This weekend I tried to get an encoder to work properly. Luckily after a few attempts and some blind guessing I succeeded.
I’m using an additional card connected to the SIOC Mastercard that reads the encoder’s inputs.
I programmed this particular encoder to set the Heading value. You can see the encoder in action in the video below. The heading bug is following the inputs nicely.
I’m just holding the encoder weirdly because I’m filming with my other hand…obviously 😉
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Here is a little preview of the sim will look when finished.
It’s been drawn in Trimble SketchUp with help of the original Citation Mustang measurements. It’s a simplified design to reduce costs and building complexity. We will for example use a single 20″ monitor for only two Garmin G1000 screens (in the Mustang there’s one Pilot PFD, a big 15″ MFD and a second PFD for the F.O.)
But we want to recreate every switch and button to give us the full “Mustang-experience”.
Here are the pics:
I recently came across an old Cessna 172 (?) instrument panel
which was used as a training simulator.
It has a complex interfacing but was not intended for the use with FSX. However its instruments are already prepped with servos and/or stepper motors. Thus making it great for adapting it for our purposes.
The Mustang has, although equipped with the Garmin G1000 flightdeck, three standby instruments: Speed indicator; Attitude indicator and the vertical speed indicator.
In this case I disassembled the attitude indicator unit and found that we don’t need that fancy electrical stuff hidden inside. I disconnected all the unneeded cables and boards and remained with just the mechanics and two servo motors attached to it. I connected the servo cables to our servo driving card and programmed a short script in SIOC (our interfacing language).
A short video in which I am testing the response of the indicator:
Last week we startet assembling the base structure. It is made from our material of choice: MDF
First things first: Adding wheels to the base plate for easy relocation.
Assembling the center console.
Adding stuff…
Base structure almost finished. We will add the front plates later on because those need to be removable.
Cessna Citation Mustang Sim 