100% Mac X-plane 373 flight deck

[macisaac]

Thank you for the kind words. I do feel "out on my own" at times with this hobby, but I fully expected that from the start. I have thought about putting a website together, I want to get a little further in my build before that can happen. I just moved to the east coast to a suburb of Philadelphia called Delaware, so a lot has been put on hold. As far as I am concerned, all you need is X-Plane and a Mac! It's a fast and very stable platform running a simulator the puts the physics of flight and performance of objects the travel thru the air before eye candy. As your project starts to grow, you can add machines to your network, link them to your existing machine and gain displays or external views easily. Check out :
www.x-plane.org . Join up and check out the forums. If you haven't found it already. I use XHSI for my stand alone EFIS. The author is fantastic and has adapted his software to suit my pit. A real great community, like this one, to get involved with.

Usually, the only thing separating a PC from a Mac is a tiny bit of software. Hardware is hardware, and there is a lot out there that has been modified to work on a Mac. Almost all the Go-Flight modules will work, and Open cockpit has a plugin for x-plane (PC only) but we are working on that. As the potential for support and compatibility for MSFS gets left further behind when Microsoft updates their OS, It is nice to know that there is a very current and up to date simulator running on ALL platforms available today.

I am sure someone will have something to say to that, or remind me that 7% market share can't provide me with to tools and equipment to produce a realistic 737 experience. For me, I have enjoyed building from scratch, solving hardware problems and coming up with solutions where there were none, almost as much as flying the partial completed project. Its not the destination, but the journey.

Cheers

[macisaac]

Had a bit of a break thru over at x-plane.org today with getting data refs working with EFIS range and map selection controls. I built a new prototype EFIS using rotary switches and the Desktop Aviator 2160. No more rotary encoders! And we will have separate controls for pilot and co-pilot real soon. The software HSI is called XHSI it lays over top of a networked copy of X-Plane. I know it's a bit modern compared to the usual 737-300 HSI (the author based his off a 737NG) But with a little resizing and limiting the max range to 320, it should be a close enough.

Cheers

[goof2092]

Thank you very much. I have ordered the X-Plane DVDs, CH yoke and Saitek pedals. Hopefully that will get me into the first impressions. Will keenly follow your progress and learn along as I watch other threads for guidance.

Keep up the spirit.

[macisaac]

Well, I have been so busy building and flying, I thought it was time to post my progress. By the end of last summer I had found solutions for my HSI and PFD and outputting datarefs to LEDs I had an "almost" complete and operation overhead and have flown about 100 hours with outstanding results. So I figured it was time to tear it all down and build the big pieces.



I got my hands on a couple replica 737 yokes on ebay for a song. Built the columns from 3" steal pipe and shaped the elbows from 90 deg. 3" plastic pipe.



After a lot of experimentation, I was able to link the two yokes and have them operate smoothly.



I started to build the floor and get a feel for how much space this thing was going to take up. I design the floor to be in 4 sections for "easy" transportation. I really hope that day never comes.



My overhead is finally over head! The windshield is starting to take shape.



With the glare shield installed, I started to play around with gauges. It's starting to look like a cockpit!



I figured it would be easier to cut one large panel for the MIPs and then cut out all the unwanted bits.



A quick test of the projector. I am shooting onto a curved mirror that reflects back onto the curved screen. Doesn't look half bad, I plan to use 2 projectors and a Dual head to go, but for now, it works and I'm happy.



A close up of the almost complete radio bay with dual collins EFIS for separate cpt and fo control. I can only change modes on the transponder and not the numbers, I still have to use my go flight for that, but I love the 80's look in my bird.



Wired up my six packs and my master caution lights. The lights are real korry's that I grind down and made my own legend and sealed with epoxy. The six packs as well as every annunciator in my cockpit is a 1x3 Lego brick. Six of them glued together fit perfectly in a real glare shield and the price of Lego bricks are a lot cheaper that other options out there. Plus they are shiny on the inside and have bumps perfect for LEDs.



Starting to come together now.



I have added bezels to the altimeters that include a knob connected to an encoder for adjusting the pressure. For switch caps I use the little white rubber caps you put on the ends of closet organizer units. You can get a bag of about 50 for $10. Some more anti ice Legos are visible in the overhead.



And finally, I have just completed my 737's FMS and have it operation running on a mac. I bought a real Smiths FMC out of a Navy E-6A (rebuilt boeing from the late 80's) for $125. I gutted it and re mapped the keypad matrix to an old USB keyboard and with some key press re mapping and a new coat of boeing gray, I think it looks pretty good. I am running VasFMC 2.1 with the autopilot disabled and it works great. I no longer need to get online in the cockpit to check out weather or flight plans. With the addition of a soon to arrive psone screen, it will be complete and ready for installation in the old girl. So now I am up to 5 machines (six including the mac that is going to run the HUD, but thats still a work in progress) I have separate avionics for Captain and FO. Failure and warning feedback thru lights and indicators as well as OMI markers. And now I have a fully functional FMC for proper "adult" flying. All running 100% on Macintosh computers and X-Plane.

Cheers

[macisaac]

Made a flaps gauge out of a Teensy and servo. total cost, $36. Just one $16 Teensy can drive all the gauges in my overhead as well as the flaps gauge. I can finally fill those holes!

Cheers

[Matt Olieman]

Nice work!!! Nice to see the Mac at work and interfaced.

Please continue to keep us up to date

Matt Olieman

[737dragon]

Mac Isaac great job, you can publish the code?

[macisaac]

Sure!


#include <Servo.h>

Servo motor; // an RC Servo motor
FlightSimFloat FLAPRAT; // access to X-Plane's FLAPRAT
const int motorPin = 2;
int previousAnalog = -100;

// setup runs once, when Teensy boots.
//
void setup() {
motor.attach(motorPin);
FLAPRAT = XPlaneRef("sim/flightmodel/controls/flaprat");
FLAPRAT.onChange(viewFLAPRAT);
Serial.begin(9600);
Serial.println("FLAPRAT");
}

// loop runs repetitively, as long as Teensy is powered up
//
void loop() {
// normally the first step in loop() should update from X-Plane
FlightSim.update();
}

// When X-Plane changes the FLAPRAT....
//
void viewFLAPRAT(float val)
{
int angle = val *172.0 + 0.0;
motor.write(angle);
Serial.print("(X-Plane) FLAPRAT = ");
Serial.println(FLAPRAT);
}

The same code can be used to control about any gauge that there is float data ref for. Next is a cabin pressurization gauge.

Cheers

[macisaac]

I have been busy with the teensy++. I have been able to reproduce the cabin pressurization system for my 737-300. I have also started to take an old gables transponder and interface it to another teensy++. It is truly amazing what can be done with this little device. I am able to begin a flight and during the flight, I can unhook the device, connect it to another machine for modification and then return it to the cockpit for testing without interrupting the flight or relaunching x-plane. Setting up a device to reproduce a specific system seems to be a lot more reliable than assigning multiple input devises to handle functions from x-plane directly. I can program the cabin pressurization to tap directly into data refs from x-plane and communicate them back to the sim. This gives me more control over systems that x-plane normally would provide in the advanced buttons commands. For example, x-plane does not have a switch for APU bleed. But it does have a data ref for Bleed air provided by APU. I programed the teensy to detect the APU switch is on and send the Bleed air data ref to 4 (apu). I will include the related code once I clean it up, until then, here is a video. $50 for 1 x teensy++, 1 x dual needle cabin pressure gauge and 1 x cabin vvi gauge, 4 x toggle switches and a encoder.
Cheers

[goof2092]

Excellent!!! Well done and thanks for sharing. I just received 2 teensy boards and started experimenting with Paul's plugin. Very promising indeed. Please do share code whenever you can as some of us are not great with coding.