Recovery of RMI and Stand-by

The displays of the RMI and the STBY instruments of the MIP share the same screen of the upper EICAS. The gauges are drawn by ZHSI; the quality is pretty good. The only missing feature on the RMI was the orange flag when on VORs/ADFs when there is no signal but Duncan has been very kind to implement for me.

RMI and STBY were connected to a CPFlight card that is not produced anymore and for that reason it was not possible to conncet them to the MIP board and were unusable.
The card gets the inputs of the baro knob (button and encoder), the 5 buttons of the STDBY and the 2 knobs for selecting between ADFs and VORs. The card also has the LEDs for backlit of buttons and signs.
The idea to fix is to keep the card as it is because the components are drectly mounted on it and perfectly fits with the panel. I am pretty sure that if I buy a panel the measures will be different and it will not look nice once mounted in the frame.
`
These picture shows the front and rear view CPFlight panel with the STDBY-737 card once dismounted from the MIP.



With a multimeter I looked for the connections used by buttons, encoders, switches and when found I decided to cut the connection in the STDBY737 card and connect them directly to a LeoBodnar card. You can see in the following picture the soldering with the cable to connect to the LeoBodnar card.

I could not recover the rotaries to select between ADFs and VORs of the RMI. Probably my knowledge of electronic components is too limited.
All the other components work perfectly.
At the end I decided to use the + and - buttons of the STDBY to select ADFs/VORs. Not very realistic but it works and I do not need to change the light of the STBY gauge so I am not loosing anything.
XPlane see the LeoBodnar board as a joystick. It has been very easy to associate each push button and the rotary to the proper event with the XPlane menu of the joystick,
The LeoBdnar board need to be configured to recognize the knob but it has been very easy following the documentation and immediately recognized by XP.

I have not been able to light the LEDs  because could not really understand their connection in the CPF board. I will have to get back to them sooner or later as I suspect that it s only matter to find the proper connection to have them working. Ideally, I will connect the LEDs to a power supply so that they stay ON all the time but first I have to find how to do that!

In conclusion I recovered the panel and its full functionality with some trick. In particular the selection ADSs and VORs happens with the + and - buttons of the STDBY.
Backlight still pending.

Home cockpit software integration

The software setup consists of XPlane, Zibo 737, CPFlight midwest plugin, ZHSI and a rasperry Pi4.

I personally prefer XPlane over P3D and for sure do not want to spend the huge amount of money requested by ProSim that is not justified for non-professional use IMO. XP or P3D is a personal taste of course. I think that what XP gives out of the box is much better than what P3D offers; on top of that XP has a great number of tools and sceneries provided for free by passionate users while on P3D you have to pay for everything. 

In the past XP was a difficult environment for home cockpit builders but now the situation is very good and promise for improvements in the future. XP is easy to customize, upgrading does not require full reinstallation and most of HC tools are available for free.

The integration of the CPFlight hardware has been very easy thanks to the great midwest driver that supports the Zibo 737 natively. The driver is cheap and the support is very good; the installation is easy and intuitive. My radios, MIP and CDU worked immediately once connected.

CPFlight hardware  is, as I constantly repeat, very good even if a bit expansive. IMO the time saved using this hardware its look and feel and quality really pays off. During the integration I had few problems with power supply and finding the correct way to connect the components in daisy chain problems that have been solved with CPFlight support. In this respect that documentation is not good enough and should be improved a bit.

I add a 75 inch 4K Samsung TV for the main screen and connected the monitors on the MIP and the one of the CDU to my 980Ti graphic card. It has not been easy to find the proper configuration of the monitor cables as it depends on the graphic card. It supports up to 4 mnitors but no VGA socket while MIP monitors have VGA connectors. In the market exists converters from VGA to HDMI and DVI but not all of them work well. 

My NVidia card has only 4 Gb RAM; it runs with 4k resolution and all the other monitors but need 3jFPS to keep the frame rate under control.. This is very important while flying on VATSIM because it disconnects the sim if the frame rate drops below 20/second. The reason is that when the frame rate is below 20, XP slow the simulation down and other people on VATSIM sees big liners flying as slow as a Cessna does. Perfectly fine IMO to make the simulation more close to reality.

The TV fits perfectly in the wall of the sauna. I do not foresee to install monitors for lateral views but I admit it makes a big difference so I will probably review this decision in future. For such a big screen a resolution of 4K is mandatory so I had to trick a bit the configuration of XP to get a reasonable frame rate. Now I fly at 30 or more frames per second  and 3jFPS reduces the graphic details when the frame rate drops below 30.

To improve the frame rate I connected the upper and lower EICAS to Raspberry Pi4.

737 instrumentation is displayed in the MIP monitors with ZHSI bot the in the main computer and in the RPi4. A must for home cockpit builders. The CDU screen is managed by ZCDU. The content of the FMC can also by displayed in the monitor of the CDU with xPanels but it is a bit slow.

RPi4 supports 2 4K monitors and in my case they are used for the upper and lower EICAS and the stand-by instruments whose content is displayed by ZHSI. I am satisfied of the result but note that the refresh is a bit slow. For this reason I have delegated the RPi4 to the EICAS. The slowness is due to the default graphic driver of the RPi4: I know that there is a better driver but I was not able to let it work unless together with VLC. Now there are other linux distributions for Rpi4 like ubuntu and fedora core that could help.

It is a pity that Zibo does not allow to dis-anchor and move around the display of the instruments. ZHSI and ZCDU works well and they are very well supported. However ZHSI uses jfoenix java library that seems to be unsupported so it could be a critical tool in future.

Cockpit environment

I have decided to build the single cockpit into a sauna.

Pros:

• closed environment
• wood on walls where it is easy to attach/remove staff
• good sound quality

Cons:

• 3 monitors for lateral views does not fit in

During the construction I had to dig holes for the network and the power/ Network cable goes straight to the router.

The power cable goes in the power panel with a dedicated switch to power on/off the power inside it. This cable is dedicated to the simulator and all the devices. Another industrial switch is inside the sauna and must be switched on to startup all the devices and boot the computer.

Another cable bypasses the switch and it is used to have light and power while building and the main switch is shut off. 

Building the sauna. Holes for power and network.

The following picture shows the sauna after the building construction with the single seat cockpit moved into it but not yet connected. Power sockets are mostly behind the cockpit with dedicated switches so that it is possible power on/off individually or by logic area. The main switch is on the right side but not visible in this picture.

This picture clearly shows that there is enough room for the single seat but not enough for three monitors unless the 2 lateral ones are put at 90 degrees that I do not like.

The cockpit in the sauna

Temporarily I moved in the sauna the old little monitor I was using before.
Below you can see the single seat connected to it but not yet connected to all CPFlight devices.

A powerful light for working has been put in the other side and must be switched off during flight because it is too high and reflects on the monitor.

First connection

The single seat has 3 monitors but initially I could only connect 2 of them to the computer. In this picture I am setting up ZHSI.

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.

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.

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.

FlyEngravity CDU v.2

Together with CPFlight FMC and NAV2, I bought a FlyEngravity CDU v.2.
The product is quite expansive but does not need an additional display.

It has been shipped with a good packaging and once opened it lookd very solid and robust. The feedback of the switches is very good as well as the back light. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos..

The connection is very easy: it needs the power supply and a ethernet cable. The manual is pretty clear and the process quite easy (it took me around 5 minutes to have the CDU up and running).
However note that the network connection procedure described in the manual is not correct as it assigns a static IP number to the device regardless if it is connected to a DHCP as normally happens with modern modem/routers.

It is possible to assign the CDU a dynamic IP number even if the procedure is not described in the manual.
I suggest to assign a dynamic IP to the CDU. Then associate the device to a static IP in the DHCP server.

I am planning to use the device with PMDG 737 initially. Later n with ProSim.

FlyEngravity claims that a driver for PMDG will be available soo.

MCP backlit

The MCP and the CPT EFIS have been mounted into the wooden frame sitting below the monitor.
The quality of the product is impressive compared to the 10 years old RS232 model I was using before.
The picture below shows the MCP with backlit on.

I have mounted also the auto throttle off button and the T/O GA on the left side of the MCP.
The feedback of buttons, switches and toggles is worst the money I spent for this toy.

Insallation has been very easy as well. The picture has been taken while flying with P3D v2.5 and PMDG 737.

After many years I replaced the 2 old monitors with a new one, the BENQ B2711U 4K UHD 3840x2160 pixel with IPS tecnlogy. The quality is very good but have to reduce the screen resolution with my PC and graphic card that I will replace soon.

Project restarted

It is long time I am not updating this blog. In fact the project was on hold because I could not decide if it was the case to phase out FSX in favor of P3D or XPlane.
Finally I decided for P3D 2.x that is a great product from my point of view. Never ever had a crash till now.

I had also decided to develop the cockpit of a B737 instead of the 767. The reason is that 767 D has never been updated for years and is compatibility with P3D and new operating system is very limited. It is pity: I really loved that plane. I will get rid of the panels I built and sell the FMC.

I tried the PMDG 737 and B777 . Both are great products but the hardware available on the market offers much more for the 737. My plan at the present is to develop for the PMDG 737 and switch to ProSim when possible. I have tried ProSim demo and it is great but without a throttle is difficult to use. I have bought one for the 767 that will adapt to the 737 and it makes me closer to ProSim.

I still do not have enough space for the simulator and it limits my setup. But we are now actively looking for a new apartment so.. cross the finger.

In the mean time I have decided to renew my CPFlight MCP and EFIS devices and add the second NAV. All these parts arrived few days ago and I am now installing them. The MCP pro seems a very good. Unfortunately I have not yet tried on the simulator. The MCP has also few buttons more then the old 737 (speed and alt intervention for instance) and buttons commanded by a relays that disengage depending on the status of the plane. Look the picture below:

The A/T and the disengage buttons  will move to the OFF position autonomously depending on events from the simulator. Switches and buttons have a much better feeling then the old ones.
The MCP connects to the sim through a USB. As I said I have not yet installed the device but it seems that the device internally has a serial port and there is a intgrated converter serial to USB to interface with the computer.
I wish to report once more that CPFlight staff, Paolo for instance, are very kind and professional as usual. Their products are quite expansive but the quality and reliability is very good.

I am also going to replace the open cockpit FMC with a FlyEngravity one. It arrived at home at the beginning of this week and well be the topic of a another post.

Annunciators

After so long time looking for a easy way to implement annunciators, I believe I finally found something very interesting. I am talking of squares plastic boxes. The fit into the holes of the cards for soldering; in the middle go the LEDs and on top you can fit a strip with the written of the annunciator. Finally on top of that goes a protectiv plastic cap so that it is not possible to damage the written with the finger tips.
I fount them at conrad after a long search.
The first model has a transparent cap that for me is the best solution. You can find the with the ID number 705332. An image says much more:

The second model, 702237, has a diffusor on top i.e. it is not transparent:

They have a surface of around 1x1cm, maybe a little more (1 inch?). But I think they are good enough even if not perfect. Perfect for me would be 1x1,5.

Another interesting piece of hardware that I bough just for testing are momentary buttons with the surface coloured by 2 LEDs. The exists in greem (704423), in red (704415) and orange (704431) and yellow. About the same size of the annunciators:

I finally mounted the landing gear on the wooden frame. It is the biggest panel I have in mind so it will take a long time. I thin to place there the flaps (a rotary with annuciators and the gauge I bought from opencockpits), auto brakes, ILS and so one.
I also planned a littler panel having only a rotary for the APU with its 2 annunciators and the push button to communicate with cabin attendandts and ground services. Ok this last part is not very interesting to fly but it is used more often then other controls in the header panel. The other are just set on departure and turned OFF at the apron. I will use this panel to practice with the rotary before using severalof them in the other big panel.

I did not yet bought the gauges from flightillusion: I wrote a email but they never replied...

One word to must be said about my CPFlight MCP. After I upgraded the driver there are several problems. But I am in contact with the support for fixing. I have to say that CPFlight support is always very good. On the other hand I suspect to be the only using their products with the 767: it is something I have to keep in mind for the future.

Planning for new panels

First snow arrived last Saturday and that definitely means that this summer is gone and cold winter is arriving. And when this happen I start planning the new improvements for the home cockpit.

I am planning three panels right now but I have not yet decided their layout. One panel will go on top of the second monitor: there will be all the annunciators from the header panel and from the glare shield. They will be realized with OpenCockpi because it is very easy and fast. I have also noticed that the new version of LekSeeCon has improved a lot during the summer. In particular the part regarding the proximity warnings of the glare shield. The library now connects to FSUIPC too and there are new status bits that, according to Niko, make the behavior of annunciators more similar to the real 767. Current version is 9.2 and there are a lot of improvements and changes comparing to the 8.2 I have installed at home. So I have to upgrade as soon as possible.


Last winter I prepared the wooden frame to put the landing gear and other instruments but at the end I bought and installed the FMC from OpenCockpits and I am really satisfied of this device.
In the frame, I will install the landing gear and something else as I have free room there. The problem is that this panel goes just in front of the joy so it is not very easy to reach. Should I put there some gauge instead?

The third panel will go in the far left side aside of the main monitor. I want to put there some of the controls. For example flaps and brakes but maybe also the switches to communicate with the flight attendants and that to ask for the pushback. The layout is not decided yet, of course.

At this point I have to plan carefully what to put and where because my available space is finishing: I have to concentrate on the most important (i.e. most) used switches, leds and gauges. And for the same reason I have to plan all the panels at the same time even if I have to admit that the panel with the annuciators is almost stand alone and I can start working on that.

I have no room for installing more monitors but I could greatly improve the realism by installing gauges. I have found those produced by flightillusion quite interesting even if very expansive. There is a card to be connected to the PC with a US, the GA-55. It is possible to connect gauges to this card like for example the altimeter (GSA16) and the attitude indicator (GSA34),  and the Radio Magnetic Indicator (GSA-RMI-DME). Quite expansive I know but they seems really good and easy to interface with the simulator. To make the system good enough I would need also a vertical speed indicator.
Considering that I already bought the OpenCockpit gauges for the flaps and the digits and knobs for the ILS tuning, with this gauges and the panels I wish to build I could probably fly without keyboard and without the glareshield in the main monitor.

I started a survey with the hardware producers and I found a very interesting post in MyCockpit.org with a  List Of Third-Party Rudder Pedals, Yokes, TQs, etc... I put the link here as I think is a great reference for everybody.

10th flight simulator conference

I have been at the 10th flight simulator conference, held in Germany on saturday, March the 24th. Sorry if I am writing this report with a huge delay... 

The first report have been written in one of my posts in the VoloVirtuale forum so what you read below is more or less a plain translation from italian to english.

There were a lots of exhibitors and between them VATSIM, IVAO, AEROSOFT, Saitek, VRinsight just to name some of them. And there was also a lot of people, actually much more then I expected. The conference has been held inside the Deutsche Musuem of Aviation.

Aerosoft was selling all of its products and had a virtual cockpit that people could enjoy. The cockpit seems a real replica based on XPlane and having a big flat screen The queue for playing was really huge!

Also Saitek and VRInsight were present with a lot of products. VRInsight was offering an interesting 20% discount. But the most interesting things was to see and touch the hardware they produce.

VRInsight was selling a 737 header panel for 1600€ but to be honest I did not like so much because it looked like little game instead of a serious device for flying.

Very interesting instead the gadwet produced by Saitek for altutude, speed and so on... unfortunately I read some comment saying that suck widgets are very useful for the standard FS planes but less interesting for liners like the LevelD or PMDG. I still believe that they could help creating a good home cockpit in a short time.

Due to the lack of time, I followed only 2 talks: the presentation of XPlane and PMDG. 

Almost all the stands run XPlane, FSX was used in a very limited places while Prepare3D was absolutely missing.

XPlane

The first coming product is DC3 for the lovers of vintage planes.The graphic details of the cockpit and the interiors comes from around 6000 photos.

XPlane and his future developments have been presented in an interesting talk. The was a lot of people following the talk and they had a lot of questions. Unfortunately the talk was in german so I could understand only part of the presentation and almost nothing of the questions...

With XP10, Laminar tried to develop what they called a reasonable world not a 100% reproduction of the reality. 

In XP10 there are different type of roads like highways, one way, normal streets and so on. These different types come from OpenStreetMap. There are also different types of residential areas like cities, villages, industrial, business.

The autogen, the ATC, the rendering engine, the lighting and the textures have been rewritten or greatly imprioved from version 9. Actually, a lot of very amazing screenshots have been presented especially regarding the lighting system.

For the future, Laminar wants to focus on big liners that they called "High Fidelity Aircraft Addons" by adding FMS data (from Navigraph that at the present is the only one available), idraulic system, electric system, high resolution textures and visrtual cockpit.

Laminar XPlane 10 releases LFMN, ELDP, LPFR, EGLL, LFPO, EDDF. LSZH in collaboration with Aerosoft.

Apart of airports, XPlane 10 has severla new common objects avalable for scenery designers like hangars and water towers among the others.

PMDG

Randazzo presented the new products from PMDG in a 30 minutes talk with a great series of screenshots . His complete presentation, in english, is available in you tube.

The second product is the 777 . Randazzo showed the level of detail of the instrumentation that arrice to reproduce the dust of the original planes from which PMDG took the pictures..The cockpit of the 777 was turned off because the stem did not work 100% yet in fat, in the only active instrument, there were chinese chars that they don't know from where they come from.

Randazzo also announced that PMDG will develop a 747 whose release date is foreseen between 4 and 6 months after the 777.

Randazzo spent quite some time talking about the 737 'HUD. It is now widely used but was a real technological challenge for PMDG.

The selling of the MD11 was not as good as expected. People buys the plane that sees in the airport regarding if it is a good produt.

He believes that 'MD11 is a wonderful plane both in reality and simulated.

Randazzo reaffirmed that there is no interes in PMDG to develop airbus birds.

PMDG is developing a plane for XP but he did not tell us which one because they could change along the way depending on the diffuclties they have to afford. According to Randazzo, it is not a project to sell but to investigate XP potentiality and estimate the porting effort so it will not be a new product but the porting of an existing one.

Home cockpit builders were a little bit upset for the lack of SDk but it seems that PMDg is going to change its policy. Apparently, the SDK released by PMDG for the 737 are not good enough because the software houses found some glitches and functions not implemented as they should.

FMC installed - final review of the device

The FMC has four LEDs already connected on the grren board and the manual from OpenCockpits describes very well how they are wired.  The cables to light the LEDs are available in the 40 pins connector: the ground is common and there is one wire available for each of the four LEDs (However in the picture of the manual there is an error in the way the holes of the 40 pins connector are numbered....)

I preferred not to scrape the gumi of the cables but instead to put another thin cable in the hole before inserting the 40 pins connector in the socket.

Actually, I ended connecting in this way only the LED for the MSG and preferred to wire the EXEC in a different way. The reason is that for the EXEC I had to put a LED with a resistor and, at least for me, there is not enough space for that. I suggest to use a LED with a incorporated resistor for the EXEC. They costs a little bit more but for this specific case I think they are of a great help to reduce the cabling and the space needed for the resistor. I did 2 new holes in the board just below the black BRT pin, as you can see in the following picture of the rear side of the board:

There is enough room for one of the holes but for the second one it is a little bit risky.... As you can see at the bottom of the right big hole there are 2 little holes one close to the other. They are the holes supposed to to be used for this LED and that are wired in the 40 pins connector of the board. The reason I did not use them is because I need to mount the LED in the frame, then put the keys in place and only in the final step to close the box. I need the LED to be moveable and to be able to turn left and right the frame before closing. It might be that I am not skilled enough ;-)

Note that the LED must be connected to a master card or to an output card to be lighted because the FMC as an OpenCockpits key card that has no output lines.

Pay special attention to the position of the keys because is very boring to dismantle the device only for that.  And pay attention to the keys also. Each key is composed of two parts: the black upper side with the engraved letter and a transparent squared frame at the bottom. They are simply glued and in my case the glue went banana on its own and I had to fix the pieces again... I hope these pieces are glued well because it is a lot of time to dismantle the device, glue and remount!

I put the FMC into a box. The cable run out of the box from the bottom. The box itself has been fixed on the left side of the monitor. As I said, unfortunately I have no room to build a pedestal. The following picture shows the FMC in its final position:

Theis shows part of the cockpit during a flight:

And the last one shows the FMC during a flight:

As you can see the quality of the image is quite good and the written are placed exactly in front of the left and right keys. Some light comes out of the upper side I have to better seal the frame): it is produced by the screen of the FMC.

Flying a liner with the FMC improves the feeling of the reality so I really suggest you to have one in your home cockpit. The feeling of the OpenCockpits one is quite good. I mean the screen is very good and if I press a key the reaction time is very good.

But is is not perfect. As I said the glue of one of the keys failed without having done anything. The keys are too loose; this is not a problem normally unless you mount the device in a vertical position as I did.

Very good to have the lines to connect the LEDs but why are they in the 40 pins connector together with all the other wires? It would be better to have a dedicated connector considering that they must be connected to an external board.

Finally a couple of words about the missing EXEC LED. IMO the other LEDs are not very important. In the 767LD for example there is an annunciator in the cockpit showing that there is a message in the FMC. But the EXEC LED is really important because it is used very often and it is the only way to know that the FMC is waiting for you to press the relative key. 

I consider a big lack the absence of such LED. I appreciate the wiring in the board (even if I preferred not to use).. But where one is supposed to put the LED? And IMO it is very complicated to wire....

Why don't have the LED in the place of the BRT black pin? It is a fake and useles... The best solution would be to have the LED incorporated in the key of course...

We must take into account have to consider the price that is very low compared with other similar devices on the market. 

OpenCockpits FMC

Few days ago I received the FMC from OpenCokpits and I am going to write down here my first impression.

The box was very well sealed and the FMC was packed with soft paper to protect from damages. 

When I saw the new toy I was surprised to find it much bigger then expected. The upper panel is 100% plastic and the keys move slightly in their holes. To be honest the first impression was not good. It really looks like a cheap toy for kids.

The sides of the FMC are not covered and show the electronics that drive the FMC. The bottom side, showed in the next picture has a connector for the power supply, in yellow, and for the USB (in white). Note that the connector of the power supply offers a socket in the rear side (in black at the right of the yellow inlet) that can be used to back light the device. The black cable is for the TV out.

The lateral view: the display is on the right side; the rear side of the FMC is on the left of the picture.

The keyboard is fixed to the electronic by means of screws so it is quite easy to remove the upper side and check how the keyboard is done internally.

The keys are simply put on top of micro switches and three brown plastics frames, one on top of the other, hold them in position. That's the reason why they moves slightly. However pressing the keys is smooth and they emit a nice sound of click.

There are 4 LEDS, 2 on the left side (on top in the picture) and 2 white at the right side (better visible in the next picture). They correspond to the 4 alerts that the FCM can show during a fly. I am particularly interested in the led on the right upper side of the device that lights when the FMC shows a message.

The EXEC button instead has no light and that's really a pity because we need that otherwise we have to remember when the FMC expects us to press EXEC. There is also no available place to fix a LED in the EXEC button. What I plan to do is to remove the BRT black plastic of the mask and put a LED there. Note that the BRT does not work in this version and the black plastic item is simple a place holder. I took this idea looking at Nico's pedestal.

The following picture shows the keyboard of the FMC with 2 of the three frames in position on top of the keys. You can hardly see a hole in the plexiglass on the right side of the EXEC key. It corresponds to the BRT black plastic pin. It really seems to have been planned for housing the LED for the EXEC after removing the BRT pin.

Before closing the the device I removed the BRT pin. Now I need to find the best way to fit a LED there and also the way to light the for LEDS in the green board.

After looking at the inside of the device I changed my opinion. I think it is well done and ready for being back lighted. There is the place for the LED of the EXEC and four LEDS ready for being lighted.

What I completely miss is the documentation on how to turn on/off the LEDS. Are they available already or do I have to connect them by myself to the master card?

Lekseecon provides variable to light the MSG and the EXEC. And I will ask Nico how he configured his device.

The connection to the PC has been easier then I thought. To avoid problems I bought from opencockpits the VGA to video converter. I guess it was overpriced but at least it worked immediately.

I needed to add a new screen to my PC and I could use the onboard video device of my ASUS P67 pro. I set the screen resolution to 800x600 and started the 767LD.

It took me quite some time to position the window inside the new screen. I had to hack the panel.cfg to find the right parameters. The trick has been that to set the size of the widget as fixed and then the classical trial and error procedure. It took me quite some time but finally I had the green written in the display in the right position.

To test the device I had initially to move my SIOC from one single file to multiple files configuration. I splitted my config file in 2 files, one for the light panel and one for the master switch. It worked immediately.

Finally I added the FMC config file provided by lekseecon after setting the opencockit device in the SIOC config file.

Unbelievable it worked immediately with no intervention from my side. I really did not touch Nico's config file and everything worked in the first shot.

It is really great to interact with this device. It is smooth and I like the click when I press a button.

I will add more picture the next time I connect the device to the 767LD.

Now I need to connect and light the 2 LEDS I mentioned before and build a wooden frame to suite the device. I will hold it in the wall at the left side of my home cockpit. As I said I have no room to replicate a real 767 cockpit so for the time being I have to arrange the devices where I can.

Bought the FMC

It is a long time that I want to have a FMC for flying the 767 because the device is essential and one of the most used device during the simulation.

There are several items on sold from a pletora of producers. I started surveying the products long time ago and ended with 2 devices. One is the B747 FMC from FlyEngravity. It is quite expansive, at the present it costs aroubnd 1200€. It is fully compatible with the 767LD and easy to connect as it uses only one USB cable and a power connector.
The second interesting product is the OpenCockpits FMC  that costs around 350€ plus taxes.  It requires a USB connectr, a video out and the power. The problem is that I already have 2 monitors connected to me PC.

After a long time I decided for OpenCockpits FMC especially because I am afraid that the FlyEngravity one is too tight to the 767LD and FSX.
The market is in a transition phase right now. Flight seems not to be good enough for simmers. XPlane 10 seems quite interesting but sttill not supported by the software houses. Prepare3D is very interesting and expansive but I am afraid that LevelD will never port there the 767 or will do but only in a very far future. Sad to say but LevelD is very slow releasing products. They promised the 757 years ago and still nothing is moving. I asked the official forum about P3D and they replied that they are aware of this simulator. Difficult to say what it means exactly.

So, for the first time since long time, I am not anymore 100% sure to stay with the 767LD and FSX. This is the main reason I preferred the Opencockpits FMC. To be free of using it with other planes simply changing the SIOC script.
If I will switch to another plane, it will be a 737 because it is much more easier to find cockpit's stuff for that model. PMDG 737 seems very promising so it is worth to wait for its SDK. It will be compatible with my CPFlight modules that are designed for the 737 and I will customize my hardware for that plane.
In this moment, I believe that it is better to stay quiet and see what the software houses will do.

Having bought the OpenCockpits FMC, I need a video out connector. I am thinking to add a new graphic card to my PC. It could as well be USB. But I prefer to have the device at home and think better about the connector. I bought also the VGA to video converter sold by OpenCockpit. I believe that I can found a cheapest one on the market but I do not want to have problem for a connector if possible.

Given that the FMC was cheaper then the other (that I was very close to buy to be honest), I bought some other interesting stuff. Especially the flaps indicator. This is again for the 737 but I will customize for the 767. The number of flaps positions differs between the two planes.

I received the MCP from CPflight. They changed the knobs and returned the item in a very short time. I will never get tired to repeat that CPFlight support is quite good.
The MCP works well and I connected also the TOGA button but it seems useless unfortunately.
I upgraded the firmware to the last 3.05 version but I have a problem now. I have an out of memory when launching the connection to FSX. I have to restart the connection and seems ok apart that it does not iconize. Ok not a big deal! I warned the support just in case it is the symptom of an underlying problem that could arise while flying.

Unfortunately the power supply I built for the electronics stopped working yesterday. I discover that I can avoid a power supply if I take the power out of the USB expansion card. I will use that as a temporary solution but I believe that a separate power supply is better. And I will probably need it for the backlit of the FMC and maybe for the bar of leds of the landing gear.
On the other hand, if it works well then it is not the case to add the complexity of another power supply to the system...

Logitech G940 review

The device is very well packed and all the items have their envelope to protect from water and humidity. The box contains the pedals, the throttle, the joystick and the power supply.

Cabling is quite easy. The main device is the joystick that has the USB cable to connect to a free port of the PC. It has also 2 DSUB9 ports where the throttles and the pedals have to be connected. Cables are long enough at least for my setup. Close to these connectors there is also the connector for the power supply. Neither the DSUB9 not the power supply connectors have screws to lock the cable. I think that a device so expansive should have better connectors especially the DSUB should be different between pedals and throttles to avoid to connect a device to a wrong socket. The missing of the screws is also a lack for me. At least in my setup I will have to connect and disconnect the devices every time I flight so I am afraid the the connectors could brake with the time.

All the devices are plastic made but they lock very solid and heavy. The joy and the throttle device have holes that allow to screw them to the table. However they have gum below and never move even without locking. Pedals have gum below and some locking when used with carpet. They also never moved but I wonder why they do not have any locking mechanism that I find more useful for this device then for the others.

Installation proceed as usual: launch the setup of the CD and connect the device when requested. When the G940 is powered the buttons in the throttles lit up first in red then in green then off. The joystick wake up and the lever goes to the center. The software loads up a profile manager from which it is possible to select a specific profile for the flight simulator. Note that at the present there is no support to light the buttons of the throttle. It is a pity as it would be nice to have them working. I think for example to have red/green color for the landing gear and so on.

The profile manager resembles other profile manager like for example that of the saytek joystick. It is possible to select the device, a button of the device and then associate a key or a macro (i.e. a sequence of key to press). In the case of the Flight Simulator, the profiler shows a list of commands. Thrusting the default profile for flight simulator I started the sim and tested the device. I had to configure the axis from the controls tab of the simulator. Some of them has to be inverted, like the rudder, but it has been quite easy. I used one of the saved situation of the 767LD for that purpose so my sim started with the pane powered at the parking.

In my case this simple configuration did not work, The plane had the brakes always on and crashed during the taxi or was impossible to take off. I never understood the reason as there was nothing assigned to the brakes. I configured the pedals with the differential brakes and no assignation for the brakes (the dot of the keyboard) and nothing for the parking brakes. When I released/set the parking brakes everything seemed to work well but as soon as I touched and released the pedals the brakes engaged and was not possible to release. I spent quite some time with this issue but no solution. Another problem I noticed was related to the spoilers:: the lever moved constantly from released to around middle range.
After spending some hour, I gave up and get rid of the profiler by selecting an new, empty profile. I deleted all the assignation to the devices in the flight sim. and start from scratch. What is annoying in this phase is that in order to save the settings in the flight simulator you have to exit the program. It seems that FSX only saves the settings during shut down. Note that to get rid of all the assignation, I had to select the right device in the settings tab. SO the same operation had to be repeated for all the three devices. FSX assigned to each devices some command/axes by default. But this assignation is not clever enough so that there were more device controls assigned to the same axis or keyboard command. I guess this, together with the profiler settings, could have been the reason of the problems.
I resasigned all the axes and commands to the buttons as I liked and after that everything works well. However this operation has been very time consuming and for awhile a thought to have a problem in the G940 too.
The profiler has now an empty profile. I tried to assign some commands from the profiler but it does not work anymore. First when I select a button it does not offer the list of FSK commands as it was doing before. And even if I assign a command, nothing happens in the simulator. So I guess that now the link between the simulator and the profiler is broken. I also guess that there is a way to fix but I am not really interested as I think that the profiler is useless unless it allows me to do something I can't achieve with the setting of the simulator that is not the case.

G940 is plenty of joysticks and buttons, hats and sliders and all of them easily configurable with FSX. In my case I used only controls for the landing gear, flaps, trim, one to engage the spoilers for landing and a hat for the view in 3D cockpit. So in my case there are more controls then what I need. What I would like to have is the possibility to invert the axis of the throttle to simulate the reverse. It should work in this way: when landing move the throttle back to idle; press a button (or better switch the configuration button from position 1 to 3, this button is in the throttle lever) this button inverts the axis so when I accelerate the throttles the reverse is applied. When finished with the revers, move back the throttle, press the button and the axis return normal for taxiing. Not sure if it can be done with the profiler. That would be a good reason to resuscitate the profiler.

The pedals are quite solid. Even if they are plastic made, I am not afraid to put my heavy shoes on it and move them. Instinctively I do not apply big forces on them but there is no need as they react immediately and smoothly. I found taxing and landing a new experience. The pedals add a lot of realism. Differential brakes together with the 2 throttle levers greatly improves maneuvering. Differential brakes are progressive so it is not a process all/nothing but it is easy to modulate the amount of brake to apply to the left and side side.

The throttles are easy to control with he 2 levers. Very useful during taxi and maneuvering and to experiment single engine fly without turning off one of the engines. The levers do not move smoothly along all the range. There are 2 points where they offer some resistance. For me it is not disturbing but for a three-hundred-euro device they should be better IMO. The throttle has to be put on the left side while I hoped to use them on the right side because this is the position of the throttle in respect to the captain seat. The levers have an inclination and the button in one side of the lever so that their position is the right side.
For my way of control the throttles, the button in the pad are disturbing. I am used to lie my left arm on the pad and in this way it presses the buttons in the pad. This is my fault of course. I solved by setting buttons that I do not press by mistake with the arm. Fortunately the device is full of buttons...

The joystick is really great to control the plane. It is very smooth, really nice to move. The hand fits quite well. This device must be controlled by the right hand. Same consideration I did for the throttle...
The lever is quite big and to press some button or use the topmost hat I have to release the lever, move the hand and operate the control. This is again not a big deal because there are buttons and  a hat I can control without releasing the lever. There are so many controls that it is very easy to customize.
I almost can't feel the force feedback. It has been activated in the simulator and I also increased from 100% to 110%  but up to now almost can't feel it. I should feel some vibration during taxi, landing and moving up and down the gear but nothing. I would also expect the force to be applied when the plane needs trim. But nothing or very little force. I have to investigate more. What I can say is that I had an old microsoft side winder years ago and when the plane needed trim it was quite hard to handle the lever of the joystick. I have to experiment more probably.

To close this long review, just few words about the centering of the devices. It has to be done with the standard windows controls, the same we are used to use for the other joysticks. This is easy and familiar but surprising for the throttle as the 2 throttles are seen by the system as a 2 axis joystick so both the levers must be moved while centering.

The following picture shows my little home cockpit as it appears today (pedals at the bottom are not visible).

G940 is just in front. Behind almost invisible the keyboard and the mouse in the right side. The lighted instruments are CPFlight (MCP, EFIS, XPNDR, NAV, ADF, COM). On the right side of the MCP, the master caution button I built starting from two pieces of aluminium. In the top right side the light panel. 

I took this picture flying on IVAO with the 767LD. The right monitors shows the FMC and IVAE.

Below the monitor on the right side, there is the wooden frame for the next panel. I am planning to put there the landing gear and other controls, not sure yet which ones.

And I am also planning to put on top of the monitor in the left side, a set of annunciators. Probably the ones in the overhead and maybe those in the glare shield.

Last saturday I sent the MCP to CPFlight for maintenance. The knobs for the heading and the altitude do not work (consumed). But talking with CPFlight support, I found that there is wire connector in the back side of the MCP for the TOGA button and it works with the 767LD. I will probably add a button close to the master caution for engaging the TOGA. In this way I save one input line of the master device and the cabling should be very easy.

Logitech G940

One of the thing I mostly missed while simulating is the throttle for a twin jet engine like the 767 I always fly. There are several alternatives in the shops and I believe that the most used throttle comes from the saitek. Saitek in fact sells the Pro flight throttle quadrant that can be customized for a twin jet, for the flaps. IMO these lever are so ugly that nobody should really buy them. But I know this is my opinion and someone could prefer a ugly device if it works well.

Walking in a shop I found the Logitech G940, a gaming device composed of a 2-axis force feedback joystick, throttle for a twin engine plane and the pedals. I looked for info on the net and found a very interesting review that convinced me to buy the device.

I am well aware that such a device does not match with a 767 home cockpit. So why I decided to buy it?

The reason is that my home cockpit is not intended to be a replica of a 767 cockpit because I do not have enough room at home. My goal is instead to fly without the keyboard and this device gives a lot in this sense: 2 throttles, a set of configurable buttons. And i gain much more realism with the pedals. 

Is the force feedback joy adding something to the realism? I don' t really believe as I have already had the Microsoft Sidewinder. If it does not add any realism, it adds a good feeling while flying because it transfer to the hand some of the forces that act to the plane surfaces. I could feel the bumping of the plane in the asphalt, the force in the wings to counter act with the trims and so one.

The logitech G940 is meant for a twin engine jet fighter. It is not the only one alternative on the market. Saitek is also offering something very similar at an higher price, the X-65F. This last product can or cannot be better, I don't know. And the price play a role in my choice because I don't really know, at the present, if I will build the pedestal at a certain point. But  the pedestal is a very complex piece of hardware and even if I will build (or buy) it, it will require long time before being ready. The G940 will help from the time being.

I will write my own review after installing and testing G940.

Designing new panels

Finally I setup FSX and connected all the hardware and could fly online at IVAO.
The good news is that FSX never blocked and it is running at an average speed od 25fps, good enough for flying smoothly.
I have an error from time to time in the 3D view that make all the instruments unreadable but does not compromise the fly.

Unfortunately I have lost all the setup of the hardware and a lot of things changed in the last 2 years. SIOC is at version 4 with support for multiple files and lekseecon has also been largely improved. The good news is that it was so easy to use Niko's library and I wrote again the SIOC script in less then one hour.
The following is the script to control the lights in my panel:


/////////
/// Master Switch (MS)
/////////


// HW variables definition


// Master switch push button
Var 266 Static Link IOCARD_SW Input 41 Type P


// Lekseecon var to check the state of the lights of
// the Master switch button
Var 739 Static 
{
&O_MSWarning = TESTBIT v739 0
&O_MSCaution = TESTBIT v739 1
}


// SIOC - MS Red led - Warning
Var 9001 name O_MSWarning Link IOCARD_OUT Output 11


// SIOC -MS Yellow led - Caution
Var 9002 name O_MSCaution Link IOCARD_OUT Output 12


/////////
/// Panel flood lights
/////////


// Panel & MCP Flood
Var 246 Static Link IOCARD_SW input 29 Type I


// SIOC - Overhead light led out
var 9008 name O_OvdLT Link IOCARD_OUT Output 49




// Overhead lighting -- NOT SIMULATED!!!
Var 247 name PanelFlood Static Link IOCARD_SW input 27 Type P


// Glare shields 


/////////
/// Taxiing lights
/////////


// Taxi
Var 260 Static Link IOCARD_SW input 28 Type I


// Left runway turnoff
Var 261 Static Link IOCARD_SW input 34 Type I


// Right runway turnoff
Var 262 Static Link IOCARD_SW input 26 Type I


/////////
/// Landing lights
/////////


// Left wing landing
Var 263 Static Link IOCARD_SW input 25 Type I


// Right wing landing
Var 264 Static Link IOCARD_SW input 21 Type I


// Mose landing
Var 265 Static Link IOCARD_SW input 23 Type I




/////////
/// Extern lights
/////////


// Pos. Lights
Var 255 name PosLight Static Link IOCARD_SW input 22 Type P


// SIOC - POS led out
Var 9003 name O_Pos Link IOCARD_OUT Output 51




// Anti collision RED
Var 256 name Red Static Link IOCARD_SW input 24 Type P


// SIOC - Anti collision red led out
Var 9004 name O_Red Link IOCARD_OUT Output 50


// Anti collision White
Var 257 name White Static Link IOCARD_SW input 20 Type P


// SIOC - Anti collision white led out
Var 9005 name O_White Link IOCARD_OUT Output 54


// Wing lights
Var 258 name Wing Static Link IOCARD_SW input 18 Type P


// SIOC - Wing led out
Var 9006 name O_Wing Link IOCARD_OUT Output 53


// Logo lights
Var 259 name Logo Static Link IOCARD_SW input 19 Type P


// SIOC - Log led out
Var 9007 name O_Logo Link IOCARD_OUT Output 52


// Lekseecon var to check the state of the lights of
// the lights panel
Var 737 Static 
{
&O_OvdLT = TESTBIT v737 0
&O_Pos = TESTBIT v737 1
&O_Red = TESTBIT v737 2
&O_White = TESTBIT v737 3
&O_Wing = TESTBIT v737 4
&O_Logo = TESTBIT v737 5
}

One of the botton in the light panel is not implemented in 767LD/FSX so I could in principle reuse it for something else. It is a ON/OFF switch. Times ago I used it for the parking brakes.

I am already designing my next panel but I have not yet decided what to put there. For sure the gear lever but together with other controls.

I have to decide if I still want to copy the glare shield or if it is time to put there the most used commands for enjoying the flight.The problem is that now with the situation of flight simulation I do not yet know what to do. I can stil fly with FSX and the 767LD of course but there is also a chance to switch to Flight or XPlane with a 737 and in that case all the panels for the 767 will be mostly unusable.

I have already built the woodden frame and start thinking on the electronic componets. I will add more comments as soon as I take the final decision.

I will also build a the annunciators for the overhead panel and those in the glare shield. The former will be with a white led because I don't want to have them signaling errors. I double checked that those are implemented in lekseecon.

The annunciators in the glare shield will have a orange high performant LED. These are not implemented in lekseecon and the logic has to be retrieved from FSUIPC.

i am also planning to put something close to the master switch button. Probably other annunciators not prenset in any oter place like for example a stall warning. There could also be one or two buttons. i am still in the design phase...

I have been elected as a Flight beta tester from Microsoft. For being correct, I will never write any comments on the flight simulators until my role terminates.