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.

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.

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...