Wiring to Phidgets

[Peter Nielsen]

Hi, A couple of months ago, we had 2 or 3 exchanges of mails relating to getting me up to speed on how to wire the various switches in a 737 overhead.

Since then I have been busy with work and little time to “play”

But I have now picked up again, and am still as lost as before.

1. LED’s I have soldered all these ok and am about to interface them to the LED64 Phidget cards and PM system, so this seems easy (only concern is that I see some builders are using resistors and others are not. Are these needed?

1. Switches, here I am very confused and concerned, I have downloaded and looked at various manuals, incl the ones on the www.flyengravity.com and http://www.ng737sim.nl/ sites and I am not closer to deciphering as before.

·Am I right I saying that all the switches should be linked up in series with 1 (one cable) acting as a common ground?
·Why on the tutorial of http://www.ng737sim.nl/ is the good man wiring one switch to different Phidget Cards?
·How does one decide which poles needs to be soldered on a rotary?
·Which wire goes where on a 2 pole switch?
·Same on a 6 pole switch?

I have searched high and low all over but can’t find any “explanation for the dumb” on how to get this going?

Is there any way you could just give me 1 example on one particular switch and rotary and then I should see the light! (I hope)

Tks
Peter

[Bob Reed]

Hi Peter. Answer to your first question. No...Phidgets does not use resistors. Your question on the switches is a little more complex and a lot depends on what interface you are using. So a little more information please....

[Peter Nielsen]

Hi Bob,

Tks for the info on the LED's gg!

The interface is the 16 in/out Phidget card to PM systems

Peter

[Bob Reed]

Ahhh. OK someone else will have to jump in here as I have not used that card. I have used the LED64 card but thats it for Phidgets! And just a little side note.. I will use those led cards on my sim as well. Liked how they worked!

[ekezz]

Since I have been working on Mycockpit.org for some time, I have not touched my Phidgets for a while. But they are waiting for me there and maybe your questions will get me going again.

The two switches/two poles each I have wired direct to Phidgets (and PM) are the Fuel Cutoff Levers. Here is what I did.

I have a 12 volt power supply
+ red positive
- black negative

The black is simple, it goes to the G (ground) on the Phidget board

Actually the red is equally simple. It's goes like a serial chain to the center poles of each Fuel Cutoff Lever Switch.
+ Red to center pole of switch 1, and from there it continues to center pole of switch 2 (in my case it ends there, but you could make it continue on to a next switch.

Now the "hard part"
A seperate wire goes from the remaining pole on the switch 1 to connection 0 on the Phidget board.
Another seperate wire goes from the remaining pole on the switch 2 to connection 1 on the Phidget board.

When the switch is open (off) it will have value 0
Once the switch closes the circuit (on) it will have value 1
All you need to do is to edit the file phidgets.txt in the PM systems directory and look for the Digital Input entries like
12763 DI00
12763 DI01
Now add the variable name for the Fuel Cutoff Levers behind the corresponding DI number to match the Phidget terminal number where you connected the wire. In this case it should be enough as it is a simple on/off switch.

Hope this gets you going.
Next is to try a rotary, haven't been there myself yet, because I also use the CPflight MIP board (in combination with MCP) and here all I have to do is connect the wires to the terminals as described in the manual. Very simple, no programming required. But if you like we can try to wire the APU start switch next, or the ENG start rotary...

[Olympic260]

This also might help


// Device Serial# 4180---------------------------

// Digital Inputs (DI) ---------
// [DeviceSerial] DIXX [VariableName]
// [DeviceSerial] DIXX [VariableName] INV // Inverts 1 = off, 0 = on
// [DeviceSerial] DIXX [VariableName] MOM // Momentary Switches
// [DeviceSerial] DIXX [VariableName] 5 // sets value 5 when on, 0 when off
// [DeviceSerial] DIXX [VariableName] 1 2 // sets value 1 when on, to 2 when
off
// [DeviceSerial] DIXX [VariableName] 1 - // sets value 1 when on, does
nothing when off
// e.g.: 1234 DI05 batt1 1 0
// 1234 DI07 selector 1 0
// 1234 DI08 selector 2 -
// 1234 DI09 selector 3 -
..................................................for 0/16/16


The only drawback for the phidjets is that are too expensive for only 16 inputs in my opinion.