Day?

[Didrik]

Is it possible to Do All Yourself? Like for the avionics, make the box ofc, put LCD's in for freq. display, add knobs and rotaries and then getting everything to work without bying any kit? How much would I need to now in "fine" electrical way?

Regards
Didrik

[Mike.Powell]

Yes, it is possible to "do it all yourself". It takes slightly better than average skills, but it's certainly doable.

You will need to have a working knowledge of micro controllers, and of programming. The Microchip family of PIC micro controllers works well. There is a great deal of free support information on the Microchip website.

For an example of what you might build using a PIC micro controller, see the March 22 2007 entry on my site here: http://www.mikesflightdeck.com/old_stuff_1.htm The LCD module was purchased through Ebay. The remainder of the parts came from various online electronic parts houses like Digikey and Mouser.

For a great many examples of a variety of projects take a look at Roland van Roy's site: http://www.simprojects.nl/

If you build your own electronics, you will also have to do some programming to connect it to the flight simulator application. If you're up for the challenge you can develop a connection through USB. However, most projects like annunciators, switch inputs, radio heads, etc. will work well using the serial com port which is much easier to use.

There is also a lot of free support for programming, including free compilers. Microsoft offers "express" editions of compilers here: http://www.microsoft.com/express/default.aspx

[Didrik]

Thanks alot, that will reduce my costs, right? :P Well, anyway, is it a good idea to start small, like doing the radio stack with the correct measurements (of course) and then "work from there" building my way through the cockpit?

[salautom]

About the electronics, you can have a look at fsbus (http://www.fsbus.de (http://www.fsbus.de/)), a very cheap solution, or a little less cheap, but a bit easier opencockpits (http://www.opencockpits.com (http://www.opencockpits.com/)), altough you can download the spec sheets and create the prints al by yorself

[Didrik]

Actually, since I love challenges I will try to build atleast one "component" of the cockpit like the radio stack without anything but single components. No kits here :P

[Mike.Powell]

I think starting small is an excellent idea. Once you're familiar with the basics, all sorts of interesting projects will come to mind.

[Didrik]

What is this type of LCD called? It's something like this being used in 737 radio stack for freq. display.
http://m2.uxcell.com/i/08c/ux_a08090800ux0021_ux_c.jpg

[No Longer Active]

Mike....while your here.......

Is there any easy way to making a basic NAV / COM module with or without segment displays, i have the BU0836 board, could i wire encoders to this and control nav and com directly, or is there any simple controllers we can build that includes segment displays, ive always wanted to know how to build a simple radio?

Cheers Aj

[Mike.Powell]

Didrik, the picture you posted is of an LCD character display customized for use as a thermometer. I recommend using a general purpose LCD character display that contains its own controller. Most general pupose LCD character displays use a Hitachi HD44780 controller chip. If you search Ebay for "lcd character display" you will get a list of them. They come in different sizes, and have different backlighting options. A "16x2" (2 lines of 16 characters) works well. Prices range from $6 to $15.

Aj, I haven't used the BU0836, so can't advise you on how to use it. My personal approach has been to use a PIC16F876A micro controller to communicate through the PC serial com port, control the LCD character display and respond to the rotary encoder. There is definitely an investment in learning to be made, but once made, you can do all sorts of interesting things.

[Didrik]

Haha, yes I know it's a thermometer :P I was just wondering what the name of the display was since I couldn't find it on ebay when searching for LCD, that was the only thing tat popped up. Anyway thanks for the answer :)

EDIT: I searched ebay but didn't find what I am looking for. I'm looking for the kind of display used in those basic electronic calculators with "blocky" http://content.etilize.com/Large/1010066112.jpg numbers although with backlight. What are those called?

[Mike.Powell]

The blocky sort of LCD character display is a seven segment LCD display. I don't recall seeing that specific type on Ebay except as part of a piece of equipment.

[AndyT]

Those are 'Liquid Crystal Displays' or LCD's.
Very inexpensive but fragile.

[fweinrebe]

If I can recommend an excellent product for Microchip PIC development, then it is the EasyPIC 5 from mikroElektronika (http://www.mikroe.com/en/tools/). Here are an option of 3 compilers ie. Basic, Pascal and C.

I own an EasyPIC5 and the C-compiler for it, and I must say it is about 1000% easier to program these chips in C than it is in Assembler. The add-ons you get for this board is exceptional and everything comes with sample code.

Busy with a Comm2 and Nav2 radio at the moment which interfaces to the PC via USB with a PIC18F4550. On the PC side I use C# Express 2008.

Also check out their books (http://www.mikroe.com/en/books/) section, there are a few free books about microcontrollers.

But you still need to build your own circuits after the development phase is complete. So you will need to invest in skills and tools to make PC boards. Or order them from somewhere if you don't want to make them yourself.

[Didrik]

Thanks a lot, is it hard to get info from FS to show in an external display?

[fweinrebe]

Thanks a lot, is it hard to get info from FS to show in an external display?

Depends on your programming / electronics experience. I agree with Mike, start small and work your way up. Start with switches and LEDs and turn up the volume from there. It is very fulfilling knowing you hacked something. But if you start with something too complicated for your experience, that can become very frustrating.

Also It would have been impossible if it wasn't for FSPUIC. So learn how to write your own program in VB.Net or C# (any other supported language) that interfaces with MSFS via FSPUIC.

[fweinrebe]

Is there any easy way to making a basic NAV / COM module with or without segment displays, i have the BU0836 board, could i wire encoders to this and control nav and com directly, or is there any simple controllers we can build that includes segment displays, ive always wanted to know how to build a simple radio?

Alex, look at this article about Controlling LCDs with a parallel port: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/cspplcds.aspx.

[Didrik]

I just wanted to check, Project Magenta is only for using digital screens to show your instruments like EICAS(?)? and electronic attitude indicator and stuff. If we'd like to use analogue gauges, is it possible to only buy FSUIPCS and WideFS and not PM?

Regards Didrik :)

[Per Alm]

Yes, FSUIPC and WideFS are sold separately. You can find them here:

http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html

However, if you buy PM software you should know that keys for FSUIPC and WideFS are included.

I agree with the other posts in this thread...... if you plan to build everything from scratch do consider to start with a smaller project. Previously I planned to make a 737NG, but eventually ended up with a customized Learjet. It's cheaper. I have designed and constructed all our instruments from scratch....
In this way you can also design whatever instruments you need/want.

Regards

Per Alm

[Mike.Powell]

Thanks a lot, is it hard to get info from FS to show in an external display?

If you're using FSX you can use SimConnect to extract data. SimConnect is the API Microsoft developed. The SDK ships with the deluxe version of FSX. There are a number of code samples in the SDK.

It is very similar to the ESP SimConnect SDK http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526983.aspx

[Didrik]

That was exactly what I was looking for thanks a lot!! :)