Short SC7 Skyvan - The Shed in the shed

[meatbomber]

Hello Sim Builders !

Here`s some pics of our SC7 Skyvan Cocpit project. We started 09.Jan.2014 so one could say we are still in rapid prototyping mode with this :)
Thats also why it looks like it looks.

it`s running on:
X-Plane 10
Sim Avio2 for Aspen and GNS and other avionics
Pic, Engine and electric instruments are each their own instance of X-Plane
Currently this is all running on one PC, so no or low eyecandy outside for accpetable performance for now.

Visual system currently 1 x BenQ 1080ST (min 1 more planned, maybe 2)

Control loading with 3 x BFF Simulations Controllers and BL Motors (The Force feedback system is VERY powerful)

Avionics are on a Touch Screen for now, but interfacing is in progress.

Cheers
Phillip

[fsx-cockpit]

Look´s very good ;)
Really good job!

Cheers,
Chris

[GPreddy]

Wow! That's certainly one aircraft I never expected to see as a sim. It's looking fantastic, though!

[meatbomber]

Wow! That's certainly one aircraft I never expected to see as a sim.

Ha Precisely there re one of only 2 Skyvan operators in Europe, and with only 6 Airplanes on the continent they are not see every day

The first goal was to have basically a interactive cockpit procedure trainer as I'm lucky to be piloting a Skyvan IRL :) and maybe in the future add even motion

we`ll see, first is to get all the avionics and systems to work properly tho!

[IanH1960]

Hi Phillip,

...great job - fastest build of the FFB system I've yet seen!

Ian

[50fighterfan]

My, but I do like this project!

[meatbomber]

Meanwhile :)

3x BenQ 1080W-St With matrox triplehead2go and Fly-Elise-Ng imersive display Pro.


the setup works but is very much work in progress. The problem so the shape of the skyvan cockpit section, which is very wide and high, a 737 cockpit would be easier.
so currently we have the projectors on different radii, the center one is furthest away from the screen the side projectors had to be placed closer to prevent unacceptable shadows. Now I need to find out how to deal with the asymmetric field of views do each projector as the current multi view plugin can only handle the same FOV on each projector.

[meatbomber]

Ok, today the cockpit got into training mode!

after frantically working to actually get it to run at all ;) Currently the Sim Avio and the 2 instruments instances of X-plane now reside on a second networked PC. The main machine is running now the main display and the force feedback. The screen is currently set to 3840 x 1024 I could run 5000 something but the loss in frame rate didn't make it worth it. With the immersive display multi screen plugin now set to 6 windows and a total FOV of 210degrees I'm getting now around 20-24FPS, not stelar but acceptable.

Next up up will be interfacing the avionics with a set of bezels already on order from Australia :)

[meatbomber]

Some more update.

finaly got the eyfinity display group on the secondary PC to work and with that can now have also Copilot basic T. Also managed to build some more instruments in instrument builder and now have working centralized warning panel with press to test function.
The center monitor is a touch screen and while it gave me some headaches to get the touch part mapped and working properly it's working great now, so all the avionics and the CWP are with touch activation.

In Xplane we are running now skymaxx Pro which I can warmly recommend as it's much much faster than the original clouds, comes at the expense of not having stratus clouds for hard IFR tho.
The lights enhancement pack from x-plane.org make night flying finaly possible! Great enhancement especially with Beamers the runway lights as per original settings were basically invisible now looks great.

[Geremy Britton]

Very well done, an excellent system and very professional construction. Wishing you well in your continued simulator adventures!

[Shawn]

Looks fantastic, do you have any video of the sim?

cheers
Shawn

[meatbomber]

Well not a real serious video but something I guess everyone would like to try in real live :D (sound was only in the earphones I really need to make a better video wall around with the sound on too)

http://youtu.be/UpD8dhqpclQ

[Matt Olieman]

Nice landing :)

[meatbomber]

As the flying season is coming up the work on the sim is going to go slow now for a few months as we won't have much time to do much on the sim, but for mid Mai there is a week of systems programming coming when James our XPlane model maker is coming over from the UK for a 5 days session of programming and fine tuning of the performance (it's great when you have access to the real plane and if in doubt can just make a flight to see how the real one behaves :D)

once the x-Plane model does all the real plane does and also the systems have been modeled we can proceed with the final stage of interfacing. Thank good the Skyvan isn't all that complicated an airplane ;) I've been doing some digging in the xplane innards and plane maker when making the simavio instruments and centralized warning panel and some things In Xplane really leave me scratching my head in disbelief, for example there is lots of options for nearly any system but hydraulics, why? It doesn't even have a switch (tho there is a dataref for it)
AC power is similar, it's there but that's about it. Lots of this stuff will probably have to be programmed in SASAL with LUA scripts, we shall see.

as for future (next winter) developments, we been looking at motion platforms and the other big thing would be building the MIP with real gauges.

To that I have a question, does someone know a way of getting Xplane data output as milli volt/ volts? There are lots of gauges that could be stimmulated rather than simulated like voltmeters, ammeters, oil PX and temp, fuelflow, OAT and the such

cheers
Mb

[meatbomber]

The second pro dongle arrived so we can finally use the secondary machine as IOS or for formation flying :)

heres a short clip of formation flying the other plane is flown with a Saitek joke that's not exactly smooth.

http://youtu.be/Wzt0B40AMcQ

[meatbomber]

not much progress on the hardware side of things, but huge progress on the software side.

Our Skyvan now has all her Centralized warning panel working as it is supposed to.
The Engines have been completely overridden from the X-plane stock simulation. We are now using LUA scripts to control the engines like a real TPE331 does with underspeed governor, overspeed governor, prop governor and manual pitch control in Beta mode, surprise surprise the engine is now indicating everyting as it should :D
Also included is the unfeathering pump for real windmilling air-starts as well as unfeathering on the ground. etc etc.

Next work in progress is to get the hydraulics to work probperly, here X-plane is very uncooperative as there is no way to have a hydraulic reservoir that holds pressure with the pump off.. well we will see how we proceed about this

cheers
MB

[Avro748]

Will you be releasing the Skyvan Software you've developed?
Keep up the good work.

[meatbomber]

I guess that's up to James he's started the xplane model I'm just providing the data, and real life experience and little bits of script here and there :D

but i already told him the engines I think more people will be interested in! I've had a look at a couple of pay ware xplane TPE 331 planes like the jetstream and MU2 and was somewhat underwhelmed by their engine modeling

[meatbomber]

Thanos Motion controller card with 6DOF extension ordered today :) my oh my its going to be interesting !
Thomas is really keen on building a motion platform for the sim, i think tho we`ll need to make a major teardown and rebuild before we put teh cab on teh platform because as of now there is lots of duct tape and loose hardware and i doubt th sim would withstand teh rigours of motion for more than a few seconds ;)

[xplanematt]

Your project is looking great! I have been watching your progress. It's nice to see such a unique aircraft modeled.

I don't have motion, but I have hauled my sim up to Kansas twice, and once down to a local airport (about 40 mins away). It has been lifted two stories on a forklift, shoved onto trailers, dropped, tilted, twisted, lifted up with a pry bar, and I will tell you this: over-engineer everything! I went heavy-duty on my structure, but a lot of my interfaces and wiring on more like what you describe with the tape and loose hardware, solder points with no strain relief, etc. Just look at how real aircraft are put together and try to do something along those lines....although you can probably skip the safety wire on everything. :) Since my next sim is based on a real cockpit, I have a little jump start on the wiring, but I'm still going to take a lot more care this time on how I mount my interfaces, how wiring is secured, and how I handle connection points and splicing of new wire into the old aircraft harness.

I see you're using Fly-Elise for your visual stuff, but you also mention using pro USB keys for X-Plane...have you not tried the pro-only visual options that X-Plane offers? I have thought long and hard on this, and I have come to suspect that you can never really get spherical/cylindrical rendering "right" with post-render software. Fly-Elise might have gotten around this since they are able to actually work within X-Plane's render loop (as opposed to MSFS options that have to take the planar image in its final form and bend/twist it around). But at any rate, you have a ton of cylindrical rendering options built-in if using a pro key.

[meatbomber]

I actually have not tried the xplane only spherical rendering because what would you do outiside of xplane? No un warped desktop the machine would be near on unusable.

The fly elise software also comes with the multi view plugin that allows you to create up to 6 different views (heading, FOV, and pixes vertical / horizontal) inside xplane which then get projected on the warped screen. My screen thou projected by 3 projectors is actually a stitch of 5 different views created by the multi view plugin :)

[xplanematt]

Well, why in the world would the projected image EVER show anything BUT X-Plane? :) The PC is set to start X-Plane automatically I presume? (This is very simple in Linux, I assume it's not a big deal in Windows either.) I also presume you are using some sort of instructor console/administrative PC for setting up scenarios, changing settings, etc, and that the projector PC is running as an "extra visual"?

If you do need to use the PC for other things, you can use an extra monitor and one of these: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=101&cp_id=10104&cs_id=1010401&p_id=3569&seq=1&format=2 I have used such a device for working on the PCs in my sim...I don't have spherical projection, but my WX radar screen is tiny, so I have a VGA box permanently installed so that I can just hook in a "service" monitor when needed.

It sounds like you are saying Fly-Elise actually runs outside of X-Plane so that you always have a properly warped view? I did not know they did that. Anyways it sounds like with the multi views that they are doing some really cool stuff inside X-Plane. But I'm having trouble visualizing how those extra views work...does Fly-Elise provide extra "virtual" screens that are totally separate from each other?

[meatbomber]

Hi Matt!

Here comes my newby-ness into play :D it`s our first foray into sim building and we only started in January, since then we (my friend and myself) have learned a great deal but for example the setup you describe where the external view is an extra visual never occurred to us :D thats`s definitely food for thought !

Currently the setup is like this:

Master X-Plane Machine:
inputs:
All the LeoBodnar cards for interfacing flight controls and switches
outputs:
Via Tripplehead2go to 3 x BenQ 1080WST onto cylindrical projection screen
runs:
X-Plane (of course)
BFF Simulations Control Loading
FlyElise Display Warping

SimAvio Machine:
inputs:
leoBodnar BBI32 button boxes for interfacing avionics
Saitek Yoke/pedals/Throttle quadrant
Track IR head tracking
outputs:
5 monitors for the MIP, eyebrow panel and an external IOS/Formation flying screen
runs:
SimAvio2 with all our instruments on it.
occasionally X-Plane either as an instructors station which i find not very usefull at teh time as its easier to adjust settings from inside the sim or much better using the secondary machine for the formation leader flying from the Virtual cockpit with the head tracking device and teh saitek inputs.

So considering the complexity of the machine we are still on only 2 PCs!
If i think about performance i´d like to get a second external view machine and offload at least 1 of the Beamers on to it or even better get a 4th beamer and run 2 each on the master and an external visual machine for better performance. we have teh problem that the size of the cockpit and our vertical field of view (huge side windows) requires a less than optimal placement of the beamers. with 4 beamers we´d be able to get further away from the center of the cockpit which would allow mounting the beamers much lower and still not get shading from the shell causing much less required warping and much brighter / crisper picture. With an additional PC running teh beamers it would also be possible to use full resolution currently we only use 2/3rds of the res for performance reasons.

The Skyvan cockpit is too small to allow good placement for a service monitor inside, but i think now with teh motion project starting and teh required rebuild to strengthen (read make shake proof :)) the installation i think we`ll probably setup the secondary PCs external screen behind the cab so you can see into the cabin from the instructors station (that would be a big plus)

As to the immersive display from fly-elise:

It´s exactly as you say, it´s running all the time so we have basically a huge desktop when we are not inside X-plane :) we have been doing a lot of the SASL script programming while sitting in the cockpit and looking out the front and side windows :D just finding teh mouse pointer is a pain at times :D
So basically there are 2 things happening:
Immersive display is adjusting the picture coming out of the 3 projectors so as to give one large wrap around screen regardless of what programm is running.

Then There is the Multiview plugin in Xplane:
This plugin allows you to setup up to 6 independent "windows" with the following parameters:
X / Y location in pixels
Width and height in pixels
heading and pitch in degrees
FOV in degrees (currently all windows you setup use the same FOV as window 1 regardless of what you enter its a limitation the flyElise guys work on)

So for example my Screen is 3840 x 1024
X Plane running in Full screen mode

Now i could setup 6 view "windows"
1:
X=0 Y=0
Width = 640 Height = 1024
heading = 275.5 pitch = 0
FOV = 35

2:
X=640 Y=0
Width = 640 Height = 1024
heading = 310,5 pitch = 0
FOV = 35

3:
X=1280 Y=0
Width = 640 Height = 1024
heading = 345,5 pitch = 0
FOV = 35

4:
X=1920 Y=0
Width = 640 Height = 1024
heading = 20,5 pitch = 0
FOV = 35

5 and so forth to 6 to get a 210° total field of view for example stitched together from 35° FOV pieces so there are very small kinks in the view when for example changing pitch as opposed to smaller number of views. See attached pic.
Currently i run only 5 views of 42° FOV each due to performance reasons.

It took me a while to figure out that i need to view the projection and what i project independently :D The projectors just affect the total available FOV and the multi view plugin then lets you setup the picture to your liking.

There is one down side however:
If the multi view plugin is running other Xplane instances running networked recognize the one runing multi-view as a PRO version even if you started from the home version CD! So if you use the multi view plugin you need PRO dongles on all your networked Xplane instances to prevent errors and Xplane from shutting down.
If you use only a single X-plane then thats no issue.

Cheers
Phillip

[xplanematt]

Thanks for the explanation, that makes much more sense now! Well, the Fly-Elise guys are indeed doing some impressive stuff, especially with the multiple OpenGL views....good showcase of what can be done with X-Plane's SDK and its OpenGL loop! It's too bad they don't have a Linux version.....their software is obviously very capable, and the price is extremely reasonable. But, I refuse to ever go back to Windows.

Interesting what you say about X-Plane's instructor console. I have not tried it, but I was considering it for my Sabreliner. Perhaps I will just keep my "instructor" PC as a normal cockpit/outside view.

So you are saying Fly-Elise makes the X-Plane installation appear to be a "PRO" version? Hmmm, interesting........

The reason I was suggesting making all your outside window displays "slave" is twofold: first, you free up your render PCs from any extra workload related to your plugins, extra software, etc. Second, the pilot(s) won't see you clicking around and configuring the next doomsday systems failure scenario. :) I don't have my current sim configured this way, but I will be going this route on the Sabreliner. I have only experimented with it a bit, but I think it will make for a smoother and more professional looking rig.

How do you like the BFF force feedback setup? I'd run across the page before, looks interesting. My current plan is to use hydraulics for my force feedback, but brushless motors would be simpler and cleaner, as long as whatever system I choose gets away from the "bounce back" effect that is typical with electronic feedback systems (maybe going brushless helps with this).

[meatbomber]

The BFF System is very good with the recommendet motors and Ians controller and the correct gearing we made up to 80lb stick force! The adjustments need some experimenting but it's definitely worth it! If you are simulating a hydraulic system then it's much easier than our non hydraulic flight controls to adjust to get the control forces right. Ian is also very helpful when you have questions.

conclusion is I can definitely warmly recommend BFF force feedback :)

[xplanematt]

The real control system in the Sabreliner is not hydraulic, I was going to use hydraulic pressure to provide force feedback. I have "flown" hydraulic systems at Flight Safety and found them to provide impressive forces, but electric would be better if BFF has the force curves figured out (and assuming I can source suitable motors).

This might be something good to test with my current sim, which has been my testbed for a lot of stuff. :)

[meatbomber]

you can adjust the force curves with several factors from linear to exponential and also the "steepnes" etc etc. it`s really very good :) If the Skyvan has manual flight controls with push-pull tubes instead of cables and we where able to duplicate the control feel in the sim to a very high degree!

[meatbomber]

Rebuild !

After the Flying Season 2014 is slowly coming to a close we have started a MAJOR rebuild of the sim.

The architecture of teh sims system has changed slightly.
Now we have:

PC #1 Running
X-Plane master with all Inputs.
Sim Avio2 Instrument panel
BFF Force Feedback

PC #2
X-Plane Slave External Display only !
Fly Elise Immersive Display Pro -> Tripple head2Go -> 3 Beamers

The idea being that the Master X-plane only runs on miniumum settings to ensure stable FPS above 20 for our SASAL scripts of which some just go completely bonkers below 20FPS. Also to have a capability to run an Instructors station from an external screen while the main display inside the sim always keeps showing the outside world (Thanks Xplanematt for that suggestion it really makes MUCH more sense !
Hopefully the Display X-plane when having all the calculation intensive stuff offloaded will give us a slightly better performance than before.

All teh Russcool goodies finally arrived, So major rebuild of the instrument panel now with Bezels for:
Aspen PFD1000
Garmin 530
Garmin 430

General cleanup of cables etc.

we also rebuilt the whole Control Loading system. The Rudder got a 2 stage drive to increase available rudder force by 3,75. The Elevator and aileron got all teh slop worked out of their systems, and we made a new actuation of all the position feedback potis (flight controls and trim) that maximize poti travel to nearly the full 270° and with this resolution.

Lots and lots of work to go :D

[meatbomber]

Just finished a 1 week full time sim programming and flight model tweaking session with James our LUA and xplane plane maker wiz :)

what code we had on the engine just got a lot better :)
We also adjusted the propeller drag, inertia , airplane total drag, fixed elevator response and more. Where ever we had something that was indicating what a Skyvan should indicate when you made a snapshot, now all the responses on the gauges a no from the flight model are pretty much spot on.
Really stoked on the success of this weeks work.
9755975697579758

[meatbomber]

Some quick update:

A quick look around, nevermind the racket in the background all our sound is in the headset ;)

http://youtu.be/WuOxGxPH1j4

and a takeoff:
http://youtu.be/3S76oJUlwr8

90% done still 99% to be done I think every builder can relate to that..

cheers
MB

[meatbomber]

Had a freind over with a proper wide angle lense and got some beauty shots of the sim done :)

The sim`s been in use for a good 100hrs this year already, so too much flying not enough improving.. got the next programming session planned ion 2 weeks.
http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=10583&stc=1http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=10584&stc=1http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=10585&stc=1http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=10586&stc=1

[meatbomber]

Pragolet.cz 3DOF motion platform arrived :)

[meatbomber]

Lots of Updates to the Cockpit lately!
We are finally getting to building installing and interfacing all the Servo Driven Gauges and also Annunciators and other lamps like firewarning that have been missing.

Already built and interfaced:
Servo Driven Volt Gauges 2ea
Break Pressure Gauge 2ea
Hydraulic Main System Pressure 1ea
Hydraulic Emergency System Pressure 1ea

In Progress:
Magnetic Indicators for Cross couple and Engine Intake anti ice 3ea
Servo Driven Amp gauges 2ea
Flap Indicator 1ea
Servo driven Fire Fuse 2ea

Lights
Firewarning Lamp in Firextuinguisher Buttons 2ea done, Repeater annunciator for Low Oil PX and Firewarning at feather handle location done :)

Also James our programming genius has written a python client for EXTPlane Plugin, which is synchronizing datarefs that are not being sent from the X-plane Master to the X-plane display, so now we can actually see if a propeller is feathered or not and see the unfeathering etc. Also this enables us to display skydivers (right now just boxes on parachutes) we are dropping so after the drop you can check your spotting from the cockpit windows !

Graphics for Cowl and props are prototypes and not yez finished, we still need to place them so to be optically at teh correct place when sitting in teh pilots seat and then also fix the textures.

This represents a major step in cockpit realism, as we now can do the whole procedure flow and never look at something thats not there or not working!

[xplanematt]

Great looking panel there, I'm looking forward to seeing it installed. I like your skydiver idea. :)

Matt

[meatbomber]

Lots of things happening with our Shed :)

We did a Major Performance Upgrade with Our Display Machine.
it`s now got a Geforce Titan X 12GB VRam Graphics Card and 32GB System RAM.
This enables us to run our Beamers now in Native 1920 x 1080 Resolution, which improves the picture quality drastically. At the same time X-planes perforance went up right across the Board! Initially the Frame Rate didnt go up at all it seemed or rather it went up but just a bit. from 20-22 to 25-28FPS but then i found that i could increase a lot of paramaters and the FPS never went down :D and also in flight where FPS around clouds went sometimes down to 15and less we now aways run the nice 24 plus. SO happy Camper here!

We also got The MIP Improved with Panel lighting, all the required placards etc.
Finally got all the Lights Interfaced.

We also gained some realism by installing a speed controller onto our tiller drive, so we can now controll tiller speed according to hydraulic pressure, CG location etc :)

And last but not least, Motion!
The Pragolet 3DOF Motion Platform is installed and interfaced, the motion still needs some tuning and we need to make some improvements to our cabin to display mounting (there is some movement that shouldnt be there now). will report more as we gain experience with it.