Pedestal panels

Finally I managed to connect the first segment of displays for my simulator.

COM1 active and standby as well as NAV1 active and standby plus the transponder is up and running at this point.

This means that five 7 segment displays are connected in a chain, all switches and encoders work as they should.

Programming of this is pretty easy once you find the offset for each switch/encoder/display. To find that is the hardest thing.

Now my displays are almost complete, the text will be added with labels later on as well as the knobs which I have not found, but I maybe will design those by myself as well, not that hard, have an idea but will see how it will end up.

Next step is to connect the COM2/NAV2 and ADF1 and 2, then all displays for the pedestal panels are completed and will be mounted into place.

Update 2018-08-28
The work is progressing again after a short standstill during the summer. At this point most of the pedestal is completed.
The edges need to be put into place as well as the rudder/elevator trim. But besides that all my home made panels are completed. Need to put on the stickers for the fire panels and weather radar as you can see.

All panels are tested and they work perfectly.
At this point I have completed most of the panels, am waiting for three buttons for the EFIS panel, and when those are put into place the flight simulator is ready for take-off.

Here is an image of how far the work has progressed with the pedestal section.

Some of the displays look like they are not in line or something. I do not know why the image makes it look like that.

You will be able to see it later on when it is all completed and in test mode.
So far I have tested it like this;

This was a while back when not all panels were completed. This is just for testing purpose and it worked great without any problems.

However one problem that I have noticed is that you have to test USB cables that connect your arduino boards and see if they really are good enough. First I got the COM2/NAV2 panel only showing up with 88888888 on all displays. When I was searching for the problem, all of a sudden I just touched the USB cable and then all panels worked perfectly.

Strange, but that might be a problem when you are testing or flying with your simulator and you get 88888888 on your displays.

However right now I test all displays in one room, have set up all hardware around the panels in another room and intend to build the entire simulator on another floor later this winter. So it will be some moving around before everything is completed.

However I am very happy to have come this far and be able to fly without the use of turing my head with the mouse. Instead I just turn my head in my simulator and see what happens. It is a great feeling when you can feel “at home” with all panels and there is no need of turing your point of view using the mouse or a joystick.

Now I am starting to look forward to build my display surface.
However the next step iss to complete all panels so I know that they are just to connect and very little programming to be made before I can turn my head to the next problem, the room where my simulator will be built.

Updates will follow as soon as I have something new in my progress.