Wiring up an overhead

[Drewsta]

Hey all, does anyone have a thread or tutorial on how to make, wire up an overhead panel, particularly for the 767?

Drewsta

[capetonian]

You could always do what I am doing for the 737. At a later stage we are going to go for a full size overhead but for now, as it is not at the top of the priority list so in the mean while we are building a 1/4 scale overhead.

1. Get a good quality image of the overhead you want to build, in your case a 767.

2. Print it and stick it on to a backing material, like a sheet of perspex or thin wood.

3. Drill holes for all the annunciators and switches.

4. Put in all the switches and push LEDS through the board from the rear for your annunciators, it is a lot easier to solder wires onto both the switches and annunciators before you push them through the board.

5. Once you've done that you can hook everything up to your I/O hardware, like for example OpenCockpits cards or FS Bus.

My thread and pics are HERE.

[Drewsta]

Thanks Capt I've already started that approach and will have it finished before too long. Any output card you would recommend other than Open cockpits?

Drewsta

[Steve A]

I have done mine the same using a leo bodnar bu0836x card. I'm not to sure about getting the led's to work though and obviously im limited to the amount of switches so i have only wired the essentials at the moment.

Its a brilliant idea for an interim overhead until things get more serious (and expensive) lol

[capetonian]

I have both cards and they are both excellent cards, but the OC card is more suited to an overhead because of it's inputs and outputs. I am going to be using a mixtyre of cards but my overhead will be an OC card (or two of them)