CNC’ed Rotary Knob

The first “real” CNC-job our new machine did,
was a model of the Cessna Citation Mustang rotary knob you’d find on the lighting panel or on the temperature panel. 

These knobs are obviously not available to buy, so we have to make our own. The plan is to make a mold of the model and cast it with epoxy resin to get exact replicas.

We probably have to make another model slightly bigger than the original, because the epoxy resin shrinks while hardening. 

new CNC

Since the last blog entry much has happened. We sold our first CNC machine in exchange for another, bigger one. Maybe you’ve already heard from it. It’s a shapeoko 2 from inventables. This amazing thing has everthing one could wish for. It’s driven by an arduino, therefore I can operate it with my MacBook which is an immense plus. The workspace is way bigger than our old one, measuring approximately 30x40cm. It’s a much sturdier machine made from special aluminium extrusions called “makerslides”. Thanks to those, one could expand the machine up to 1x1m workspace! Anyway, we’re looking forward to work with the machine, so stay tuned for the next posts. 🙂

Encoder Testing

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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Attitude Indicator Testing

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:

It has begun…

Last week we startet assembling the base structure. It is made from our material of choice: MDF

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First things first: Adding wheels to the base plate for easy relocation.

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Assembling the center console.

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Adding stuff…

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Base structure almost finished. We will add the front plates later on because those need to be removable.