G'day guys, I'm from oz, and am lookig to build my first cockpit. I plan on building something, along the lines of a c172/152. However, I'm pretty tight on cash, so all those fancy servo driven gauges are pretty much out of the question. My thoughts are to instead of use mechanical gauges, use monitors, behind a peice of PDF, with holes cut for gauges, and then edit the panel to display it properly. I have searched on the net (briefly) and haven't been able to find any set ups similar to this. Can anyone point me in the direction of someone or a website who has done this setup before. Plus any other general advice, or problem/hints you might want to pass on to me. I am reasonably handy, and I will probably make everything myself. I was thinking of finding a wrecked cessna, and ripping the throttle, mixture and yoke out, and using an old canabalised joystick to make my own yoke, and run the 2 potentiometers for the throttle and mix. I was also probably going to use a basic keyboard encoder for most of the switches, due to the fact that I'm probly not going to need thousands of switches etc.Anyway guys, thanks for your help :)David 8)

Hi David and welcome,Where abouts in Australia are you. I'm on the Gold Coast.There are lots of sites with people who have used screens behind MDF board. Just have to hunt for them.Good luck finding old wrecked planes here in Aust. There are not many wrecking or bone yards here that I have found.The gauges are not that hard to make if you can find some small stepping motors and a couple of model aircraft servos. Mike from www.mikesflightdeck.com has a really good book that I am about to buy purely on building gauges.There is lots of help on this forum. If you have problems or questions, just ask. Someone will answer you.Good luck with the building.David

By the way Mike, if your reading this, I left a message or question on your website.David

Well...if you are searching for some "glass cockpit gauge" similar to the Cessna I suggest you to go to www.jaycosims.com and download his freeware panel.The only requirement you need is a registered copy of WideFS to run it through a network.Regards,Bob

David,There are no recent notes I haven't answered. Please resend.Mikewww.mikesflightdeck.com

You might also consider using a dual action gamepad. There is one by Logitech that has a pair of joysticks, 12 buttons and a hatswitch. Its retail price is US$20. It controls MS flightsim just fine. Use the electronics from it and you'll have most everything covered. If you need more switch inputs you can likely use a cheaper gamepad without the joysticks.Mikewww.mikesflightdeck.com

Hi,I'm building right now, something that seems to be what you want to do. I have built every part of the sim myself, I just bought some wood, a thick vinyl panel, 1 15 LCD, 3 21 inches CRT (used 30$, each), a used 15 inches CRT for the radio, a couple of switches, ect.So it didn't cost me a lot, and it's very fun to do.I stripped 2 USB joystick for the electronics of the rudder and yoke and I use IOcard from SimFlight for connecting the switches.I had a site who could more explain my setup, but I have problems with my ISP right now. See some pics attach.If you want I can e-mail you some info while my ISP is trying to reactivate my site.Cheers, and welcome to the community

I forgot the most recent photo.

Mike, I may as well ask you here.I am up to building gauges now for my sim and I have gone with FSBus. Can your designs be used with FSBus without too much hassle ie: the electronics you have put into them etc.Michel, what is vinyl board?David

I would say that Fsbus can do what IOcard can, but I wont be any help for the programming or how to connect it, since I don't know FSbus att all.The vinyl board is the black material I used to make my panel, it's easy to cut and carved, I found this at my local hardware store, I think they call it "simplex".For my gauges the only thing I did is put a panel whith holes in from of a LCD screen, I also put knobs that are acting as switches to simulate the knobs on the gauges, see attach pictures for detail.I then hook those switches to my IOcard and program the SIOC language to send FSUIPC code to FS.

David,I emailed an answer a few days ago. Perhaps a spam filter ate it. I've forwarded another copy from another email account.Mikewww.mikesflightdeck.com

Thanks for your help guys, a couple of col links, and intresting idea's are running around my head now. I'll start drawing up some sketches and basic designs, and post back to you guys :)thanks ,David