[simpits-tech] Poll-What are you building?

[Matt Bailey]

Does Rob's lightdriver software support other sims other than Falcon 4?

	-Matt Bailey

volker metzger wrote:
> 
> 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