throte quadrant backlight

[Bartlomiej]

J want to add a bac klight to my throtlle quadrantr,but i don't wont to spent 50 pounds on a input output board just to connect 6 or 10 LED'a.
So any idea how to do in other way.
I want to the back light to be turn on from the flight sim so I need somthing to interface it.
Just how.

[Buddym]

The cheapest way in my opinion would be to build an interface to your parallel port, but newer PCs may not have a parallel port. It would give you at least 8 outputs. If you are inteested I can polint you to a schematic. If no parallel port you could build a cheap USB board with a PIC or AVR mictrocontroller. The hard part will be getting the output to turn on and off from FS. FSUIPC will provide an offset for things like that, but you need a driver to get the offset data to your hardware device to operate the LEDs. That's where the tried and true boards like IOcards and FSBus show real value, since the hardware and sowftware are ready and tested, and well supported.

If you wanted an ultra-cheap USB solution, a cheap PIC or AVR coupled with a small .net driver program is probably the best bet. Here's a link to a project that does this. http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/powerswitch.html

If you have a free parallel port then I'd say that's the cheapest route. Here's a link to a typical article on how to do it: http://www.cleghornelectronicskits.com/ParallelPortLEDs.html

!!!!!!!!!!! Always be careful when interfacing directly to the parallel port... you can easily damage the ciruitry in the PC if you get short pins together, etc.... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are other circuits out there that include an external buffer chip to prevent this, but then you have to build a circuit that includes an IC chip, needs power, etc.


I'll put one together and write a driver program and see if I can get it working.....

Again, you'll have to write a driver for either one to get the data from FSUIPC and control the LEDs accordingly.

BuddyM

[Steve A]

I have 12 led lights connected to my fire panel using a very cheap battery operated system. The lights are powered by 2x 1.5 volt aa batteries and connected in a line to one toggle switch. About every three months i will have to swap the batteries so i placed the holder conveniently on the inside wall of the pedestal out of sight but reachable. Its not very technichal but it works a charm.

[Bartlomiej]

The cheapest way in my opinion would be to build an interface to your parallel port, but newer PCs may not have a parallel port. It would give you at least 8 outputs. If you are inteested I can polint you to a schematic. If no parallel port you could build a cheap USB board with a PIC or AVR mictrocontroller. The hard part will be getting the output to turn on and off from FS. FSUIPC will provide an offset for things like that, but you need a driver to get the offset data to your hardware device to operate the LEDs. That's where the tried and true boards like IOcards and FSBus show real value, since the hardware and sowftware are ready and tested, and well supported.

If you wanted an ultra-cheap USB solution, a cheap PIC or AVR coupled with a small .net driver program is probably the best bet. Here's a link to a project that does this. http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/powerswitch.html

If you have a free parallel port then I'd say that's the cheapest route. Here's a link to a typical article on how to do it: http://www.cleghornelectronicskits.com/ParallelPortLEDs.html

!!!!!!!!!!! Always be careful when interfacing directly to the parallel port... you can easily damage the ciruitry in the PC if you get short pins together, etc.... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are other circuits out there that include an external buffer chip to prevent this, but then you have to build a circuit that includes an IC chip, needs power, etc.


I'll put one together and write a driver program and see if I can get it working.....

Again, you'll have to write a driver for either one to get the data from FSUIPC and control the LEDs accordingly.

BuddyM

Hey BuddyM
It's a great idea that paralet port,I think I will go for this one,I don't have a paralet port,but i was thinking of using LPT to USB adapter.There are some schematicks in the link that you posted but if you have others I sure would like to have a look at it.
So now it's just the driver and fun part with making it work with te FS.
Manny thanks:D

[Bartlomiej]

If I use LPT do I need a driver ,or can i just find the right ofset and use it to sent signal to turn on the LED's on the LPT output

[Buddym]

No, depending on the OS you are using (windows 95 , XP, etc) we will not only need a driver program for the parallel port, we will also need a program to grab the FSUIPC offset data and use it to control bits on the parallel port. There are several driver programs for the parallel port out there, I think the last one I used was portio, I used it when I was playing around with FSLCD. I will look around some for the links I used back then, here's some I had on my desktop:

http://logix4u.net/Legacy_Ports/Parallel_Port/Inpout32.dll_for_Windows_98/2000/NT/XP.html
http://www.driverlinx.com/DownLoad/DlPortIO.htm
http://www.aaroncake.net/electronics/vblpt.htm
http://www.thaiio.com/prog-cgi/0006_vb.html
http://logix4u.net/Legacy_Ports/Parallel_Port/A_tutorial_on_Parallel_port_Interfacing.html

I have Jan axelson's book on parallel ports at the house, I am sure there is ome great info in there too. I will try and put a cable on a port tonight and see if I can get something working again, then write a small program in C or VB to map some FSUIPC offsets to the different pins on the port.... I am sure we can get this going with a little effort,

Buddy

[Bartlomiej]

Thanks BuddyM for all you help and looking forword for that program to grab offsets.

[Buddym]

No problem, I love this stuff. It's closely related to another project I am working on anyway. You know, the parallel port will give us an easy 8 or 12 lines of output, but if you really only wanted a couple of lines we could probably use the control lines on a serial port... DTR/DSR/RTS,CTS, etc. These are easy enuff to play with, it's just that there's only a few of them for outputs.

I was toying with building a card for inputs, but ran across the the MJoy16 and built that instead. It works great and no need to re-invent the wheel. Next I wanted to build a card for outputs so I started looking at what's already out there.... Lot's of good stuff, plenty of stuff using serial ports... very ez with a pic or avr. I really want to use USB, a bit more complicated there... I should have something going soon. The goal is to build a USB card with at least 24 outputs. I don't plan on doing anything major like using it to drive 7-segment displays, since the IOcards and FSBus systems do that in brilliant fashion already. I just want to build something usable at a very low cost. The MJoys16 is very cheap to build, and I hoping to get an output card built just as cheaply. There are some USB boards on eBay that have 12 outputs and 4 inputs for about $25 USD including shipping. These will only give as many I/O leads as the raw parallel port, but at least it's USB. I like the price, but would like more outputs... we shall see....

Buddy

[Bartlomiej]

Well one way or another i'm crap with programing so what ever i use I need the softwear.
the links that you give me as fpr [aralet port have some programs.
So i have the electronics but i need softwear.
It would be great if FSUIPC could sent signal straight to 8 lines on paralet fort.
Like you have the 8 Led's connected to paralet port and in flight sim you press L for lights and it lights up those 8 LED.s.

[Bartlomiej]

By the way I have a board 2090 from descktop aviator.
Maybe i could use it in some way

[Buddym]

Well that's the direction I am going as well. I have a bunch of the IOCards stuff, and the flexibility it provides is what I am trying to emulate. A small program with a GUI to select and map FSUIPC offsets to the different parallel port pins. A small board with 8-12 pins might be useful to many folks. Just the ability to turn on lights, gear indicators, etc without spending a ton of money.

I also ran across a very cheap USB solution to get 8 I/O pins and a serial port you can send data to. The serial port could be used to send data to a serial LCD/VFD. It's very easy to build, comes with a driver, and it will be very ez to write a program to drive it from FSUIPC. Actually, with little fuss it could be the same program that would drive the parallel port card. It's called th IgorPlug, and uses a very cheap AVR microcontroller, a crystal, 1 cap and 3 resistors. I almost finished a test board last night, will have it working tonight I think. It's very promising and will be an excellent compliment to the parallel port board and the MJoy16 input card. It is probably no big deal to move to a chip with more I/O as well... I will explore that once the basic board is working and tested. If I can expand the design to give 24 pins it will be perfect.


Buddy

[Bartlomiej]

OK sound good.
I want to just get it working.
I want to use the paralet port,or USB ,makes no difrent to me.
If you could get me the nesecery software I would be geratfull.

[Buddym]

Ok, I have the parallel port and the USB hardware tested. I am working on the software now. Seems to be it will be simple enuff, but everytime I say that it gets complicated...I like the USB very much, the first one I've built has 8 pins that can be inputs or outputs, plus has serial output for displays, etc. Don't know how much use that will be except for folks with serial VFDs and LCDs.....

the next USB will have 24 pins plus the serial.

The parallel has 8 outputs, once I have some software that talks to FSUIPC workin I will try to get 12 pins workin


more to come soon!

Buddy

[Buddym]

OK, I have the hardware talking to FSUIPC, and can turn on/off LEDs connected to the Igor Plug via USB. Last night I had it setup and running fine via wideclient. I am sure it will work fine locally on the FS PC as well. I should have the parallel port tested in the same manner by Sunday.

Right now I have a routine hard-coded that looks at the 2 bytes at offset ODOC (lights) and picks out a couple for instrumentation and landing. My thought is to have a cfg file that has this format:

(the first line in [] denotes the interface type as [USB] or [parallel]

[USB]
output number,offset,byte within offset,bit,description

so the cfg line for the panel lights would look like this:

1,ODOC,1,6,Panel Lights

where:

1 is the output pin on the Igor Plug
ODOC is the FSUIPC offset
1 is the first of 2 bytes used for this offset
6 is the bit position for the panel lights
Panel Lights is just a label to keep track of what each output is being used for

I am working on a GUI to configure this cfg file within the program, but it could be built/modified in notepad,etc.


Bartlomiej: Did you say you can build the little hardware board for this? If not I can help with that too. I think the whole board with screw-terminals for each pin cost me a total of $10. To move to the 24-pin board will cost about $15.

I used the ATTiny2313 for mine and I will move to the ATMega8 after I get the software to a useable state. I also tested the serial port output using a serial VFD display and it works great! I setup a small routine to display ALT, NDG, SPEED and updated it every 500 milliseconds. Very cool. I had done this using a Rabbit RCM2200, but that board is massive overkill for such a task, and cost $40 each.

It's also interesting to note that although we started down this road talking about outputs, these boards are capabale of being used for inputs as well. I tested reading switches on some bits while driving LEDs with others, worked fine. Of course we have to write software to read them and make them send inputs to FSUIPC, but we can if we want to. Not as easy as a Bodnar board, not as seasoned as IOCards, but do-able and very cheap. Right now I just want to focus on the outputs.

I am considering having some PCBs made up, but only if I can get more interest in them. Without getting into larger quantities a PCB will jack the price up enuff that the project loses appeal over other boards that are already out there. I would like this to stay a not-for-profit community project. If anyone wants a pre-programmed chip that can't do it themselves I will send one for the price of the chip and postage. If we have PCBs made the bare boards will be available at cost, you assemble. Digikey has the chips for about $2.60 each in single qty. Ebay has some that are 5 for $15, free shipping.

More to come...

BuddyM

[Buddym]

More info,

I have the software reading multiple offsets, displaying them on "virtual" LEDs in the software, and driving the pins on the Igor Plug to reflect the switches in FS.

It's time to get some input from the community...... even if you are not interested in this board, can you think of any offsets that you have used, or wished you could use, to turn on an LED, buzzer, etc? If so... is the offset a value that can be read (like 0BEC for nose gear), or a group of bits in an offset that represent different functions, like 0D0C for the lights?

I need to know so I can code cfg file variables to look for such things.... For the gear offsets I will need to code 2 values, 0 for full up, and 16383 for full down. Are there more like this that you have needed or seen? This is some new territory for me but I think we can make it useful, or at the least educational (for me anyway). I know that several outfits have already been thru this excercise, but I have only used IOCards for outputs... I have seen how they handle things and it's very slick... I don't want to copy them, but a similar collection of "known parameters" for popular functions like gear, inner/middle/outer markers, lights, etc might me useful..... any input at this point would be useful.......

Buddy

[Bartlomiej]

Hi sorry that i didn't write nack for a while.
I've read some great news here,you got the softweare that's great.
Listen I'm even prapare to pay smole amound for the softweare and the board.
whether it's gona be USB or LPT as longe as it will do the thing it's fine with me.
Besicaly it shuld turn od and off light's (baclight)
So have a think about it and let me know.

Or if you want to tell me where to get the board and send me te softweare thats fine with me as well

Or tell me how to write the softweare.

[Buddym]

OK, the 8-output USB board is ready to be used. The software is not finished by any means, but it works and is stable. I am still working out ways to handle all of the different types of offsets to read. If you want I can build a board for you, test it, and mail it to you. I'm not getting any input from the community so if I have PCBs made I may wait and do 10 or 20 of the 24-output boards.

Buddy

[Bartlomiej]

Well as long as it lights up the back light it's works for me.
So mail me the softweare if you can and how I can bet the board.

[Buddym]

Ok, give me a couple more days to work out a couple more things in the software. When it's ready I will test the board with it and then send it you. As far as buying it, how about we trade.... you be my beta test subject and I'll give you the board??


I did have a question too.... which plane are you flying and how is the backlight operated...that is to say what switch on the panel makes it light up?

Buddy

[Bartlomiej]

I will be mor that happy to test the boeard for you,you will recive full raport on how it will work with the throtle qadrant,and with the flight simulator.

I'm flying Airbus 340 ,as for the switch,it should be the one on the overhead,the same that switches on the backlight in the cocpit for all of the instruments.
Or you can use "L" on the keyboard to switch all of the lights.
I'm away for a few days but when i come back I will check it to make sure and send you the details.

Loking forward to see the softwear and like I said I'll mere than happy to test the board for you.

[Bartlomiej]

My baclight panel