Wednesday, September 18, 2019

AFSD completed, pedals and future expansion

The AFDS has bene completed and connected to the MIP of CPFlight. Below a picture of the wiring and the integration in the actual system.






The old Logitech pedals had to be replaces and I choose the thrustmaster pendular rudder. This is a great product: very stable, soft and precise. A bit expansive bu very suggested.




The time to  build something more serious is coming: I have acquired a single seat cockpit that will install soon into a sauna (to create a closed environment). The sauna is being built those days.

The single seat is based on CPFlight hardware and includes the monitors for the display. It is also ready for adding the overhead.






Tuesday, February 19, 2019

AFDS progress, XP and MIP

AFSD and the MIP board


The AFD is progressing. Only electronics need to be connected to the CPFlight MIP board. I tested the used MIP bard that I bought long ago and it seems to work well. 


CPFlight MIP board

Next step is to connect LEDs and buttons of the AFDS to it.The CPFlight MIP output does not require a resistor that is already in the board; the output for LED is 2 volt (I measured 2.2).


AFDS: front side


AFDS: back side


LEDs are still missing. The midwest driver claims to work with CPFligh MIP.

New panels

Yesterday I also bought the panel for the landing gear from FlightSimulatorParts and the auto brake panel from CockpitSimParts. Both to be connected to the CPFlight MIP board. I do not know the panels from FlightSimulator parts but this landing panel seems interesting and includes the landing gear annunciators. Regarding the auto brake, I found only one suitable panel from CockpitSimParts that includes annunciators. There was one interesting alternative from OpenCockpits but the electronic is already connected and I am not sure if it is compatible with CPFlight requirements.

XPlane and P3D

To use the FlyEngravity CDU, I setup P3D with PMDG with an old driver I got long ago. It is very nice and it is really a pity that FlyEngravity support is so bad that they do not even reply to emails. Today I wrote them again offering to coding something myself. What I really like of this CDU is that it does not require a dedicated monitor connection.
I offered to write a driver for interfacing this CDU with PMDG and/or ZIBO 737 on XP if they provide me with enough info to control the CDU. It would be a win-win situation: I can use the device with my preferred add-on and they can claim compatibility with more add-ons instead of ProSim only. Let´s hope they reply.

Coming back to the simulators, the test with P3D has been disappointing: IMO XP is far long better than P3D nowadays. ZIBO 737 is a great product. People says that PMDG is simulated better but I don´t see much of a difference between the two.

So I have decided to use XP for the home cockpit. CPFlight to be connected with the midwest driver. For the other panels like the light panel, I will use the OpenCockpit boards and devices that I already have. OCUSBMapper allows to interface OpenCockpits to XP. 
Another problem is how to show the displays of the 737 in other monitors like ProSim easily allows to do. I found at least HXSI for that. From the HXSI forum, it seems that it is not yet 100% compatible with ZIBO displaying the route on the PFD. Let´s hope they fix that for the time when I will need it.

Friday, February 8, 2019

Resuming with the AFDS

Just back from one more year of work in South America and resuming the development of the home cockpit.

After so long the driver for using the CDU I bought from FlyEngravity with PMDG is still not available. I found one very old post in the FlyEngravity software claiming to as CPFlight support for that but they told me that they are not working on that anymore. FlyEngravity should clearly say that the CDU is not compatible with PMDG or provide a driver. In the mean time they should offer to reimburse people like me instead I sent already 2 emails and got no reply. I was even offering to develop a driver by myself.

I was exploring how the HC build wor changed in th epast years and found a lot of new technologies. Starting from the flight simulator, I personally think that XP is now great and prefer it to P3D under many aspects. However I am aware that building a HC in XP is not as easy as in P3D.
Another big change is the v2 of ProSim but it is crazy expansive for an hobby: apart of the initial cost of 1250€ there is an additional fee of about 100€ er year. It is a big prize but all the community agrees that it is invaluable to build a serious HC.

I bought few panels from CockpitSimParts: the light panel and AFDS. I am starting to assemble the AFDS that would interface with the CPFlight MIP card to the flight simulator.

This is picture of the AFDS at the beginning of the assembly:


There is a good video on youtube expaling how to mount it: https://youtu.be/_osipzJYliw

The panels seems very solid and good quality: I am evaluating CockpitSimParts for the entire MIP panel. The AFDS was not that expansive either.