Search the Community

Hi everyone. first of all, i looked through all the pages and topics, and couldnt find the answer to my problem. i apologize if this topic has been dealt with. so i finally started building my 737 cockpit, starting with the overhead panel. since i cant get my hands on any I/O cards like BU036X, i had to resort of joystick hacking. After taking a cheap joystick apart, i realized how hard it was to solder those minute connections on the board. took me 2 days to get about 10 switches on that thing. after a successful solder, i check the connection with a multimeter before sealing the solder with silicon using a silicon gun. upon connecting the controller to the pc, i had no problem. tested the joystick with connecting toggle switches, and it worked fine. so i pulled out the cable, and started connecting the rest of the switches, with ever-growing excitement. when i was done, i plugged in the joystick, and to my disappointment, it said, USB device unrecognized. no idea what happened. my best guess was that the hear from the iron destroyed the IC or micro controller. or maybe it was the hot silicon. in either case, i looked into online solutions and found USB keyboard hacking. did more research, and it sounded like a good idea. something that might work, I had two options. to go with an old keyboard, which does not have matrix, but individual keys. the other option was, more easily available, modern USB keyboard. so i decided to go with the latter. I quickly opened up the keyboard, to discover two transparent sheets of plastic, with copper wire running through them. as per hacking guide, i took upon the painful and arduous journey to resolve the matrix. A few days later, after i had all the keys, i connected two toggle switches to the PCB with the keys "A" and "B" respectively. opened up FSX, loaded PMDG 737, went to FSUIPC, keys, created a MACRO for the Taxi Lights and Logo Lights. programmed FSUIPC for no repeats and there i had it. both switches turning on and off together and independently as intended. excited, i starting the physical construction for the overhead panel. took me a few weeks to wire everything, finding and putting in switches, even mounting the overhead panel. wiring the darn thing turned out to be pretty complex. thankfully, i kept it organized from the beginning. Next came the programming of every single switch. creating MACROS all the way. upon testing the switches one by one, they all seemed to work as intended. but thats when i hit a rock. when i turn on 3 switches on the same circuit, the switches wont turn out. scratching my head, i opened word, and tried the same combination of switches with a keyboard and realized that the keys "KCD" cannot be pressed together. apparently i need a better keyboard for that. some "N" type keyboard. even that doesnt allow more than 12 keys to be pressed down at once. ive been researching this for a few days now. and have come back with a blank. here are a few solutions i can think of: 1. using relays and capacitors for momentary key presses. (im no engineer. so no idea how to read schematics or go about it) 2. maybe use an older keyboard? the ones that did not have matrix. i dont know how many key presses they allow. 3. go back to using a joystick/controller and be careful with the soldering. 4. maybe FSUIPC has a solution? the advance user guide is french to me. 5. off the shelf I/O cards. something that is not delivered in my country. so kinda pointless. 6 maybe a keyboard emulator software that allows momentary key press Any help would be appreciated. ive spent a zillion hours on this thing. i dont want to give up. Especially when i'm so close. Joystick hack Work in progress

This video helps answer the questions: Why are Flight Simulator, and Flight Simulator Components (or Flight Sim Gear) so expensive? The Video dissects some components and explains the basics of Fidelity and Electronics used in building Flight Simulators. Three examples tackle the cost of different types of electronics and how their quality, complexity and quantity can noticeably drive up the price. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5qTL-VvI-I

If this topic has been covered somewhere else, i apologize ahead of time. Im wanting some opinions/solutions/input from the flight sim community on the above topic. Im starting to build a home cockpit. My concept is to use wood to build a cockpit frame (that can be easily disassembled, since i have to move frequently....army life) and slowly begin to build a replica of a 737-800 NGX cockpit. My concept is this: Dell XPS 1640 laptop (8 GB ram, 500GB HDD, ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4650, win7 x64) connect my laptop to a Matrox Triplehead2go DE which is going to be connected to 3 24" inch LED monitors. (larger monitors after i retire from the army) Im using the Virtual CDU app for my andriod tablet to act as the CDU. Im buying the Throttle Quadrant (http://www.flightsimpm.com/apps/webstore/products/show/3989457) which will be put into a wooden build pedestal. This will also house all the radios, Xpdr, NAV equipment at a later date. up to this point, i can run it all from my laptop. Im trying to figure out a solution to the following: I want to have a touch screen overhead panel but im out of display ports for the triplehead2go, and i don't think i can hook one up to my vga or hdmi port without making windows 7 flip out (not sure though) is this possible?? I also want to "undock" the main 737 ngx panel and put it on another monitor. This probably won't happen since you can't do that with PMDG 737ngx that i know of. so the three main monitors will be the VC. I think that i can use FS wideview to run the overhead touch screen monitor on a separate pc (cheapy im gonna buy from ebay or something) other option is to use FSwideview to drive the outer monitors and use the center, lower and overhead (touch screen) thru the laptop. any suggestions? hints or problems that i might not be aware of so far. Rob

If this topic has been covered somewhere else, i apologize ahead of time. Im wanting some opinions/solutions/input from the flight sim community on the above topic. Im starting to build a home cockpit. My concept is to use wood to build a cockpit frame (that can be easily disassembled, since i have to move frequently....army life) and slowly begin to build a replica of a 737-800 NGX cockpit. My concept is this: Dell XPS 1640 laptop (8 GB ram, 500GB HDD, ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4650, win7 x64) connect my laptop to a Matrox Triplehead2go DE which is going to be connected to 3 24" inch LED monitors. (larger monitors after i retire from the army) Im using the Virtual CDU app for my andriod tablet to act as the CDU. Im buying the Throttle Quadrant (http://www.flightsimpm.com/apps/webstore/products/show/3989457) which will be put into a wooden build pedestal. This will also house all the radios, Xpdr, NAV equipment at a later date. up to this point, i can run it all from my laptop. Im trying to figure out a solution to the following: I want to have a touch screen overhead panel but im out of display ports for the triplehead2go, and i don't think i can hook one up to my vga or hdmi port without making windows 7 flip out (not sure though) is this possible?? I also want to "undock" the main 737 ngx panel and put it on another monitor. This probably won't happen since you can't do that with PMDG 737ngx that i know of. so the three main monitors will be the VC. I think that i can use FS wideview to run the overhead touch screen monitor on a separate pc (cheapy im gonna buy from ebay or something) other option is to use FSwideview to drive the outer monitors and use the center, lower and overhead (touch screen) thru the laptop. any suggestions? hints or problems that i might not be aware of so far. Rob