SIOC & Opencockpits Radios......

[oal331]

Hi,

i'm looking for an answer about SIOC and OC's Radios:
I have all Opencockpit's plug&play radio modules and i was wondering if i can contol all the functions/switches of them with SIOC.

1) I want to control the backlight. Even i have cockpit's battery off the backlight is on, (i think from USB's power?). Can i, control it with sioc code to remain off ?

2)Some other switches (ie at ATC module) can i configure them for other functions?. Maybe i could send a variable change at fsuipc?


I have made also the same question twice at Opencockpit's forum from 22 of December, but none replied :sad:
They have excellent Hardware products and SIOC software, but support almost does not exist .......:sad::sad::sad:


Thanks

Eddie

[kelety]

Hi,

i'm looking for an answer about SIOC and OC's Radios:
I have all Opencockpit's plug&play radio modules and i was wondering if i can contol all the functions/switches of them with SIOC.

1) I want to control the backlight. Even i have cockpit's battery off the backlight is on, (i think from USB's power?). Can i, control it with sioc code to remain off ?

2)Some other switches (ie at ATC module) can i configure them for other functions?. Maybe i could send a variable change at fsuipc?


I have made also the same question twice at Opencockpit's forum from 22 of December, but none replied :sad:
They have excellent Hardware products and SIOC software, but support almost does not exist .......:sad::sad::sad:


Thanks

Eddie

Hi

I have all the OC modules, except the radio, because it is the "old" model, so I bought the panels and buttons from Sismo Solutions and made the electronic myself. Even so, I assume the radios work the same way as the rest of modules. I have done this with all the rest of the modules (MCP, EFIS, ATC, ADF and NAV) and all of them work exactly the same way.

1.- Variables of Radio Module.
This is the easy part of your question. When you install SIOC version 3.7, the setup program will copy to your directory a file called COM_Definicion.txt, which includes all the variables of the com module and their definitions. This file is not included in previous versions of SIOC, so you have to upgrade to ver 3.7. Just download it from OC page. (In the downloads section). With these definitions, you can write your own SIOC script and control yourself all the variables. The only thing is that, if you decide to go this way, you must not use the IOCmodules.exe; you have to use the SIOC.exe, with the script you have written and modify the SIOC.ini to tell SIOC you are using the radio module.
SIOC ver 3.7 also includes the definitions of the variables of the rest of the modules (NAV, ATC and ADF)

1.- Backlight
In All OC modules, backlight is just a group of leds, connected in parallel through a common resistor, directly to +5v power. Therefore, there is no "variable" assigned to them. In other words, backlight is NOT connected to any output of the master card included in the module.

A previous thing to understand is that a "module" is simply a bunch of leds, swithes, pots, encoders and buttons, connected to IOcards which are imbibed in the design of the module. The big difference between a module and connecting yourself the electronics to a "standard" master card is that, in a module, as the master and display cards are "included", you cannot change the physical input or output to which an element is connected.
If if an element (for example, the TRF button) is connected to input number 6 (as it is, check the COM_Definicion.txt), there is no way you can change that. And, if an element (for example, the leds used for backlighting) are not connected to an output (as is the case in all OC Modules, where backlight is connected directly to power), initially, you cannot control them through SIOC.
The only thing you can do is isolate that element from the module and connect it to an external, standard card. This is what I have done in my case and works beautifully.
I'll try to explain how.

What I have done is isolate the backlight circuit. It's easy. In this link: http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/showthread.php/21672-o-c-mcp737ng-amp-efis-backlighting
You can access to a post I made some weeks ago, about the same problem with the EFIS and MCP modules. I quote the text:

"By the way, if any one interested, you can isolate the backlighting of the O/C Efis by cutting the cables number 1 and 2 of J2 (in the first board). Pin 1 of J2 connects all the negatives of the 24 leds and pin 2 all the +5v. so, if you cut appart those two cables of the 10 pins parallel that connects J2 of the upper board (the one with the leds) to J1 of the third board (the one st the bottom) and solder a 4 ohms 1W resistor to the cable 2 (obviously, to the end that comes out of J2, not the one that goes to J1), you can take those two cables to what ever you are using to control/dimm your backlight system (a pot and an USBOutput board in my case).

But careful: that will finish OC's guarantee ""

You can do the same (CAREFULL: you have to use your tester to find out which are the correct cables in the radio module; they are probably not the same as in the EFIS, but they are in jack one or two of the upper circuit, the one with the leds soldered). Once you have detected which are the two cables, all you have to do is isolate them (simply, cut them apart from the rest of the connector) and then you can use these two cables to control backlighting with a card.
The problem is consume: an output of the master card supports only 25 mA. Each module has a lot of leds in parallel, each one consuming 20 mA, so the total consume is 20mA times the number of leds. This value is wel over the 25 mA that supports each output of the master card.

An option is using the output card, which supports up to 500mA per output and connecting the backlight leds to an output. That is enough to control up to 25 leds (25x20mA= 500mA), so it should be enough for one module per output (and the card has 64). The problem is that the total current the output card can support is 2500 mA, that is, 2500/20 = 125 led. Depending on how many modules you are connecting to the output card, you might overload the card and burn it. In my case, all the backlighting of the cockpit is well over 125 leds, so the only option was buying three or four output cards and using only a limited number of outputs per card; this is an inefficient and expensive solution, so I rejected it. But, in your case, depending on how many modules you are connecting, can be a solution. On top of that, with the output card, you can control through sioc, the brightness of the backlighting, as in the real plane (see the thread http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/showthread.php/21667-USBOutput-card-dimmer-control to see how to do that)

What I have done in my cockpit is the following: all the backlight leds of all panels and modules of my cockpit are connected to power 5v) through a 6v rele (although it is 6v, it works perfectly with only 5v); the connection is made so that, with no power, the rele is open and no power is provided to the backlight. The control terminal of the rele are connected to an output board, so I can control, through SIOC, that it only gets activation power when the cockpit has electric power (from battery, APU, Ground power or electric bus) In this way, backlight is only on when this happens. And brightness is controlled through led dimmers which
I bought it in Internet. They are 5v 8A dimmer; it costs 6 €. and, as they can support up to 8A, it is more than enough to support the leds. I use one for the captain light control, another for the FO light control another for the pedestal light control and another for the OVHD light control, just like in the real plane. They are connected between the rele and the led, so with them I control the brightness.
I hpe this will solve your problem. Good luck

Andres
Barcelona (Spain)

[oal331]

Andres

Many, many thanks for your reply !!! It is vary clear to me your answer, thanks a lot for your time and for sharing all these details.

Have a nice weekend

Eddie

[kelety]

Andres

Many, many thanks for your reply !!! It is vary clear to me your answer, thanks a lot for your time and for sharing all these details.

Have a nice weekend

Eddie

A Pleasure.

Just a reminder (although I'm sure you are aware of it): DON'T FORGET TO THE RESISTOR. In the module, the backlight leds are in the upper printed circuit and their resistor in the lower one. if you isolate the leds the way I say, they will also be isolated from their resistor. Therefore, you have to put a protective resistor (value has to be calculated, but, for leds of 3.3v and 20mA is, aprox, 100 divided by the number of leds) between the + pole and power.

Best regards

Andres
Barcelona (Spain)

[oal331]

I got a private reply to email i had send to OC's support, with the same question As the solution they gave me, is very simple and easy for everyone, i also make a copy of the answer here, just in case someone else wants to search for the same information in the future.

"We cannot have direct contro of radio BL, but you have the posibility of control the power of all radios with one external power source commom for all radios.
All radios have external connector and internal jumper. You can disconnect this jumper and connect cables of one common internal power source 5V, and cutout this power source using USBRelays.
You should to use the connector to connect the 5V power suply and disconnect the jumper. Do not connect to this jumper any."

So, this is the best solution as i already have the USBRelay card !!

Happy End ;)

[tiburon]

I tried connecting a 12V powersource to wire 2 and a 39 Ohm resistor to wire 1 but the leds did not light up. Any ideas why not ?