Document side holder

I do have some charts printed out and when I don’t need them they are lying around in some places. When I need them I can’t find it.

So I decided to make one small addition to my cockpit a document side holder. One for the Captains side, one for the FO side and a smaller third one for the great 737 Book from Bill Bulfer.

2015-08-20 20.49.53

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Cargo Fire Panel

Some years ago I have purchased a second hand cargo fire panel, but it was never connected until now.

I started working on a plan to connect it and once finished, the plan was executed. The one lowlight is that the Discharge button was glued into the panel, so I had no chance to use it. Therefore the function of this switch was moved to the aft. overhead, as I had there one free unused button.

SAM_4481

It turned out that I had to fully adopt the panel for my need. The 2 LEDs in the Pushbuttons were connected on their cathode and will light up when +5V are connected to the anode. But my Setup with the Opencockpits cards have the anode in common and the cathode the switched one, so the 2 buttons have to be reassembled to meet the requirement. One button worked fine with the second one the LEDs got destroyed. So I have to reinstall 2 new LEDs and connect them.

Also the 2 green lights were 12V light bulbs, which you cant see with 5V. Therefore those were changed to green LEDs.

SAM_4484

 

 

Dome planking finished

We have finished the planking in the ceiling now. Wow, it looks great.

Also we closed the windows to the first officer side, as there is no video wall current installed. So your view will not be disturbed.

On the captain side it will follow also with a black fabric to include also the monitor for vpilot, in case someone is typing a message.

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Looking forward for the next flight *big smile* 🙂

Fire handles – Part 1

Via the Prosim Forum I found a nice guy in Netherlands who is selling fire handle replicas for the Boeing 737. I bought one set.

Not a week later I had them delivered. They look nice and include also the 9 white LEDs.

2015-07-09 13.01.19

Before ordering we figured out a way to get them mounted on the Opencockpits panel.

The 3 LEDs will be wired in parallel to be connected to an OC LED Output card.

2015-07-13 22.27.11

Also the other LEDs on the Fire Panel will be rewired to reflect the ProSim logic.

Next part will be published when the firehandles are installed – this may take some time during the next weeks.

Hand-microphone connection reworked

My Hand-microphone has gone under maintenance. The testing with the current setup was fine, on ground, no engines running. But ones you are flying and talking to the ATC via the headset, he will hear the loud background noise from the cockpit as well. That’s disturbing for the ATC and must be corrected.

So I decided to to integrate a relay into the microphone line. I mad a short drawing how this *should* work.

PTT-Mic (Custom)

With this wiring I ensure that only when the PTT button is pushed the microphone recognizes voice and sends it to the the OS. To have also the PTT function with vpilot available, I decided to use a DPDT relay to have 2 exits available. The second one is connected to my USB Joystick card which is again connected via FSUIPC to the vpilot client and configured via FSUIPC to send the PTT key from the Flightsimulator to the vpilot PC.

After some wiring a first test was positive.

2015-07-18 17.03.28 (Custom)

It was only tested in Windows direct, no vpilot, etc. Those will follow soon.

Bodyshaker

A long while ago I read from bodyshaker, didn’t know what this will be.

Now a couple of years later I have ordered one via Ebay from Germany (link) and tried it with my small amplifier, which I am using for the ATC audio.

2015-06-23 12.31.00

I can’t show any videos right now, because I have to mount it on the seat and verifiy how the cable would be the best idea to wire, but I can tell you thats *AMAZING*.

I am using the FSPS Cockpit Sounds (now freeware) to generate the shaker effects.

Those include current:

  • Speedbrake wind vibrations
  • Flaps wind vibration
  • Gear dump vibration
  • Gear wind vibration
  • Gear RPM bumps (the faster you roll the more its shaking)
  • Turbulence simulation (from ProSim Audio)

Once the speaker is built into the cockpit I can make a video, maybe the vibrations of the seat can be visualized.

Radios with SIOC and ProSim

During the last days I have switched the SIOC Radio modules to the fabilous ProSim SIOC script from Gert.

You can download the config files and instructions from here.

With this script the Displays will go to blank when no battery power will be available.

I have made a small in simple additional configuration in ProSim:

Add the variable “Var 6415” which is “name adf1_stb” into the Prosim config tab “Analog – Radio freq input ADF2”.

As soon as I turn the knobs to change the frequency those exact turned frequency will be available to Prosim ADF2.

So I have with one physical ADF unit the possibility to simulate 2 ADF units.

IMG_0179

Also I made some additional improvement of realism. My original Boeing Audio Control panels are now working with ProSim natively as well, instead of tons of SIOC scripts. AND 🙂 the potentiometers in the switched Marker, NAV1, NAV2 and ADF1 are now connected to ProSim as well. Therefore I can now change volume of the audio from the corresponding sounds direct and smooth from my Audio Control Panel.

 

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Building a 737-800 Homecockpit [OE-LNJ]