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.
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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.

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.