Hi all,I have a question that I'm hoping someone can assist with. I have an annunciator panel from a 727 that I will be using as the glareshield annunciator in my KA350 sim. It has 17 discrete annunciators with two lamps each for a total of 34. Right now the lamps are a mix of CM387 and CM327 incandescent bulbs - 2 in each annunciator. These are 28VDC lamps drawing .04 amps. (http://rocky.digikey.com/WebLib/Chicago%20Miniature/Web%20Data/327,385,387.pdf) I need some advice on a driver interface for this unit and I am looking for an LED equivalent, or barring that, a 12VDC lamp, for obvious reasons... I'm shying away from FSBus because I really don't have the wherewithall to build the driver board, and I'm not sure it could drive the lamps anyway (too much current?). Does anyone have suggestions on alternatives? Any advice you can offer is appreciated.Thanks [email protected]

From PeterHeres 3 things iv experimented with.hope it gives ideas.. Ill assume these are the 327-328 or 382 bulbs with the metal base and not the push pin type???1-Try a 382 bulb...they run at 14volts..Running at 12 volts will be a little dim but the current draw will be less..2-Crush the center out of the 327 bulb and solder in a LED Solder wick removes the center pins solder and there is on the bulbs I had a section with solder on the base to go to...3-I made a LED clock years back..On the Display Driver for the Leds was a +5 enable for the leds...I pulsed that enable with a 555 timer at 50-70 hz..the strobe effect cut the current draw in half and me eyes didnt see the differnece.. You can use a 6volt ac tranformer witha 1/2 wave rectifier too that should work also pete http://home.comcast.net/~fs-boneyard :-wedge

Hi Mitch,This may give you half your answer: http://www.mikesflightdeck.com/annunciator_lights_1.htm The other part of the answer Is presumably the interface to the PC. Do you prefer to buy a ready made interface, or do you want to build something?Mikewww.mikesflightdeck.com

Mike,Thanks for replying.Your question is my quandry... I have been building my cockpit in various incarnations for around 2 years. Between building the cockpit shell and wiring up 45 switches for the latest version, I really don't want to take on another "building" project. On the other hand I don't have an unlimited budget. You know, like everyone!I checked out your link... My annunciator panel already has the enclosue for the lamps and lenses and is already wired, so I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. What other options do I have? I have seen the guys in Germany who are marketing FSBus boards, but I have sent them a couple of emails about costs and availability and have not heard back from them which does not give me a lot of confidence in that route.Thanks -Mitch

Hi Mitch,I was just thinking that the electronics for driving the LEDs might be of use to you. The thoughts were coming faster than the fingers could type. (Or maybe, the fingers were going and the thoughts weren't.) Since you have the real annunciator panels, they are clearly the way to go. (I like Peter's suggestion of soldering LEDs into old lamp bases.) The electronics on the link allows you to drive the LEDs without worrying about drawing too much power from what is actually providing the control signals. Which leads to question 2: where do those control signals come from?If you have the money, you can buy various USB devices like Phigets or one of Delcom Engineering's products. Similarly, there are com port products that provide digital outputs. There are several such companies in the links page on my site in the Interface section. None is particularly cheap in dollars, but buying saves you time.Then there's the build it yourself. FSBUS is certainly a workable approach. There has been a lot of discussion about making circuit boards for this system. I think that has produced an unfortunate mindset in the community that circuit boards are a necessity and a stumbling block. While it's nice to have pretty looking circuit boards, they are not necessary. Perf-board will work fine. I use lots of it for PIC based projects. If you're interested in a quick build approach with relatively inexpensive hardware and (mostly) free software, take another look at FSBUS. The design's done for you, so the learning curve is not that great.If you are willing to take a bit longer on the learning curve, consider designing and building a PIC-based light controller that interfaces to the PC com port. The circuit is very simple and can be easily expanded to drive a very large number of LEDs from a single port. An added advantage is that once you have some experience with PIC's they become an almost universal glue for you as you work on other aspects of your sim. For example, PICs can multiplex drive 7-segment LED displays.There are many aids to moving up the PIC learning curve. I recommend Predko's book: Programming and Customizing PICmicro Microcontrollers. Further, there is a wonderful site http://www.winpicprog.co.uk/ that has a freeware PIC programmer program that works well with an inexpensive homemade programming module. The microchip site has a free PIC IDE with assembler, editor and simulator.Mikewww.mikesflightdeck.com

>Then there's the build it yourself. FSBUS is certainly a>workable approach. There has been a lot of discussion about>making circuit boards for this system. I think that has>produced an unfortunate mindset in the community that circuit>boards are a necessity and a stumbling block. While it's nice>to have pretty looking circuit boards, they are not necessary.>Perf-board will work fine. I use lots of it for PIC based>projects. If you're interested in a quick build approach with>relatively inexpensive hardware and (mostly) free software,>take another look at FSBUS. The design's done for you, so the>learning curve is not that great.The one thing I like most in FSBUS is the possibility to expand it with additional modules. A PC usually has one parallel port and two serial ports.. with custom systems you most likely end up re-inventing something like fsbus - which might be nice if you like electronics and enjoy doing circuit designs. While that would be fun, I just dont have the knowledge so fsbus is OK for me.If you have a friend into electronics, you can probably ask for help in making the FSBUS system - also some schools might have etching equipment. And yea, I would guess it is not that impossible to do the designs on breadboard either.Did you see LPTSwitch? It was a led-driving hack via parallel port that was posted here a while ago, that looked like a quick thing to get going, although that's yet another thing that eats your parallel port and is not expandable.Tuomas