought some more and welded the bezels on. This is serious strong sh*t.

[milezee]

With a baby in the house working is a bit of a nightmare.
I have to count off every bit of wire stipped/wire clipped etc and make sure its binned.
Can't wait for my own attic space, should be soon, although we just got guzzumped by £17k on the house we're buying. That hurt. Don't buy in london!

[milezee]

Hurrah. Finally moved into our new house with its large attic.
Not allowed to do any pit construction until the home diy tasks are done but I'm at least gonna get all my pcs and software up and running together which I've not had a chance to do yet.
Very excited to see prepar3d v2 released in time for this. Thats going to sit on a 8 core 4ghz amd machine with 2 x 580gtx. Prosim737 on the hp xeon workstation.
Very excited, wish I had more time at the moment...

[milezee]

Couple of PC's hooked up.

Clean Prepar3D v2 with ftx global on one machine.
Prosim737 and some sioc hardware on another. Fsuipc + widefs doing their thing, looking good so far.

Got my MDF delivered to start on the MIP structure.

Also trying out old 14" laptop screen from ebay (£10) with Chinese LVDS to DVI adaptor (£20) for upper eicas.

Will report on that when it in.

[milezee]

Progress....

Over the summer I re-floored the attic. Everything slowed down for a while.

Floor done, moved everything back up.
Got my MIP frame/chassis built. MDF in sections. (I'll have to deconstruct at some point in the future.)

Set up the PCs. Got prepar3d running on one with all the FTX add ons.
Prosim on another.
Tested opencockpits MCP + 2 EFIS.
Tested pokeys card.

Painted up center mip panel + FO side.
Got gear leaver mounted.
Mounted Captain side mip.

Took it all off, started soldering. I seriously suck at soldering. Have been looking for easier alternatives such as screw terminals but can't find what I want. (I like the mini screw mounts on the pokeys boards.)

Built framework for glareshield (for MCP+efis), have to start work on master caution + six pack warning)

Spent a load of cash on a drunken evening:

Some more pokeys.

2 x GTX 970.
Not the miraculous jump in performance I was expecting (was 2 x 580 before). I think something is amiss and will investigate. PCIe is running in dual 8x mode so will prob have to upgrade mobo to get full dual 16x PCIe 3.

Also got a mini zotac box to run CDU + lower DU. ebay bargain, works very nice.

Also got a BenQ 1085 ST imported from US. just out. Same deal as 1080ST but a touch brighter, came in at 900UKP. Almost went for the optoma GT1080 but decided against after a few unfavorable reviews. Only ever going to be a single screen. Will be painting up a large 2400mmx1200mm screen.

Thats all for now I think.

Got a few days stay-cation coming up. Girlfriend + daughter away. Hope to get a bunch more things done. Hopefully get to a flyable state.

Also, second child on way. Not sure how I feel about that right now (hence drunken credit card spree). First one is just getting manageable. One step forward, two steps back?


Peace!

[Trevor Hale]

Great update and a nice report. The gist of what you are trying to say is "your in the same boat as each of us on here" lol

Keep the updates coming.

[milezee]

Had some cash to burn before end of financial year so threw it at more hardware! I can't help myself.

Ditching the 4ghz 8-core amd.
New watercooled i7 5830 @ 4.5 ghz on way.

This should work nice with my 2 x gtx 970s,( i ditched the third as it wasn't worth it with 40-lane pcie and no nvidia profile. )

My single Benq 1085st has worked out well at 1920x1080, it sits behind the center cdu in the mip cabinet and the throw is good. I'd like to build a cheap anamorphic adaptor with trophy wedges to widen aspect.

Glare shield is almost complete, master cautions etc were almost built from scratch so that took a while. I started useing that textured covering that equipment flight cases have for the top of the glareshield, it looks acceptable for my level.
Next child due in june so not much time left. I might have to put some basic flight controls in soonso i have something flyable for the near future at least.

[milezee]

Which was surprisingly less traumatic than the first one.

Upside is a bit of paternity leave that I've been putting to good use. Worked on my CDU pedestal.
Also experimented with a displaylink monitor (Lenovo LT1421), just 1 usb2 cable to run it, no power cable. Seemed to work ok. Have started cutting the bezel off it.