Real VSI+$40+1hour=Working real gauge!

[737NUT]

Hi all,
Well i wish it was all this easy but reality knows it isn't. Now this particular gauge was.

I bought for 24.95 off of ebay,looks unused and brand new!

Any way, if you look close, it is driven by a small dc motor and has a potentiometer for position feedback. Sound familiar??? SERVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Soooo, i took an old traxxes servo from an old rc car, desoldered the motor, cut off the pot. I then solder leads from the gauge motor to the servo pcb were the original motor was. Then i used a simple servo lead soldered to the pot in the gauge and simply plugged it into the legs of the pot that was cut off of the servo pcb. Then plugged the "new" servo into the OC servo board and a quick SIOC program. PRESTO!!! A perfectly working smooth as melted butter operating real 737 or 727 VSI gauge. This was way to easy! But cool none the less. See attached pics, any questions feel free to ask.

[twisted8]

good job!, no need to spend hundreds or know much about electronics when you can use OC cards, well done!

[BlackWidow]

Cool that looks awesome.

[Matt Olieman]

Nice job Rob!!!!! and the cost is fantastic

[737NUT]

Just to update, i have over 40hrs on this set-up now and it is still working flawless! Much better than the simkits set-up i had before. It always needed recalibrated. Next up is a servo altimeter.

[Geremy Britton]

That's amazing! ... will you interface mine if i send you it?
Even better, if you could create a more detailed tutorial for the tutorials area about exactly what you did.

Thanks for the post,

[737NUT]

That's amazing! ... will you interface mine if i send you it?
Even better, if you could create a more detailed tutorial for the tutorials area about exactly what you did.

Thanks for the post,

Sure, i can modify yours as long as it is a servo'd VSI. Thats the key to making it easy.