First time builder - General Questions

[Aniol1349]

Hey Everyone,


I’m very much new to cockpit building and I would like to ask few questions to clarify my initial uncertainties. I hope someone will have the patience to answer them.

1. Windows, Mac or both - My main question here is are there any major obstacles using OS X? My main pc at the moment is Macbook Pro Retina 15” 2014. I also have low-med spec windows desktop which I want to use for my instrumentation panel, the Mac will be my master running the scenery. The problem I have at the moment is that my slave displays the instruments but I can’t control them from the slave Pc. Is there a way around this?
2. X-Plane vs FSX/P3D - I really would like to stick to X-Plane but are there any major advantages to FSX over X-Plane?
3. Are any particular aircrafts better to build around than others? I fly a Carenado Beech Bonanza with reality expansion pack, and this is the panel I would like to build.
4. So I want to get myself a USB I/O interface to start experimenting with switches and pots for the panel. What would be the easiest to implement with X-Plane giving the widest range of Inputs?
5. I’m a complete newbie when comes to programming, can anyone point me where should I start getting into it? What software is used to communicate X-Plane and the outside world?
6. How do you make for example flipping a switch to trigger a panel light or to engage something in the analog domain?
7. What are the the sim output options? I know some people put a big LCD screen to display all the gauges. I guess this is the easiest way to do it. What if I would like to display them separately? Is there a way to still use the LCD and move the gauges around to display them in the appropriate cut-outs? Then what about the pots for the heading and altimeter etc. How can they be used having a screen behind the panel?

This should be enough for now.


I appreciate any help!

[Atomic_Sheep]

The more challenging aspect is getting the buttons and knobs to work. To do that you need to interface these buttons and knobs through cards like leo bodtnar (spelling?) or opencockpits.

I'm still in the early stages of building my cockpit so that's all i can say.

In terms of which cockpit to build, it really depends. Anything with "steam" gauges is harder to build than simply displaying a gauge on an lcd. The difficulty with lcd display will be wiring a program to display these gauges which means you need to learn programming which takes years. So the quicker alternative is to buy of the shelf stuff both for steam gauges and for lcd ones.

To learn programming Google sites that teach programming. Depends which language you want to learn.

Haven't answered a lot of what you asked but basically building a sim requires many years of development and research on your behalf.

Start googling and searching this site for a start.

Good luck.

[Xpendable]

The choice of simulator probably doesn't matter that much. I used to use FSX for years but when X-Plane 10 came out, I jumped ship and haven't regretted it since. But honestly, they will both do the job. I would also recommend looking at Air Manager for Sim Innovations. It's a relatively cheap way to get instruments and it has tons of ready-made instruments, plus you can create your own with the software. It also happens to work with both FSX and X-Plane. For buttons and switches, there's a great many ways you can do it. I'm a big fan of Arduino microcontrollers but they may not be the easiest thing if you've never programmed before.

[Aniol1349]

thanks for the replies guys!

I'm leaning towards GA - perhaps something like http://www.ontheglideslope.net/in-the-sim/
I think the most convenient way to get the gauges would be an iPad with the Air Manager.
For the switches etc. I can use the Leo Bodnar cards. This will sort out my inputs. I still don't really know how the sim would communicate with the outside world, do I need an output card?

what frustrates me about X-Plane is that I can't get the A2A Cessna and Orbx Scenery.

[Xpendable]

thanks for the replies guys!

I'm leaning towards GA - perhaps something like http://www.ontheglideslope.net/in-the-sim/
I think the most convenient way to get the gauges would be an iPad with the Air Manager.
For the switches etc. I can use the Leo Bodnar cards. This will sort out my inputs. I still don't really know how the sim would communicate with the outside world, do I need an output card?

what frustrates me about X-Plane is that I can't get the A2A Cessna and Orbx Scenery.

Ah, but take a look at the Airfoillabs Cessna 172S for x-plane. It is impressive and has features the A2A doesn't. I am a real pilot with 280 hours in 172R and 172S planes (the real ones!) and I can tell you that they are both the A2A and the Airfoillabs are good.

As for the Orbx, can't help you there. I was able to build my own scenery for my home Airport (3CK) using the out of the box world editor in xplane and it was fun and relatively easy. There are YouTube videos and tutorials that show you how. Also xplane can render every road there is out of the box.

The Leonardo micros register themselves as joysticks and keyboards if I am not mistaken. Should not be hard to interface them. If you want to get input and output from the sim then you could look at using FSUIPX for FS or the builtin network datagrams that xplane has out of the box. Programming required of course.