My display system

[Wendy]

Hello All,


Due to my (still not solved) problems with my OC cards, I decided to develop something myself. The purpose is to drive my radios and communication displays and the displays for my MCP. Credit goes also to U.A. (nobody from the forum) who extended the microprocessor code to do this.

It is based on a microprocessor that receives data from a host application that runs on a normal pc. The host application talks to FSUIPC and transmits the received data to the microprocessor. Microprocessor and pc are connected through USB. The microprocessor can drive up to 6 displays (currently), each can have 1 to 6 digits. More than one microprocessor can be connected to one pc. In the host application I simply set the FSUIPC offset to use and also the display (1 through 6) where the data has to be displayed. And that's it.

I'm working to make the driver board aproximately the same size as a 6 digit display board. The driver board houses only 4 components; chip, one resistor, one small elco and one capacitor. And most of all, the wiring on the radios is becoming very simple, only 3 wires are needed and two wires for the power. Up to 6 driver boards can be daisy chained with 3 wires.

Still need to work out some details, making it more flexible in the microprocessor code and the host application. But these are minor things.

Working on this little project was fun and I got lots of nice ideas which I'm going to share with you when the time is right and I have all the answers. I'm not going into detail here, be patient, wait and see.

Time to show you some pictures...

In the first drawing you can see how I'm going to arrange the different display boards and driver boards.

The second picture shows my setup on breadboard with the OC display boards on the left displaying different values, on the right top, my prototype driver board ( still to big).


So now I'm curious to find out what you think of this.


Kind regards, Wendy

[wannabeaflyer]

Thats impresive stuff wendy hope the guys at opencockpits sort your board out , they do great bang for bucks products just a wee shame about tech info in english ... Most of the tech stuff is there on there website but sifting through and the fact that sometimes the answer is in spanish makes life a little harder , But in saying that they still do great stuff, so hang in there i have a feeling there will be a lot of eyes watching this space LOL:- and all for the right reasons

[autocadplease]

Good stuff, Wendy. Keep us posted.

[Wendy]

I'll keep you all informed.


Regards Wendy

[verticallimit]

Hi Wendy

It is exciting news.
And it is as simple as you type, so it is good news for us simulator builders

Will there sometime in the future be hardware for encoder and other inputs?

Keep up the good work.

[Wendy]

Hello Verticallimit,

The processor I'm using now has some inputs/outputs left, so those can be used for example to switch the frequencies on Nav and Radios. For the moment I have not yet any idea how to let the encoders work on the microprocessor, maybe in the future. In my radios setup I'm going to use Leo's card for the encoders, that's very easy.

There is still a lot of potential in the use of microprocessors for our simulators, so after this project I'm going to tackle my next idea. I'll keep it a secret till ...


Regards, Wendy

[HoustonFirefox]

Wendy, the 10-foot view looks like your using an Arduino microprocessor board and the ISP communications (3 wire). I've been thinking of doing this myself with an Arduino 128Mega to drive a MCP but haven't had time do to work constraints.

Depending on how many inputs you have left, handling the rotary encoders should be a snap as they are commonly used with these processors. Just google around a bit and you'll find them.

What boards are you using for the displays?

[Wendy]

Hi HoustonFireFox,

I am not using the Arduino but a 16-bit microcontroller from Renesas. The communication between the displays is done with SPI, Serial Peripheral Interface.

For now the rotary encoders are connected to a BU386X but it is definitely an option as many in/outs are free, however I do have to do some searching how this can be done. Currently I'm going to use these in/outs for switches on the radios.

The display boards are standard ones from OpenCockpits. The driver board is my own design, but still has to change because it can be made much smaller.


Regards, Wendy