AlTonno

Hello together,after a very long time, let me announce a major update -A lot of things happend during the past few months. The system, once developed for a small radio stack, has become a very powerful and extremly easy-to-use interface system.Finally, I also managed to put the website back on, where you can find more information if you want:http://www.sim-modules.atAnd before I forget - I'm looking forward to release the whole thing in the very near future.....Thanks for your attention! :-)Best regardsChristopher HauserSIM-MODULES Development Team

Hi Philippe!I guess you don't remember me, do you ;-)Anyway, I was wondering if you would use LPTSwitch as an Interface...? :-)No, just kidding, it's great to see you working on your fokker project again!Wish you all the best, and I'm really looking forward to seeing your progresses!so long,best regards!Christopher Haus-Air :-)

Hi all!Finally, I've found some time to update my homepage again...One and a half month to go to our final exam, now there's still a lot of documentation work that has to be done...But the good news you may be interested in:The project "The Sim-Modules" is nearly finished! :-)A new main module has been designed, offering the possibility to simply connect up to 64 switches, buttons or LEDs, 8 rotary encoders and 8 analogue axes to the PC... Via the new control panel, it is possible to link each digital input with either an FSUIPC-Command, a Keyboard Event or a mouse click, everything 'as simple as it gets' http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/icon_wink.gifThe other modules, like the DME, the XPNDR or the COM/NAV-Module are working fine, in combination with the software everything really ended up with true plug-and-play functionality... well, we're still testing (sometimes it continues to be 'plug-and-pray' rather than play http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/grin.gif), but so far I'm really satisfied http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/icon_wink.gifAnd something I'm really proud of - the first 'real' big simulator project already started to use Sim-Modules technology....check it out on www.sim-modules.at http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/wink.gifSo long, best regards!Christopher HauserSim-Modules Development Team

Just another short update (for those who are interested http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/icon_wink.gif)The programming work for the 7-segment-display-driver is now done...The driver can show digits between 0 and 9, some letters and symbols (whatever a 7seg display is able to show), the brightness can be regulated via software in 16 steps, the comma is fully software controlled and all digits can blink in two blinking-speeds.as you can imagine, the code has gotten quite big and chaotic - so in the next few days I'll have to sort some things out, comment everything and so on... so that I can let some teachers have a look on it as well http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/icon_biggrin.gifMore information (AND a also a short video http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/icon_cool.gif) can be obtained here: http://haus-air.at/sim-modules/index.php?dufts1=news〈=so long, thanks for your ongoing interest! http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/icon_wink.gifbest regards,Christopher HauserSim-Modules Development Teamhttp://www.sim-modules.at/

>However, could you elaborate a little bit on what is really>new? The modules I see, are also already available from other>manufacturers, or am I missing something? Hi Nico,well what I really ment to say was, that we added some new content to our website - we are of course aware of the fact, that we're not really devolping something "brand new" - we are not really a "Sim-Part-Manufacturer" nor a "Supplier Company" (well, not yet?) but the development of our "Sim-Modules" is done as a diploma thesis at a technical collage for electronical engineering.But I'm really happy to see so many people being interested in our project, and as I said in my initial post - we indeed plan to release the whole thing one day; either as a commercial product or as an open source project.Anyway, thanks to all of you for your ongoing interest, it is really a motivation for us to do our work as good as possible! :-)So long,best regardsChris Hauser

Hello all,a short update:some minor changes have taken place over the last few weeks, e.g. we really turned down the DMUX-technology for controlling the 7seg displays (I should have listened... http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/wink.gif ), we're now using AS1106 driver ICs from AustriaMicroSystems instead.Also, a lot of new things can be found on our homepage, http://www.sim-modules.at if you're interested http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/wink.gifThe project management stuff and all the administrative things needed for the diploma thesis itself are mostly done, so now the actual work can start... stay tuned! ^^best regards,Chris HauserSim-Modules Development Team

Hi Norbert,I did - and it works fine, as long as you can flash the micro controller on another pc WITH serial port...because this is the only thing that doesn't work via usb, once the controller are programmed it works fine (well, it did for me - I guess it depends on the converter)best regards,Chris Haus-Air

Sorry for the double-post ^^ but...there's just one little thing I'd like to hear your opinion of ;)I was thinking of how to include the rotary switches into the system. Using dual-rotaries (so concetric ones) is mechanically a tough thing... Although I made some of those out two 12-Way-Switches a while ago (and it wasn't too hard to do), due to money, time and last but not least space reasons (those things get rather big) I decidided thinking of another way...The idea came up of using just those some single rotary switches with integrated pushbutton. (A german store once gave some of them away rather cheap, so I got myself a bunch of them a time ago)No I'm planning like this - take a COM-Module for example. Turning the (single-) rotary normally, the frequency would be tuned in .025Mhz-steps - turning it while pushing the integrated button at the same time, the step would be 1 Mhz...I don't know if this is useful in everyday life or if this is nothing but purely unrealistic.. but I think it may be a good compromise between expensive, complicated concentric rotaries and some other way...I've never seen this solution out there, should I give it a try? http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/icon_question.gifgreetings,Christopher Hauser

Yes, sorry, the point with custom characters was connected to the BCD-to-7seg-driver solution, not the shift-register thing - I mixed it up a bit in my post http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/smile.gifand I just saw that I didn't mean the M5451, but some other ic - I noticed that this one also supports brightness control and is especially for LED-displays (I have only found generic shift registers so far)But thanks for this hint, I just skimmed through the data sheet a bit, really looks like a good solution... well, I guess I'll come back to it if the DMUX-solution turns out to be not that good at the end http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/wink_3.gifregards,Chris

Jep, we indeed had a look at some LED-Display driver chips (like the 5451 or BCD-to-7-Seg-drivers like the CA3161), but we found it more practically to have full control on the combination of LEDs - to put it into words, we wanted to be able to create custom characters via software rather than to be dependent on predefined character tables.But we did a lot of calculation on this, and at the end we decided for the DMUX-solution for some reasons:First, the power consumtion is much higher with the shift register or BCD-driver solution. Thinking of a full radio stack with lots of displays, the current needed could be rather high, as all displays are always on. In fact, using multiplex-technology there's only one character (max. 8 LEDs including decimal point) light up at the same time. Secondly, if the refresh rate is at least 50 times a second, the human eye doesn't notice any flickering at all - if you think of e.g. 20 displays for a typical COM/NAV module and using timer-interrupts on an 8 or 16Mhz micro controller, this is no problem at all.Thirdly, it may be easier to provide the possibility of dimming the LEDs via software to adjust the brightness according to the environment.And last but not least, as already mentioned, the possibility of defining our own characters.Of course, it was no easy decision as both technologies have their (dis)advatages, but we just think in our special application the DMUX-solution would be slightly better - but don't forget we are still at an relatve early stage of developement, so make us change our minds! http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/wink_3.gifbest regards,[email protected] - www.sim-modules.at

>What chip are you using to drive the 7-segs ? The 7-segment-displays are controlled directly by the ATMEGA32 micro controller, using 74HC138/238 DMUX-ICs. This has the advantage that we can output every possible character because the combiation of LEDs for each digit is fully software controlled.Using the multiplexer, it is theoretically possible to control up to 32 digits using only 13 portpins. The biggest problem is, that it takes a lot of cpu-power of the microcontroller, to ensure the displays don't start to flicker, but this hasn't been a problem so far...>It is good to hear you guys are still moving forward. Keep>up the good work. I look forward to the time when your dream>is a reality.Thank you very much, John - we're also looking forward to seeing what the whole project will bring at the end http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/wink.gifBut we'll see in a year! =)best regards,Chris Hauserhttp://www.haus-air.at/smileys/saufen.gif

Just a short update... so that no one thinks we're getting lazy :-hah Some parts of the program for the microcontroller in the single modules are already finished - eg the code for the LED-displays and the Rotary-Decoding is ready to use, the next thing will be the data format for the communication between the single modules and the master-module (we'll use TWI, this is how the I2C-standard is called at ATMEL)For the hardware, we're currently designing a prototype for a COM/NAV-Module - the pcb routing is indeed rather difficult, but I guess it'll work one day ;-)Yeah and of course some work has been spent on the website as well...there's always something to do everywhere http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/roll.gifso far this short update http://www.haus-air.at/smileys/wink_3.gifbest regards!Chris [email protected] - www.sim-modules.at

Hi all,well thanks a lot for your interest and your feedback! :DAs Nico already said, the reason why we are doing this project is of course that we want to learn as much as possible about project management and product developement (in connection with microcontrollers, modern information technology and so on) - there was a bunch of other things we could have chosen as a topic for our thesis work, but.... who does not want to connect hobby and job as often as possible? ;-)I'm as excited as you are if we can achieve all the goals we have set, and we of course hope that these goals aren't set too high - but as already mentioned, we will give our best :-)One more thing, about the USB/Serial-Stuff: of course we thought about using USB-compatible

Hi all,I just wanted to announce another new "big project":We (a team of two) have just started to develop something new for home flight simulation and cockpit builders. To be exact, it's going to be a modular system to simulate all kind of avionics, based on latest microcontroller technology.The whole project is done within a diploma thesis and the first prototype will be ready in spring/early summer 2007 - we do not really know yet whether this project will become public after the diploma presentation (depends on if everything works the way it should :-)), but we are planing to publish the whole thing for other sim-builders out there some day ;-)More information can be obtained herewww.sim-modules.atWe're looking forward to having a lot of work, but we'll do our best to accomplish all the things we want to do in the next few months! :-jumpy best regards,Christopher Hauser ;-)

Hi Norbert,I have used 220ohms instead, because of I had no 180s at home :-PWell, this brings me some 16mA for my LEDs, which is absolutely fine... %-)Anyway, the problem is, the output ports ARE actually working, but only with the FSBUS ADMIN - the just won't light up using the Router, but I think this is because this is not yet supported in this version of the software.... but it will come some day, I'm sure ;-)regards,Chris Haus-Air

Yeah, but it says nothing about the router-software there.... using FSBUS ADMIN it is working fine for me as well ^^greez,Chris

Yeah... I did not try the DI-Rotary yet, just the old one.... now it works... thnx!! For the leds: as there seems to be nothing called "DO-Led" or something, I guess the two output ports on the new DIO-board is not yet supported... this is what I think may be the case...regards,Chris

Hi all,I've just finished my new DIO-board for the new FSBUS...Everything's working fine so far, but there are some things I wonder about:I have modified some standard 12-stage-rotary-switches to work with FSBUS, as it is said in the manual. It does it's proper job in FSBUS ADMIN, so when I turn the knob I can see the program counting on the "Keys/Switches"-Page. However, it is not working in the FSBUS Router itself: I choose the "12-Stage-Rotary" and the right RID/SID, but the green field next to the switch value won't light up... well it does, actually, if I set the type to "Knitter" and turn, but then of course I cannot modify any values the way I would like to ;-)Also, I cannot bring the LEDs on the digital-out-port to live through the Router (but, as before, it works with the Admin)Anybody got an idea?thnx in advance,best regardsChris