Arduino Boards

[FlyByMike 0]

Good Day All,

 

Trust you are all well. I beg and plead of you to help me in the right direction. I am in the process of buying an Arduino Board to begin the process of building yoke, rudder, throttles, autopilot and radio stack for FSX. The problem is, Arduino has so variations that I don't know which is going to serve me better.

 

Please shed some light on the subject if and where possible.

 

I apologize if this post is in the incorrect forum.

 

Take care and have a smashing weekend.

[simbio 56]

I would advice to heading on forum like http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=323 http://www.cockpitbuilders.com/ and Peter dowson.

Let us know your working in progress.

We are so tired of cheap saitek solution LoL.

 

 

[lzamm 143]

Yes do keep us informed.  It's something I've been meaning to do for a long time and I would be willing to chip in.

[FlyByMike 0]

I will go look into the two links provided, thanks simbio. I will keep you posted on the progress and if any one wants to add any tips or tricks I must remember, please feel free to comment away.

[simbio 56]

One of the most interesting IMHO Throtte design to take inspiartion  it's http://www.aerosimsolutions.com.au/products.html

All part used seems to be solid and well put together.

 

 

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[lzamm 143]

So, choice of Arduino.

 

While the list on http://arduino.cc/en/main/products (and that's leaving out third-party clones) may appear daunting, it can be pruned down relatively easy to just two or three.

 

1)  This application doesn't need the 32-bit ARM processers on the high-end boards

2) Forget the special-purpose boards such as the Explora

3) Stick to 5V boards, less likely to do a 787 if you wire up things wrongly

4) The small form-factor boards such as the Micro and the Nano just duplicate the larger conventional boards, choose whichever you prefer (the Micro/Nano are great for prototyping boards, the full-size versions with header sockets make for neater final builds)

 

 

This basically leaves the Uno/Nano/Ethernet, Leonardo/Micro, and the Mega 2560.  The differences are mainly number of I/O pins and amount of memory, however the nice thing about the Arduino series is that you can swap boards around with very minor changes to the program and wiring, so you can start with one (the cheapest!) and change if and as the need arises.

 

Perhaps more important is overall system design:

 

1)  How will you be connecting to the PC?  Ethernet/WideFS?  The Leonardo gives you the possibility of an HID interface so it looks like a keyboard to FSX, but this won't handle output from FSX for the radio displays.  The others will only give you a serial connection over the USB which needs some programming (FSUIPC/LUA) but is more flexible.

 

2) How many Arduinos do you plan to use?  Do you want one master cotroller with one link to the computer, or a lot of smaller units that can be plugged in and out individually?   How many I/O pins will you need on each unit?  That basically decides Uno/Mega since memory isn't likely to be a factor in this application.

 

To sum up a long post, the board you choose isn't that important compared to other decisions you have to make.  I'd start with an Uno or Mega to have something to get things going with, and take it from there.

[FlyByMike 0]

Hi Guys,

 

So many thanks for the great information, links and explanations. I have decided to go for the UNO, based on the info supplied, again MANY THANKS all round. I will keep sending updates as soon as the equipment arrives and I start building , :Praying: oooh plz be soon.

 

My apologies to everyone for posting in the incorrect Forum Topic, thanks to admin for the correction there, I'm such a noob lol.

 

May everyone have blessed and awesome wings up high weekend.