Hi everyone,Well after an 6 month hiatus from simming and 8 years since being in a real plane, I'm back in ground school, taking flight lessons, and simming again. Simming is fun, but flying is GOD LIKE! I'm like a kid everytime I get in the plane- HUGE grin from ear to ear, and for hours after my lesson. I have about 5 hours total now, and I am just about landing all by myself (Instructor in the plane of course). This weekend I will for sure. We are flying Warrior IIs. The instructor likes to make fun of the plane, but personally ANY plane I get to fly is the best plane in the world!So anyway, the hardest part of flying for real is simply "information overload"- do this, do that, watch this! Don't do that! I've found that I'm much better off memorizing flows before getting in the plane which is why I've decided to build a "cockpit". I want to be able to practice everything from in cockpit pre-flight, to run up, to flying, all the way to taxiing back to the tie downs and shutting it off.For me, I've decided these are what I need to be able to accomplish what I want:Master Battery (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch)Master Alternator (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch)Master Avionics (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch)Fuel Pump (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch)Nav Lights (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch)Strobe (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch)Landing Light (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch)Pitot Heat (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch)Carb heat (1 Digital Input - Toggle switch) OBS1 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)OBS2 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)Altimeter (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)Directional Gyro (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)COMM 1 Large Freq (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)COMM 1 Small Freq (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder) NAV 1 Large Freq (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)NAV 1 Small Freq (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder) XPNDR digit 1 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)XPNDR digit 2 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)XPNDR digit 3 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)XPNDR digit 4 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)ADF digit 1 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder)ADF digit 2 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder) ADF digit 3 (2 Digital In - Rotary Encoder) Fuel Tank Selector Off/L/R (3 Digital Input - 3 position switch)XPNDR Off/Stby/Alt swith (3 Digital Input - 3 position switch) Ignition Key switch Off/L/R/Both/Start (5 Digital Inputs - 5 position switch) Elevator Trim (1 Analog Input - Pot)Flap Handle (1 Analog Input - Pot)From your experiences, what is the best/cheapest way? It looks to me like the opencockpits.com kits might be the best way to go. I am a programmer, so the software side of things will be easy- I've already written a program to interface with FSUIPC if I need to.I have a USB interface that I bought that has 5 digital in, 5 digital out, 2 DA out, and 2 AD in, so I can do the flap/trim with that.For the rest, I count 50 digital in. Plus, I will want LED displays for the radio stack, but only 1 for each NAV/COMM (no standby). So 17 7 segment displays, but 4 individual displays (NAV,COMM,XPNDR,ADF). Will I need 1 display board, or 2. How do those hook up? How do I build each radio 5 digit display? or 3, and 4?What else do I need to know? What other suggestions do you have? Especially with the opencockpits stuff, I want to order it, but I want to make sure I order the correct things.I'm eager to get going right away, and actually I have ordered many of the knobs and switches already.Thanks!

Hi ChristianYou are on the right track with IOcards...should be ideal for your setup. Opencockpits are efficient people to deal with and the prices are quite reasonable.You can't go wrong to start by ordering a Master Card which will give you (from memory) about 72 switch inputs (to handle your toggle and rotary inputs) and 40 LED outputs, and a display card (attaches to Master Card) which will handle 16 seven seg displays (just one short of your requirements, so you will need two display cards).After you get these going you can then decide whether you need an additional Master Card in which case you will need a USB card which can handle 4 Master Cards.Opencockpits also supply boards to mount the displays on (3,4 or 5 options)Hope this helps

New GammaTron from BetaInnovations is also an option - it will handle all your rotary and switch input needs. I'm in essence building a similar input set. You might also consider adding an ADF card rotary as well. Another option for the displays is to use FSLCD, that will drive upto 4line x 40 character LCD display (or 2 seperate 2 line displays). Less realistic looking, but also less expensive as the LCD's are relatively cheap and you won't need a driver board. Congratulations on getting in the air again.