FDS Gear arrived

[jskibo]

Happy day here, I stopped by the UPS mailbox store and was told I had a large package waiting for me. 

My FDS CDU base, MIP and Glareshield had arrived! That's a nice Christmas present!

Sadly since I relocated and changed companies I'm stuck in a hotel room with not much room to work on it (though I just may start).  Will be in an apartment by Jan 15th awaiting our house to be built so I have something to look forward to in the new year.

From first look (I pulled out the panel box and opened it), they are of amazing quality!  Real happy with my decision to go FDS! 

Now to pick a software to run.......

[jackpilot]

Sim Avionics!!

[Flying_Fox]

My FDS CDU base, MIP and Glareshield had arrived! That's a nice Christmas present!

Congratulations! Would be glad to hear more on the progress.

Just wondering, did you also buy B737NG Main Hardware Package from FDS http://www.flightdecksolutions.com/_assets/profiles/B737NG-Main-HW-Nov2007.pdf for your MIP, or you go with the parts from other suppliers? This MIP hardware package ($647.35) looks rather expensive...

[fdspcos]

I know for JS that the past while has been quite the stretch with a career change and major move.. Somewhere in the middle of "put that over there honey" he will hopefully find some time to build the flightdeck!
On the hardware side of things.. If I may offer a few notes.
Knobs.. A big part of the hardware is knobs. Making these is a labour issue and you guys can do this yourself by going with our Knob "kits".
If you look on or HARDWARE link you can see the same knobs in raw form. We send instructions and you can paint/stripe them the same way we do. That is a way to save.
Also, for toggles, we do not use the $1.00 types like in the very early days. They simply feel wrong and do not last. I use a brand called Carling and they are top notch. We use them on our PRO setups for the 2 and 3 position types.
The hardware can add up when you look at it as a bundle. I think if you do the math as well you will find it always gets much higher than you think. I am surprised myself when I do up the overheads.. parts add up.
All the best!
PC

[XOrionFE]

Take it from me guys and get Peter's hardware bundles when working on the MIP and overhead.   Will save you a lot of headache and probably money in the long haul.

Oh...and I second Jack.....Sim-Avionics!

Enjoy the build!   I plan on doing a lot of flying with Don tonight as MIP, controls, CDU, MCP, Pedestal is all fully functional in mine at last!
Scott

[Joe Lavery]

I can also verify the quality of PCs hardware. I've used the FDS bare knob packs as well and they're brilliant value. They come with the striping kit which is easy to apply and are made from translucent material so they can be back lit.
They're far cheaper than other replica Boeing knobs, at only $21.95 for a pack of 5. 

Joe.

[jskibo]

Well im in SoCal right now dealing with the movers. Nice to be out of the snow. Since everything is packed im posting using my rooted color nook (poor mans ipad) .

Yes i got the MIP hardware kit and landing gear lever from Peter.  Same awesome quality as the rest of the FDS gear, Peter is right. The wife and i both changed companies late last year so my stuff has been boxed while i was in the hotel. We are building a new house so i will get some wiring done when webmove to the temp apartment but nothing flyable till june or so. 

Scott i will let you know if we head to chicago next weekend. 

[XOrionFE]

Sounds good John

Scott

[jskibo]

SYS 4X card on its way Peter, then the 2 NAV / 2 COM FDS Radios from Mike.  House won't be ready until June, but it looks like the plan is to start building the MIP in the apartment so it is ready to go when I move. 

Time for the fun to begin.  Thankfully I have those photos Scott posted of his nice clean wiring job!!!

Maybe I should make WorldFlight 2011 as my goal

[XOrionFE]

Hey John,
I have some more since it is done that I will try to post later.

I also will get you a link where I bought violet and blue 22 awg wire to match the fds harness wire for inputs.

[jskibo]

Excellent!  That will help!

What did you use for your connections?  Solder or terminal?

As for the IBL Dimmers (Steppers?) I grabbed some from ebay.  Did you just wire them to the Pots on the MIP for lighting?

[XOrionFE]

Well my MIP I had to build so the Dimmers I got I just opened and disconnected the POT that was on the casing and ran a longer wire to a 10K pot that I mounted on the lower panels only I used pots with off switches so I could completely turn off if I wanted.

[XOrionFE]

Here is the link for good wire at an excellent price:

http://www.allspectrum.com/store/index.php?cPath=85_146&sort=4a&page=3&osCsid=5ecce3c6d7d7ecd8cc8d8fa4c3347151

Scott

[jackpilot]

Question:
SyS cards /annunciators/pots etc , are you using 22 gauge? big enough?
JP

[XOrionFE]

Well the 22 guage is what FDS harnesses are so I just bought violet, blue, white, black, and yellow and basically extended their harnesses between annunciators and switches and the board.  In fact, I have some 20 awg that I mixed in at one point and it was too big but I am running larger wire from the IBLs through the PWM and onto the powersupply.  That is probably 16 I think.

Scott

[fdspcos]

For the SYS boards 22g is perfectly fine.
You want to watch your wire gauge when you are dealing with IBL panels. Our panels use real aircraft bulbs and as such draw just like the real ones.
I have a new Dimmer piece and a module that will be out shortly to help here. One of our guys here is an Electronics Engineer and very good with this sort of thing. We are using these items in a B777 FBPT that is being finished for next week.
On the SYS boards.. one thing to keep in mind is that you are not actually applying steady power to the various devices, even in "Test Mode".
The Sys boards are pulsing at a high rate and that allows us to feed a lot of components with minimal draw.
PC
Flightdeck Solutions

[jackpilot]

Thanks  Pete for the data  and Scott for the wire source

[NeoMorph]

One thing a lot of people (me included) don't realise is that wires have resistance which increases the longer they are and the thinner they are. This causes voltage drops. Probably teaching gran to suck eggs here but when using real bulbs it's going to draw a heck of a lot of current which will heat the cables. Still remember a demonstration panel we wired up for car radios was specced with the wrong wire thickness and when we went to tear it down we found several of the wires had melted their insulation together. Was only luck that the cores hadn't touched and started a fire.

In the UK a good source for wires is RS Components as they are no longer business customers only. Farnell is another one.

Oh and here is a calculator for sorting out voltage drops and wire resistance...
http://www.stealth316.com/2-wire-resistance.htm

[XOrionFE]

nice calculator

does anyone know how much the ibl panels draw for the whole mip?  overhead?  PC?

or someone tell me how to test that with a multimeter?

thx,
scott

[fordgt40]

Hi Scott

My FDS IBL MIP draws 2.65 amps.

Regards

David

[XOrionFE]

Thank you David.

So if I read this right.....all of my IBL wiring is 22 AWG to each individual panel and they all come together into one point (which I basically just soldered them all together.     THen from there I wired using what I think is 16 or 18 AWG wire that is about 3 ft in length.    If I use 3ft as the distance of the whole load then and if I want to stay under 1% voltage drop...

1% of 5 volts is .25 volts.

Putting 3 ft and 3 amps (rounded up the amps) then I am pretty safe as even going to 20 awg yields a voltage drop of only .0933.   Well  under the .25. 

Now the overhead will be a ton more amps and I think according to Ivar it is about 15.5 amps so in that case we have to be much much more careful.     

BTW - I am using the KTA-195 controller from Ocean controls for the IBL dimming and it works like a charm (thank you Ivar for the TIP).    I bought one for the MIP and one for the overhead.     Very simple to use and nice to be able to dim the IBLs.

http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/KT-5195A

Scott

[fordgt40]

Scott

Actually, 1% of 5 volts is 0.05 and not 0.25  - not a show stopper though.

I am surprised at the amperage for the overhead, 12.5 amps is a lot, presumably this is based on the IBL system, as I draw only circa 3 amps at 12 volt for my many hundreds of leds in the overhead!

Love your photos of progress on the screen/visuals - must ring you and plead for a visit when I next visit my brother in Chicago.

Regards

David

[XOrionFE]

Oops, your right.    I think I was typing too fast on the calculator.  Its still early....:-)

With that I see that to stay under 1% I would need 16 awg.    This is very helpful.....dont want to burn the house down!!

Anyway, yes, I am refering to IBL.      They are 5vdc incandescent bulbs...not LEDs.     

[NeoMorph]

I would have thought using all LEDs would have been more... green... and save a lot of money on electricity too. Okay, not as much as household light bulbs and hopefully most will be off most of the time as well but LEDs will have a lot longer lifetime and replacing them are easier too.

Mind you, it would make the sim that much more realistic because you have to run your annunciator test every time you fly for sure... nothing like having a plane fall out of the sky because you didn't realise the engine was on fire or that the faulty undercarriage is only a blown bulb.

[Garys]

The annunciators are still all led, its just the panels that are backlighted with bulbs. And very nice it is too.