Flight Sim Navigation 22 Radios and Autopilot Project: Prototype and Modifications

The hobby club reopened after a couple of months of Corona lock down. It meant I could laser cut the first prototype of the Radios & Autopilot Panel Project. Some modifications were needed which in the mean time are incorporated into the Fusion 360 design..

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

Flight Sim Navigation 23 Radios and Autopilot Project: Prototype 2, Encoders, Displays, Mobiflight

The second prototype of the panel is laser cut out of 3mm multiplex. KY-040 encoders and MAX7219 displays are connected to an Arduino Mega for a first test with Mobiflight.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

Flight Sim Navigation 24 Instrument Landing System ILS

The Instrument Landing System guides an airplane in both the horizontal (localizer) and the vertical (glideslope) path to the runway for a landing.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 20205 yr by RudyB24

Flight Sim Navigation 25 Radios and Autopilot Project: Parts Needed

The second prototype of the panel has been laser cut in 3mm multiplex and the 4 panels are mounted on a wooden frame. It starts to look like something now. This post and video are about the parts needed to make this panel.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

 

Nice project! Thanks for sharing.

26 Radios and Autopilot Project: Configure a Push Button in Mobiflight

Mobiflight is the software that makes it possible to interface an Arduino Mega or Pro Micro with flight simulators like FSX, Prepar3D or X-plane.

To make a start with Mobiflight we set ourselves a small challenge: we'll configure a hardware push button on our instrument panel to toggle the Autopilot Master Switch in the flight simulator.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

27 Radios and Autopilot Project: Configure an LED Output

In video 26 we configured a push button to toggle the flight simulator autopilot. We'll now configure an indicator LED in Mobiflight that shows the autopilot on/off on our hardware instrument panel.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

 

Edited July 6, 20205 yr by RudyB24

Radios and Autopilot Project - Update on Hardware Progress

This week finally the new encoders that I had to re-order came in, this time with thread. 🙂

They are mounted on the panel and in the mean time the four encoders besides the 7 segment displays are wired.

Which means the autopilot now is functional!

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

28 Radios and Autopilot Project: Configure NAV1 MHz Encoder in Mobilflight

We'll add an encoder in Mobiflight. The first step is to add it in the settings as a connected hardware element with the pin numbers it is wired to. Then in the 'Input' section we configure the encoder to control the events NAV1_FREQ_WHOLE_INC and -DEC.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

Edited July 13, 20205 yr by RudyB24

The Radios & Autopilot panel is finished.

More videos on Mobiflight configuration and on flying with it are in the making.

 

29 Radios and Autopilot Project: Toggle Radio Tuning MHz / kHz in Mobilflight

We can tune a NAV or COM radio MHz or kHz part with an encoder. This video shows how we can use the encoder's built in push button to toggle between MHz or kHz. For this we'll use an FSUIPC memory location where we store the number 0 or 1. We change the number when the button is pressed. We read out the number in the Precondition tab of the encoder MHz and the kHz functions to decide which of the two will be active.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

Radios and Autopilot Project First Flight: ILS landing

After some 260 solder joints the panel is finshed. The video shows the first flight, an ILS landing, with tuning of the ADF and NAV1 radios and using the autopilot buttons and the Heading and Course knobs.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

Radios and Autopilot Project 30 Tune the ADF Radio in Mobiflight

The ADF radio has three digits, for the hundreds, tens and ones. We're going to use the encoder push button to toggle between the three, after which encoder rotation will change the value. What I also did is add tuning of the ADF HDG card after a third press such that we can rotate the ADF card to our current heading and can read the bearing the neadle point to. This way we have full control of the ADF, first tune the frequency in three steps then tune the HDG.
 
Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

31 Radios and Autopilot Project: Mobiflight Configuration of CRS/OBS

With one encoder we can tune a CRS in the autopilot or on a Garmin glass cockpit, or we can tune the OBS scale of the old fashioned CDI gauges. Pressing the encoder switch toggles between tuning OBS1 and OBS2.
 
Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

 

32 Radios and Autopilot Project: Mobiflight Configuration of HDG, IAS, ALT and V/S.

In the previous video we configured the course (CRS) setting. In this video we'll configure the other four autopilot settings: heading (HDG), Indicated Air Speed (IAS), altitude (ALT) and Vertical Speed (V/S).
 
Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.