Some progress videos of my Cessna 172 sim

[Xpendable]

I have created all of my instruments from scratch (except for the OAT) using Air Manager 2.1 Beta. All the graphics and LUA scripting have been done by me.

Testing the annunciator panel (work in progress):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzEgNProkmc

Showing all the gauges working:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMy6bUi89mE

[steveteva]

Great video and is your annunciator an electronic part rather than monitor display? Also your C172 really looks like mine. There are some dents on your gauge holes (panel) looks like you were using a plywood, and that's what I do not recommend.

[Xpendable]

I know, it looks like crap doesn't it? It is actually 1/4" MDF. Used a hole saw on a hand drill and got it done sloppy. Hope to redo it eventually. The annunciators are part of the lcd panel although I have a lot of pcb and microcontroller experience and could build it in my sleep with an atmega32u4 micro or an arduino. I will be doing the encoders using an atmega and my own drivers. Already did a proof of concept for the radios driving a 16x2 lcd via i2c.

[Xpendable]

I recently became acquainted with a lab manager for a machine shop that is part of a school in the area. They have a CNC and a laser cutter. I was able to hire them inexpensively to laser cut Cessna 172R instrument panels out of 1/4" acrylic. I just got them today and they are awesome! I can't wait to paint and install them.

[steveteva]

Wow nice CNC acrylic panel, any new pictures? want to see more. What instruments are you using? Goflight?
How will you place the yoke, looks like it's cut in center of monitor (gauges)?

[No Longer Active]

Would of greatly gone against using 1/4" acrylic for an MIP for the Cessna, reason being, is that it will scratch easily, and will crack. If you mount any gauges and hardware into the cutouts and holes, and they are a tight fit, you risk cracking the acrylic, if you over tighten any screws etc this will also crack the acrylic. Clear acrylic is very dense and fragile as you will see with your panels, you have to be very careful with it and take the utmost care when working with the material. This is why the majority of sim builders and sim manufacturers for simulators (especially the Cesnna / GA type aircraft) use alloy, or sheet wood, and very rarely acrylic for the reasons stated above.

Your panel, does look amazing and laser cut parts always look stunning and sharp. I wish you the very best with your project, but just be VERY careful with the acrylic, any tightness when mounting parts, remove very carefully, and very carefully amend.

Good luck, all the best, thanks for sharing!

[Xpendable]

I am not really mounting hardware to the panel, though. As seen in the videos above, my instruments are all rendered on a 23" LCD display *behind* the acrylic. I'm very familiar with acrylic use as I've built animatronics using acrylic to mount the servos to. All hand-cut with self-drilled and self-tapped holes. The screws I will be using will for the most part be just for show and won't actually screw into anything. They will very short shafts (less than 1/4") and will likely be glued in place.

[steveteva]

Can someone tells me how to cut into acrylic panels without cnc? I did with a electric saw and result was awful.

I saw that you have tried both simplugins and air manager, can you tell me what did you like best and why. Thank you.

What are the shortcut to test the annunciator panel?

[BuzziBi]

I use jigsaw. The problem is that the blade gets hot. It can be fix by cooling with cold water. Nice if you can stand in a place where you can allow spillage. Add water hose on the glass.
Try different blades for best result.
Anyway, acrylic glass cracks easily, so it is best to use a long time and be careful. The same applies when to drill into the glass. Begin with a small drill bit and go up gradually to the desired size. For large holes, use hole saw and cooling saw with water.
Personally, I love this product, as it can be molded into anything, with heat and plastic welding (glue). Have a look at one of my projects.
http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/showthread.php?t=27394

[memorgan]

This is exactly what I am after, though I have no technical skills whatsoever, and so need the cheapest, easiest method to achieve this. I have decided to use Air Manager for the instruments, and have a second PC available, at the moments its running Plan G for FSX via network. I think I have figured out pretty much what I need to do, except for 2 things. How do I measure and cut the holes so they match hats on the screen behind it, and, What do I use for bezels? " simple things I think, but been looking for ages and cant get a decent answer for either.

[Xpendable]

So I downloaded the autocad drawing of the C172 panel from SimKits website in the downloads section. I printed that off and taped it to my 1/4" MDF panel. Would have been better if I used some spray adhesive and glued it down. I then used 3" and 2" hole saws in a drill and cut out each gauge hole by hand. Took probably an hour to do all of them. I spent a lot of time trying to find various cups and funnels to use their top rings as bezels and couldn't find anything that worked quite right. Earlier this summer when I was flying a real Cessna 172, I noticed that the round gauges don't have any exposed bezels. How I didn't notice that before, I don't know. But I got the acrylic panels made as shown above and I just painted the inside of the rings black. This is almost exactly what it would look like in the real plane, although they would be beveled inward in the real plane. Can't do that with a 2d laser cut, but who cares? It's close enough.