Can Pokeys or Arduino Mega do this?

[737NUT]

I have an old Cessna radio I want to interface to FSX. I need a card and software that will look at inputs, compare to a Truth Table, then output the correct frequency to FSX. Say Input 3,4 and 8 or active, Truth Table says that should be 118.50 and then send that to FSX. Any Idea's? I have 2 Pokeys55 cards but will get an Arduino if I have to. Maybe a LUA script for the Pokeys? Throwing ideas out here. I know SIOC can do it but I want to avoid the huge Master Card, USB EXP, and Breakout mess. :) I would pay someone to write a little code if needed.

Thanks,
Rob

[AK Mongo]

Sounds like an ambitious idea, Rob. I can't help other than to say Good Luck!

Reid

[Dozer]

Have a look at the Teensy I/O USB boards. 25 digital input/output pins for $16, or 46 for $24. I think if I link to the site again I'll get booted as a spammer because I've joined today and written about six posts plugging this device, so you'll have to search for it - look for Teensy USB. I don't have much (any) experience of hardware-building but my understanding is that Teensy isn't an Arduino device, but it is very Arduino-compatible and can use a lot of Arduino resources.

As for interfacing with MSFS - I haven't a clue, I've not used it for five years. You can certainly interface Teensy with X-Plane and then use Simulator Communication System to link X-Plane with MSFS, but I've forgotten the little I knew of MSFS programming. It's a skill I mean to relearn though...

[Wendy]

Hello Rob,

Whatever card you use, you will always need a software part to convert the data and sent to FSX. I think this can be done with LUA but I'm not an expert in LUA programming. Maybe someone else can help you out.

Regards, Wendy

[joelabe05]

Rob,

I've done something very similar to what you are describing using an Arduino UNO. I didn't have an actual radio stack to work with, so I just wired up a couple toggle switches, buttons, and rotary switches to function like one. Issue number one for you will be to decipher what is coming out of your peripherals (signals to an arduino). Once you've got that figured out you can proceed a couple different ways. I wrote a simple console program that runs on my sim computer to read the serial port that the Arduino is plugged into. The program reads the signal, decides what to do, and sends the command to MSFS by using FSUIPC. Another way to do it would be to set up the console program to act as a key stroke generator that would send keystrokes to whatever the active window is on the computer. This way is nice because you don't need to have FSUIPC installed. It may be troublesome, though, if you have a tendency to change active windows during sim sessions (using a mouse to adjust altimeter settings, for example, will really spoil your results if you don't reactivate the radio before sending keystrokes).

Anyways, I've written both an Arduino sketch and a console program that allow my system to work pretty well. It is fairly specific to my setup, but if you want to tinker and see if you can get yours to work you're more than welcome. Since this is my first post I'm not really sure if I'd be able to post any files for source code, but we can figure something out if necessary.

Joe