I have been using FSX on my laptop for years now mainly to brush up on instrument flying. Saw a couple of basic home cockpit setups in Delhi & Bangalore and was like "I am doing this all wrong!" :D
Inspired enough now to try building a small one!
Saitek has some amazing modular stuff that is great to start off with. But I want to keep the use of Saitek goodies to the bare minimum because it will put the project way out of budget. I realise it will be faster and easier and without any jugaad involved, but wheres the fun in that?
Going to do this in stages.
Phase 1: Basic cockpit with minimal switches.
Will build a basic cockpit box 48"x24"x8" (WxHxD) with 8mm ply except for the front fascia - no rounded edges to keep it simple. The front fascia will made out of 2mm ply with holes cutout for the basic instrument set and notches cut out for the radio/AP kit. something like this.
2 old ACER 21" monitors will be mounted behind the instrument cutouts. These 2 screens will run just the basic instrument layout on the C172 from behind the fascia. The rotary switches for the various bugs etc will be inop in this phase. The terrain & scenery will be rendered on a 42" Sony TV mounted behind the cockpit box.
For the Yoke i intend to get a Saitek Cessna Yoke with TPM unit as shown. This will be fixed below the cockpit panel.
For the Computer, I initially intend to use the Motherboard & processor of an old i5 box I have lying around. it runs FSX quite ok with Terrain settings set to medium which is fine to start off with. I will need 2 graphics cards though: one to run the 2 dashboard LCD's in 800x600 mode each and one more powerful card to run the Terrain & scenery. Think the i5 can handle the load? Power Supply will be 750W SMPS unit.
The Motherboard/SMPS will be fastened to the rear of the cockpit box and will be fully enclosed without the need for a separate cabinet. Upto 8 90cfm CPU gaming fans may be attached on the sides/rear of the unit for airflow/cooling.
With Phase 1: i should have a basic sim setup up and running. I will still be using the keyboard & mouse for radio & other fine tuning but otherwise a decent start.
Phase 2: Add switch box
Will add standard switch box beneath the cockpit fascia with the usual switches.
Need to figure out a way to get the switches to interact with the PC - need to make a circuit board that will be detected by the PC as an input device. Once that is done, can use FSUIPC to program FSX to assign these switches to various functions. The LED's for the Landing Lights are going to be trickier. Need to build surplus switch points on the board to support functions that will be added later (like Radio/GPS).
Phase 3: Radio Stack.
This is going to be fun to build! :) Once we have got the basic input board figured out in phase 1, this should be easy. Except here we need to drive 18 6x9segment displays as well.
Phase 4: GPS (Garmin 500).
This should be an interesting last phase - Building a GPS Garmin 500 module, again using the original INPUT board used in phase 1.
My friend uses a cheap Chinese tablet confiugured to run the GPS - not quite realstic but hey works very well! Not sure how the tablet interacts with FSX running on the PC. Need to figure it out. Streaming the GPS panel display to a 7" LCD is easy. Pragramming the buttons to interact with FSX is a questionmark.
Overall I think I should be able to execute Phase 1 in under INR50k considering I already have a i5 box and the 3 monitors. All i need is the Saitek Yoke+Rudder+TPM kit, double memory from 8 to 16 and some 8mm ply apart form incidentals.
2nd phase will be technical challenge. Have to figure out how to cract the input codes. Will Arduino help?
Ciao for now.
Inspired enough now to try building a small one!
Saitek has some amazing modular stuff that is great to start off with. But I want to keep the use of Saitek goodies to the bare minimum because it will put the project way out of budget. I realise it will be faster and easier and without any jugaad involved, but wheres the fun in that?
Going to do this in stages.
Phase 1: Basic cockpit with minimal switches.
Will build a basic cockpit box 48"x24"x8" (WxHxD) with 8mm ply except for the front fascia - no rounded edges to keep it simple. The front fascia will made out of 2mm ply with holes cutout for the basic instrument set and notches cut out for the radio/AP kit. something like this.
2 old ACER 21" monitors will be mounted behind the instrument cutouts. These 2 screens will run just the basic instrument layout on the C172 from behind the fascia. The rotary switches for the various bugs etc will be inop in this phase. The terrain & scenery will be rendered on a 42" Sony TV mounted behind the cockpit box.
For the Yoke i intend to get a Saitek Cessna Yoke with TPM unit as shown. This will be fixed below the cockpit panel.
For the Computer, I initially intend to use the Motherboard & processor of an old i5 box I have lying around. it runs FSX quite ok with Terrain settings set to medium which is fine to start off with. I will need 2 graphics cards though: one to run the 2 dashboard LCD's in 800x600 mode each and one more powerful card to run the Terrain & scenery. Think the i5 can handle the load? Power Supply will be 750W SMPS unit.
The Motherboard/SMPS will be fastened to the rear of the cockpit box and will be fully enclosed without the need for a separate cabinet. Upto 8 90cfm CPU gaming fans may be attached on the sides/rear of the unit for airflow/cooling.
With Phase 1: i should have a basic sim setup up and running. I will still be using the keyboard & mouse for radio & other fine tuning but otherwise a decent start.
Phase 2: Add switch box
Will add standard switch box beneath the cockpit fascia with the usual switches.
Phase 3: Radio Stack.
This is going to be fun to build! :) Once we have got the basic input board figured out in phase 1, this should be easy. Except here we need to drive 18 6x9segment displays as well.
Phase 4: GPS (Garmin 500).
This should be an interesting last phase - Building a GPS Garmin 500 module, again using the original INPUT board used in phase 1.
My friend uses a cheap Chinese tablet confiugured to run the GPS - not quite realstic but hey works very well! Not sure how the tablet interacts with FSX running on the PC. Need to figure it out. Streaming the GPS panel display to a 7" LCD is easy. Pragramming the buttons to interact with FSX is a questionmark.
Overall I think I should be able to execute Phase 1 in under INR50k considering I already have a i5 box and the 3 monitors. All i need is the Saitek Yoke+Rudder+TPM kit, double memory from 8 to 16 and some 8mm ply apart form incidentals.
2nd phase will be technical challenge. Have to figure out how to cract the input codes. Will Arduino help?
Ciao for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment