What have you done for your simulator today?

[blueskydriver]

One week Flight Simulator, the next Lego Lego Legos! Yep, it's a love-love thing.

Really love the flight simulator because it tasks my brain, but also love Legos because they task my hands. Whereas both tasks my patience at times due to the flight simulator gremlins who keep the computers or sim in continual state of "not working". Or, the Lego elves who keep taking a Lego piece here or a Lego piece there and I have too spend hours upon hours looking through a 100,000 pieces over and over...LOL!

So, what have I done for my simulator today? Nothing but make it jealous because the Legos are getting most of the attention lately....

John

[ame]

I don't want to be that guy, but the plural of "Lego" is "Lego".

[bernard S]

sheeps

[blueskydriver]

Yes I know Lego is plural, but when you have as many as I do now, they become Legossssss.... LOL! 

John

[blueskydriver]

Were you asking if I have sheep Lego Bernard? Uh, not sure yet, but I'll get baaaa-ck too you later...LOL!

John

[Garys]

He's talking about the plural. I find info like that on the interwebs 

[blueskydriver]

And back to the flight simulator it is...installing addons again. The list is getting long...LOL!

Hey, there's an idea! How about a thread that list every addon you're using? No good or bad comments about them, just the list.

What do you all think?

John

[blueskydriver]

How about we use a thread I have already for the flight sim addon list here:

https://www.cockpitbuilders.com/index.php?topic=8332.0

John

[blueskydriver]

Wow, isn't anyone working on their sim lately? Or, you're just not posting about it...LOL!

Just got my P3D v4.5 PC all happy again. HOORAY!

Now time to hookup all the hardware and get everything going...it'll take another month or more...I'm kidding!

John

[co735]

Wow, isn't anyone working on their sim lately? Or, you're just not posting about it...LOL!

Guilty as charged.  Funnily enough (is that a word, funnily?!?) I have been switching time between Lego and building as well!

Been working on my v2 overhead as time allows, a little every night.  I managed to get all the wiring done mid last week.  Mounted the FWD and Aft into the housing to test the fit.  Not going to lie, proud of myself for the ideas I had in making the back of this thing accessible once it is up.  Using Post screws and boat pins to allow the FWD or Aft sections rotate down if needed.

Just some minor cleanups to do, knobs to install and then figure out how the heck to mount this to my desk.  Going to try a quad monitor mount, on a stand, to get the height needed.  I am rocking a desktop hybrid sort of setup - ie no MIP (not at this point anyways) but do have the MCP/EFIS as well as desktop yoke, throttle, pedestal bay, rudder pedals.  Goal is to build at the same time as flying so as not to lose the passion.

Using a U shaped 1/8" thick custom cut/bent aluminum sheet as the backing to hold these up...

Without further ado, some pics!

-Matt

[MistyBlue]

Nice work Matt.  These overheads are always such a hornets nest, especially if you wire every single thing up.  I've scratch built two now, and on the second I thought I could take what I learned from the first and do a much neater job of things.  Yeah, right.  If you stick with wire then you'll have a nest no matter what.  There's just so much wire. 

On my v2 (pictured) I created a clear plexiglass hinged platform to mount all the interface cards and relays to so I could swing it up to work on things underneath if needed.  It also allowed me to keep everything confined to the swing-down frame as one removable piece.  In theory it was a good idea, but I don't know if it's better or worse than any other way.  Just different.
 
I think if I ever do a V3 I'm going to make my own PCB's and solder everything to them so it really keeps things organized.

Anyway, I'm working on my speaker and sound configuration right now while I wait for my CB panels to get delivered so I can finish up my rear wall.  At least the sim is still flying so I can play in the meantime.

[Jason L]

Worked with a local printer and am getting a QRH printed in official size, paper and binding for my simulator.  Price wasn't that bad either.
Finished mounting all of my panels on the MIP this weekend and am currently painting and drilling out the knobs for placement.  Next step is mounting the FDS Sys1X board and start the wiring...then first panel is done.
Got last panel for my pedestal as well.  Waiting on some DZUS connectors and then will start that step next.
Project Status:
MIP -> 75% Complete
Pedestal -> 50% Complete
FWD Overhead -> 25% Complete
AFT Overhead -> 10% Complete
Shell -> 100% Complete

Originally wanted to get it done before the end of the year, but not sure it'll happen.  I'm a stickler for organization and also am dealing with long delays in shipping times for most items.

[FredK]

The last couple of weeks I have spent all of my available time and then some prepping the sim for WorldFlight, including building a website.

See www.worldflightvirginia.net

Fred K

[co735]

Nice work Matt. 

Thanks Tony!

I tell you what, I wish I thought of making the Plexi hinged as well...I just have brackets epoxied to the back of the frame and then the plexi bolted down.  Still removable, but not as easy as I could have made it.  Ah well live and learn!  And you're right, just different - its all about whatever works for that person in that time.  This definitely is a learning process.

And I agree about the hornet's nest.  I am using PCBs - so my switches, Annunciators etc all go to PCBs, which then in turn go to a master card which has an Arduino (I am interfacing using RealSimControl into XPlane) - all for use with the Zibo. 

As much as I love to fly, I love the building portion more.  Not ashamed to admit I tried to drag out the building process, only because I dont know what I want to do next.  I'd like to do a single seat MIP, but space is a concern, running out of room in my home office!

[MistyBlue]

As much as I love to fly, I love the building portion more.

I think that applies to most of us, haha.  I certainly feel the same way.

With the plexi, it's nice to be able to mount everything to the swingdown frame rather than stick all the interface boards to the shell ceiling and have to work upside down like I've seen it done, but with all that wire shoved in such a limited space it's still a pain.

I think the PCB solution is a much more elegant and certainly neater solution.  So I'm interested to see how your PCB solution works.  I'm seriously starting to think about it now.  Please keep us posted!

[RayS]

That's why we call it "Chasing the Rabbit down the rabbit hole!"

John

Sometimes I refer to it as 'Yak-Shaving'....

Yak Shaving

[RayS]

Lots going on in the Beech world...

Spent the weekend adding 3 new computers to the sim:
1. New, separate computer to drive the F/O Avidyne PFD, finally teasing apart PFD functionality

2. Added a new computer to drive the Universal FMC in the center console. It's not fully-functional which means I'm still /A, but allows more efficient workflows while under ATC command

3. Yet another computer to drive the Garmin 430.

[blueskydriver]

I'm so glad everyone is posting about their sim projects and/or getting ready for World Flight (WF)...seems like it was just yesterday since the last WF

Knowingly, I say this a lot, but all the members here keep me going with my sim, by posting about yours. Without Cockpit Builders and you, I'd be lost. If only I could meet all of you some day to thank you in person. Until then, thank you for keeping my sim dream alive.

Lastly, Cockpit Builders is like one huge family of builders, all virtual brothers and sisters that share this website and the community. And that's what I love the most, along with the fact that there are no other websites like it....

Beyond that, please keep posting in this thread, as I read and learn from every single one of them. 

John

[Jason L]

This weekend was painting and making stickers for the MIP knobs.  Used the wife's cricut to cut black and white vinyl for the knobs and it turned out pretty good.  This is batch one for the knobs and will probably have the cricut cut the individual strips next time to the exact length instead of me doing it manually.  Just waiting on my brake pressure gauge to show up later this week hopefully and then I'll start wiring everything up to the SYS1X board.  Mounted an OC Chronometer to the Capt. side and just have a blank one on the FO side.
Frame is aluminum with an 1/8" plywood backing for the MIP panel.  Took a while to make the supports.  Also need to get the landing gear lever installed, but slowly making progress.

[crazydunc]

Finished wiring up my new Glarewings from FDS, new LCD Clocks, also from FDS and managed to finish up the visuals upgrade to P3Dv5 ahead of the Start of WorldFlight on Saturday!

Just need to get the Glarewings and Start Switches from Anders installed, 4 days to go!

[navymustang]

The visuals look great !!!

[blueskydriver]

Hey Dunc,

It's good too see you posting again, been since last November. You've made some awesome improvements since then.

Those visuals do look nice, are you using P3D v5? 

John

[MistyBlue]

I have been working on solidifying my sound system as I build out my rear bulkhead.  I'm wiring in some car amplifiers to power Buttkicker Mini LFEs in the seats and car speakers for the overhead and custom-built Aural Warning box.  The car amps allow me to fine tune volume and high/low pass cutoffs of the various speaker pairs.  Thought about using a home audio amp, but this is more flexible.

[Jason L]

Tony,
 Thanks for posting this and your speaker diagram.  It is something I haven't thought about much yet but will refer back to this when I get to that point.  I have some older car stero amps sitting around that I was about to throw out, but this is a great use for them!

[MistyBlue]

You're welcome Jason!

For clarification on the speaker diagram "SS" stands for SimSounds (the independent application) and "PSA" stands for ProSim Audio.

The wind sound is coming from SimSounds to some independent front speakers.  This allows me to separate wind noise out and control its volume and placement better.  I then disabled the wind sounds in the aircraft.cfg so I don't get wind coming from the rear placed engine speakers which are tied to P3D.

FYI, the sub really isn't necessary in  this setup.  It just happened to be integral to the surround PC speakers I had lying around.

One important thing to note: if you combine outputs from multiple computers into one set of speakers you will likely introduce noise so try to keep PCs from crossing their "sound streams".

So many ways to skin this cat.

EDIT:  Oh, another reason I went with the car amps: the overhead and AWM speakers have to be small so car speakers were the perfect choice.  And since the Buttkickers and car speakers all happen to run at 4 Ohms (which is what car amps run at versus 8 Ohms for home audio amps) using car amps helps keep things nice and simple.