New Forum Survey: Homebrew Cockpits (see below)

[pete]

Hi all.

I have become interested in expanding the FS experience a little more toward a "total immersion" situation.

[blue1820]

Seems i saw the plans for this idea i think it was at flightsim.com someone had done this and i think it was around 1500$ and thats computer and all.cant be for certain on that price its been awhile since i read it.but it looked pretty good what he had a 2 seater two and with the 3d glasses would probley be a nice setup and yes i have thought about doing some thing like this i have the know how and the tools to get it done but the little lady would have a hissy fit if i tried to build something like that in the house :-/ but i guess i could convert my dog house into one

[Vchat20]

yeah. that does look nice. I would build one myself if I had the money. but if I read the above post correctly, he was planning on using multiple monitors for extra realism.

[blue1820]

But those 3d glasses would be cheaper and you would have the feeling of sitting in a real plane i would use the glasses at day time and with out glasses at night cause i am poor

[Smoke2much]

I would be interested John.  It is something that I have been considering for some time but due to current (and continuing) space constraints this is likely to remain in the "interest" stage for some time.

As a starter for ten I recently built my own set of rudder pedals for less than

[JBaymore]

Will,

The way this poll got moved around..... for a while I couldn't even FIND it  from the place I last left it .  But my glasses tend to caues me that problem too.

I would be interested in hearing more about your joystick to pedals conversion if you get the time.

As to my own project ideas...... I see about a year timetable to completion.... that is if it is ever really completed.  So this is not a fast thing by any means.  Right now it is in the planning stages and the research stages.

One thisng that I have found interesting in the research is that it appears that you can still do some interesting stuff using a cheap 10 Mbit / sec LAN with some pretty marginal low end machines driving parts of things.  Machines that a lot of people just dump or give away these days..... like a 300 to 500 M PII or III.

Anyway....... the cockpit idea for me will procees no matter whether the separate forum idea catches on or not.    I just thought it would be nice to gather all the messages and info in one neat "box".

Let's keep talking.

Oh... and I have a pretty neat "in flight emergency" situation that I have been working on since our last discussions on that subject.  It is an escalating situation that currently lasts about 10 minutes.  Still in development.

best,

..................john

[Scottler]

This has been done in quite some frequency, and, in fact, there's a webring dedicated to the homebuilt cockpit.

Or you could just go to www.projectmagenta.com

There are companies that produce equipment and replica pieces specifically for this journey.

Good luck!

[Deputy]

I thought I would offset the load a little, and just for fun, decided on "You are out of your mind"

Now, this isn't my real vote, my real vote goes to yes. I would like to possible explore the idea.

[blue1820]

I guess they deleated my links to the info i posted are they that scared of flightsim.com nither one makes any money off this information ole well.flightsim.com has some information on building rudder pedals and lots of info on this topic i wont bother with the adding links if there going to get deleated though.

[Smoke2much]

Yeah, it's taken me a while to find this as well.  Either the mods aren't telling each other what they've moved or the forum is acting up a bit.

That emergency sounds great John. I tried that download that took severl hours with broadband.  It converted half of my text to italian (?) and doesn't seem to have done anything to increase realism.  Oh well...

For a lot of the existing controls I believe all that is required is an old key board and some DIY skills.

Let me explain.  Currently gear is mapped to the G key on my keyboard, If I was to build a switch /lever for my gear the electronic part that tells the flight sim what it is can come from a keyboard and be plugged in through the keyboard socket.

The various guages required are well outside my field of knowledge and my price range.

Will

[JBaymore]

Will,

Because of the homebrew cockpit idea..... I decided to pick up a full FSUIPC licence as well as a licence for WideFS (total about $35).... which allows you to run multiple PC's to hook up instrument gauges on discrete screens as what they call a "glass cockpit".  That led me to want to write the code to create some of my own custom instruments for those stand alone PC's (those "gauges" operate as stand alone programs accessing current inflight FS data via WideFS and FSUIPC).  So I also downloaded the FSUIPC SDK.  

THAT was a real find and an interesting read!!!!!!!!  BTW..... you can download that SDK for free from the Dowson site and check it out.

Anyway..... going back to our prior discussions about inflight emergencies... from reading the FSUIPC SDK, I gathered that there appears to be some ways using FSUIPC to both read and also WRITE TO data coming from FS2004.  So my visual effects file that I am developing using the "I" (smoke) key should be able to be triggered from a VERY short background VB program that is reading variables of choice (what causes the scenario) from the FSUIPC data stream and then start the scenario happening by writing the "I" keppress.

So this emergeency file might get more elaborate.  But take more time to do also  >:(.

So.... I'm just starting to plan the layout of my "cockpit" simulator.  I think it will be a generic "large jet"....... two or four engine.  Not a specific attempt to copy a specific plane.  The temptation is there to make a "fighter" cockpit....... but I don't really fly those often at all.    

Likely I will just model the left seat side up to about centerline just to the right of the center console...... going to the full width takes lots of space plus about double the controls (and double the eventual $$$$).  Plus to be realistic you'd have to "link" the flight controls.... tough to do.

Right now my favorite plane to fly is the BAe 146-200..... and that might end up being the basic model that I work off of for the layout.  I have a lot of data already on it.....and use the great model by Jon Murchison.

So..... I'll keep you posted on the effects stuff.  

best,

..................john

[JBaymore]

Will,

Forgot to add something on the "glass cockpit" thing using FSUIPC and WideFS......

The extra computers "driving" the monitors that simulate the aircraft gauges don't have to be much of a machine at all.  They don't need a mouse, keyboard, sound, and so on.  Just a monitor, a basic VGA display card, and something like a PII or PIII running about 200-300 Mhz.  

Around here such machines are thrown out.  So the three or four extra computers that this might take to set up the cockpit that SOUNDS like an absurd expense...... will cost me little to nothing.   I already have two of the four that I expect that I will need fopr what I am planning hanging out in my closet collecting dust .

I'll think of it as cleaning out the attic  ;D.

best,

............john

[Smoke2much]

It's all beggining to sound quite interesting.  Sadly I won't have the space to do this for a few years at least.

Keep us up to date tho'

Will

[JBaymore]

Will,

I will keep you posted on both the special effects stuff...... and on the homebrew cockpit developments.

Hey... check out the fighter cockpit that this guy built...... it is at his http://members.tripod.com/fcsimulator/ address.  Pretty realistic looking....plus a hydraulic canopy.  ;)   He's using the "glass cockpit" idea for some of his gauges in that one.

Just got the FSUIPC and WideFS licences installed and running on the home network correctly, and downloaded some freeware instrumentation stand alone gauge programs (sort of like those from Project Magenta ....but not payware).

They work GREAT so far!  This "glass" idea makes some things pretty simple.

So now in testing here, on a separate monitor on another (cheap) 300 Mhz PII PC, I can see any one of a number of complex guages running there.  And that gauge shown there meshes precisely in real time with the gauges in the default aircraft showing in FS2004.  Appears to be absolutely NO hit on framerates at all.

Just flew most of an instrument approach using ONLY the instruments shown on the OTHER PC screens (not looking at the FS2004 screen at all)........... and it worked great.  And that gauge is LARGE.... no more squinting at the regular screen when this is all set up.  On the FS2004 screen, the attitude indicator gauge might be 1 1/2" tall...... on the other monitor it is something like 9" tall.

So from the ease of this setup so far with the network and data exchange program...... I can see this happening for real.  It will be FAR easier in some aspects than I though initially.  And thanks for the keyboard hack idea.  I was thinking along those lines already..... but your suggestion helped to keep me on track with it.


best,

.....................john


PS:  It is amazing that this topic and poll can have about 114 views at this point....... and only 12 people bother ed to vote any preference.  I am assuming so far from that ... that there is not too much interest here in this idea.  Oh well.  Thought it would be a good addition to SimV..... so folks would not have to rely on info elsewhere.

[Smoke2much]

I think a lot of the time guests look and get logged plus you get logged every time you look in.  Three people writing 12 replies (four each) would log at least 8 views each for 24.  add to this the other 9 voters and you have 33 views of the thread and so it goes...

Glad the hacked keyboard helps, I'm full of ideas just empty of ways to make it work.  What you are doing with extra monitors and PC's sounds good but in a small flat I have barely enough room for one PC.  As I say I will keep watching and learning and when I have the space I will start my own development.

Will