Hi All,I was wondering if any of you could help.Back in March I was researching how to build your own home cockpit, as I want to put together a realistic sim of the Grob Tutor for the Air Cadet Sqn of which I am the Commanding Officer. I thought that I made bookmarks for all of the sites which were of interest to me. One in particular dealt with a project to design and etch your own PCBs to drive analog/digital instruments. An open source EPIC replacement if you will. I see from these pages that FSBUS is a DIY solution, but are there any others out there, as I don't recall any of the site I was browsing being in German, and there was much more to it that there is at the FSBUS site.I'm having no joy Googling.Cheers

HiI started out with FSBUS and DIY etching. But soon relized that it was kinda complicated for me, as I am not an electronics shark, I need things layed out and explained simple and in standard terms! There was simply too many problems with burning the PICS on the different boards etc. And lately when the new version of FSBUS was released I found out that I could not use my old FSBUS boards with that..bugger!!So I had a look at http://www.opencockpits.com.I bought a master card and a stepper card. And much faster and easier than ever, I set it up and it worked like a charm. Of course I had some issues to solve, but minor ones compared to FSBUS.I am not trying to degrade FSBUS, simply telling you my experiences with both systems.The IOCARDS (opencockpits) is also very versatile in the building process, as you can choose to buy finished and tested boards, or finished industiral built PCB's together with all the components needed and solder them yourself. Or finally you can download gerber files and etch your own PCB's and buy the components at your local store.So you can basically choose whatever solution that suits you the best.I recently bought 4 mastercards PCB's + components, and soldered them all in 2 evenings, and they work perfect. I connect them through the USB expansion card (plug and play)Finally the IOCard software SIOC is very powerfull in terms of programming variables etc. But you CAN also just use the standard "button assignment" using FSUIPC offsets etc. Quite easy, and the folks @ opencockpits are very helpfull if you need it.just my 2 cents.RegardsSkotte

Thanks,opencockpits is the site that I recall. Have made sure I definately have a bookmark to it now.I have a degree in electronics, so etching and assembling the PCB will be easy, although I plan to let my air cadets do it as part of the project.Thanks