Help me build?

[Lefteris Kalamaras]

Hi everyone!

Ever since the start of driver interface programming, I've been slowly amassing some very good quality hardware that's sitting in different boxes, bubble wraps and containers - mostly for B737NG aircraft simulation.

I'm very interested to see what everyone has done with their own cockpit building efforts, so I can build enclosures for my hardware.

Post your pictures, stories, details, engineering drawings here...

Any and all interesting pictures count, so let me know what you've done with your hardware so I can find a good solution for mine!

[Bill]

Lefteris,

I think the best thing for you to do is ship all that gear to me so I can a build an enclosure for you!

Joking aside, I think all builders should start with a general idea of what they want then work from there. So are you interested in building a full size cockpit or a captain's station only? Do you want to control the sim fully from switches and control hardware in the sim, or are you willing to go with a hybrid approach - some switches, radio heads etc., with other features controlled conventionally by clicking on the switches in the virtual cockpit (probably this is the way I'll go).

My soon to start build will be just the captain's side and will look something like this http://users.skynet.be/robflsim/RFSmycp.html#DM (thanks Robert!). I'll be adding a couple of frills, the whole rig may be on wheels so I can push to one side of the room when not in use, I'll also have fold out panels to ease access to the monitors and gubbins behind. I plan on having at least one ceiling mounted projector for the outside visuals.

What I don't plan is buying white shirts with button down epaulets, nor will I be wearing a captains hat! For me the cockpit should be a reasonable facsimile of the real deal, I don't want all of the trappings to get in the way of actually flying the sim.

Will be happy to send photos of the work in progress - again my issue is how best to get started (see other post in this forum). I don't want to invest a lot of time and money on a rig that may not be compatible, primarily from a hardware/software standpoint. So whatever I do, the build will be modular and somewhat flexible.

One thing I did to make it easier to perform an integration test of the hardware, was to build a couple of inexpensive racks that put the controls in a spot that was more or less ergonomically correct. From here I was able to determine which switch gear I was prepared to click on the screen and which I absolutely want to have a piece of hardware for (think the big three: MCP, EFIS and CDU). So for what it's worth, if you want pictures and dimensions of my temporary set up, I'll happily share. Let me know. Once I get going in earnest, I'll keep a diary and will share in this forum my trials and triumphs.

Cheers,

Bill

[lst141]

Lefteris;

You should run a survey to see how many people, that after the introduction to the 737/747 got borred of the mouse clicks and decided to do something about it, just to realise that their nice addons were just good for that and had to go spend handfulls of money to continue their 737/747 experience else were.

Are you comtemplating opencockpits reasenable priced hardware in a near forseenable future?

Best regards

JMN

[Chris Willis]

Bill,

I knocked up something on CAD at work that may be of interest to you.

It is for an A320 captains station.

If you want a sneak peak I will post the mock up here.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Chris Willis]

Bill,

I knocked up something on CAD at work that may be of interest to you.

It is for an A320 captains station.

If you want a sneak peak I will post the mock up here.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk