[simpits-tech] Poll-What are you building?
volker metzger
simpits-tech@simpits.org
26 Oct 2002 13:40 GMT
Hi ,
first i say sorry for my poor english but nevertheless i will introduce my project (who interacts with falcon 4.0).
OK, first what i dreamed in the beginning of plan the pit (summer 2001) ,:
-the pit should have lights (caution, warning ....) , the pit should have motion (interaction with falcon 4.0) , the pit should have so much switches and knobs as possible, the pit should have good sound (vibration), the whole construction should be affordable ( not more then 1500$ ). Ok, thats was a big wish list, now i can tell you what the status quo is,
Lights:
The pit have around 60 leds with different functions who works with the great lightdriver programm from Robert Favre, by the way thank you Rob for your help !, Robs great light driver works perfect , i use 2 mm 5451 led driver with the programm and so i have all lights from falcon (for example master caution , complete caution panel, threat warnings and so on ....). I integrated also some led s in the panels (for example elec or epu, threat warning ). This solution was cheap and i dont need to buy a epic card.
Motion platform and my rock n ride/falcon interface program:
>From the begin of plan the pit i want motion for falcon 4.0. The only affordable solution was the rock n ride. After searching a few months i found a used one and pay only 250 $ for it. Then i replaced the mountings with home made aluminium holders so i was able to built a construction with large panels around the rock n ride who moves with the chair. For the panels i use poylstrol (plastic) so the whole construction its not to heavy for the rock n ride.
After a while is was not more satisfied with moving the rock n ride only with the joystick controll programm who came with the rock n ride. Especially when the falcon is on the ground (for example its not realisic that the rock n ride moves with every joystick movement while im taxing on the ground)
After thinking a lot of this problem i decided to write a programm in visual basic 4.0 who use parts of Robs lightdriver programm to controll the rock and ride movement. (Thanks Rob Favre again for the Host code and the help to extract the pitch and roll data).
It was a long way to find a way to controll the rock n ride with the falcon, but in the end it was a success. After uncountable hours of try and error i found out that i can move the rock n ride with the mscomm commmand from visual basic. Now my programm use the pitch and roll data in conjunction with the mscomm to move the rock n ride. It works good and was very exact .(I do a little fine tuning programming in the future).
Panels switches and knobs, ICP:
I draw the panels and print it out with a laser printer. Then i cover the printing with transparent foil . After that i glued the printing on the poylstrol panels, thats all.
For the switches and knobs i use a hagstrom ke 72 encoder and a hacked programmable keyboard.
I think a lot of the ICP , should i built it myself or what else i can use ?, in the end i come to the conclusion to use a stripped of pcdash2, draw a new surface and paint it. It works and looks also good.
Visuals:
LCD projection panel (800x600) with a 400 Watt Overhead projector , (affordable and works great)
Sound :
transducer mounted on the rock n ride
Speech recognition
Game commander 2
What i want to do in the next 3 months:
Complete the pit (I finished the pit to 90% at the moment) .
Volker "Dragomir" Metzger