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.

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.

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...

New radio and MCP panel

The refactoring the radio and MCP panelsis finally completed. You can see a snapshot of the previous situation in this post. The radios were in the left side in two white wodden frames. The MCP and the EFIS were below the two monitors in a very big wodden box bought from Ikea a lot of time ago.

The idea was to have a new box with the EFIS and the MCP in the upper side and the radios at the bottom.The new panel is shown by the following picture.

As you can see the new panel is much more compact. The little screwed panel in the upper left side is intended to contain some buttons controlled via opencockpit. That panel is not as wide as I hoped so I think I will put there not more then 4 buttons. For sure it will contain the master switch and the toga.

Just behind the webcam there is the power switch and another switch to close the contacts of the dip switches of the CPFlight MCP for upgrading the firmware.

The wood is painted with a water paint and the color is RAL7043. The new CPFlight radios have almost the same color of the panel while the old ones, the MCP and the EFIS, are quite different. However the final result is not bad and for sure much better then the original situation.

Yesterday night I made my first flight with the new panel, from EHAM to LIMC. I took this photo while climbing to final FL310 under Brussel CTR:

You can see the panel back lighted. In the left screen the VC and in the rigth monitor IVAP, the FMC and the radio panel. Most of the time, I use the left monitor to browse the charts.

Just upon the rigth screen you can see the three leds of the cabin light, the read and white beacons from the opencockpits light panel.

Successfully tested

A few minutes ago I succesfully tested all the connections (led sand buttons) with the OpenCockpits Controlador.
Initially nothing worked. I guess the problem was that I connected the MasterCard to the 4th socket of the expansion card instead of the first one.

The picture upon shows the test session where a couple of buttons are in the ON position and a couple of leds in the botton are lighted.

As I said in one of my previous post I decided to put the first masterCard together with the power supply. If you follow the cables of the picture upon you can that thea are connected to the upper right side of the box. The following picture shows the internal of the box.

The muster card is in the upper side. The first ouput socket is connected to a 40 pin flat cable. Tha cable is divided in 2 DB25 sockets. The output is taken from the DB9.

Having all in this box is a great because I can move the master card and the usb and the power supply eveywherewithout caring, for example, if it is upside down.

Sorry for the very poor quality of the attached pictures: my canon PowerShot S60 is almost dead!

Next step is to finish the panel by attaching the printed picture and the protective plexi over it. For the time being I am not going to add the backlight but in principle I have all I need in place (one free output line and 5V line).

It is also time to start connecting the panel to the 767LD. I will use lekseecon from Niko Kan together with SIOC. While testing I took the indexes of buttons and leds.