Hitch's A10C Pit (Pictures Plenty)

Just a couple pics from another proj. test.

From the back good coverage.

I've been busy again this weekend building my side consoles and working on my front panel enclosure. As always I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Everything drawn out on the MDF....

In case you were wondering if I had some high tech fancy ass jigsaw. No I don't just an ancient B&D with two speeds. Old as it is though it's very well built and cuts straight. They don't make them like they used too. Damn thing is probably 5-10yrs older than me LOL!

Front and back of consoles. Going to use the back sides to trace the middle ribs.

I also cut the back to the front panel enclosure. This is where the mirror will end up.

Using cheap 1.5"x1.5" wood for the struts.

Right side

With the ribs added. They're just floating right now, I'll attach them when I get their locations settled.

Both consoles cut.

A little mock up to get an idea of where this is going. Nothing is permanent here just a rough fit.

I based my side consoles off of Dimebugs amazing work but altered them a little to fit my own needs. Y2kiah designed the front console and again based my design off it. These guys have made some awesome designs and are awesome even more for sharing them. Without their designs I couldn't have even started. I need to finish framing out my front console enclosure so I can mount the projector and test out helios.

Looking good! I've been waiting for this last update!

Nicely done with just an old jigsaw. Way to go bud.

Thanks guys!

I took a few pictures of my front console enclosure roughly (temporary) mocked up.

This is what the inside base looks like. I cut out the spot where the projector will need to drop through (this way the proj. itself doesn't blok the image.

I'm hoping I can just tilt the front lens through enough to project and bounce back off the mirror without catching the protruding proj. in the image!

Just a rough mock up need to work on some framework here and make some adjustments.

It's looking good.. I'm ready to see more pics. What make and model of projector are you using? You may be on to something with the projecter idea. It should work, i hope the images are clear and crisp.

I scrapped the proj. idea the other day when I came across a used 19" widescreen. Its a little shorter than the area I wanted to cover (22") but will be much easier to finish everything.

Understandable.. I'm using a 21" touch screen in my buil. I'm going to remove the bezel and mount iy flush with the front console. I want a UFC from pitbildr then I'll build the landing gear assembly.

The projector is a good idea

The real issue for the projector is the size of the front portion of the pit. Using the proj. was making that section HUGE, it would have worked but it led to other problems. My man cave is 8' x 10', has an armchair and a sofa in it. To make matters worse my projector for main visuals beams across the 8' wide part of the room. Using the proj. for the panel required the pit to be about 6' long roughly. I don't want to lose the dual purpose of my man cave for watching movies and such. The other reason I was using the proj. was that I had no monitor to use, that was solved when my boss replaced his and gave me the old one a couple weeks ago.

Now I just have to get back to work on the thing. Once again life has reared its ugly head and keeping me from the important stuff! :megalol:

Made a little progress today. Since I'm switching to a monitor I needed to re-cut all my gauges. I had a pc of 1/8" thick plywood lying around and decided to use that as an overlay. The monitor I'm using is the same height wise but about 3" shorter width wise. That said I had to re-draw everything and re-size some gauges to make everything fit again.

Here we go....... again......

Comparison.

Give you an idea oh much difference between the widest parts of the display.

I'm using a Samsung 226BW monitor.

I'm going to try and get a bunch more done before the weekend is thru. Have to travel on business next couple weeks and will only be home on the weekends.

A little bit more progress today...... Since I need something to fly with and need to make some major changes to my front panel I put my overlay on my monitor. I'll attach the monitor to one of my adjustable arms and mount it to the existing pit so I can actually use the display and MFD's while construction continues on the pit. Check it out:

After the overlay was cut to size just a test fit to see how it looks.

Test fit with one MFD.

A small shot of what the monitor mount looks like. I acquired these years ago and these swing arm mounts are great for so many different uses!

There we go, now I just need to mount it to the pit and make a HELIOS profile for the gauges. I guess I need to export the MFD screens as well. I'll definitely take some pictures at that point but better yet I'll try to get some video of it in action too!

Back home for the weekend and since that last post a lot has changed. First, last weekend the monitor above had issues and didn't work right (barely at all). Many swear words later I learn that my brother had a spare monitor. It was the same height and only an inch or two wider, best of all it worked! So I ripped off the bezel and fixed my panel to it. I had enough time to start messing with HELIOS and ran out of time with nothing to show. Fast forward to today I was able to re-work my monitor mount and get all my gauges set up within the software. Next all I need to do is export the MFD screens which is killing me right now. I'll post an update if I get the MFCDs exported and working!

Here's some pics of process of sizing/placing gauges with HELIOS (awesome software).

Well with the help of squad mates Airdog and Cat_101 I was able to line up everything on the monitor and ATM I have both MFDs and the RWR working (all other gauges work too)! Now I can fly while the rest of the pit is under construction!

That looks great and is something similar to what I thought about doing.

Can ya shoot a video of it in action? Looking great!

Looking good.. This probably how my setup will look. Nice job

Can ya shoot a video of it in action? Looking great!

Yeah I'll try to shoot (decent) video this weekend when I'm back home. I need to stop using my iphone for pictures until I score a 4 instead of a 3GS, at least the 4 has a flash......

Thanks for the comments guys. Now if someone can tell me what all these buttons do........:doh:

any word on this?

LOL you got me, have not taken any video nor have I continued work on the side consoles or front panel. To be honest I haven't flown much in the last few months either due to work, family and having a 19 month old daughter. I'll try and get some video this weekend but since I've said that before I won't make any promises!

Droz - if you have any specific questions just ask away.

As for getting back to work on the larger project, I hope to find some time for that. My 86 yr old Grandfather is one heck of a woodworker and has some great tools and expertise that can help the process along. Only problem is that he has been in out of the hospital since summer due to poor health. When he goes back home and is feeling better I hope to build some projects for my daughter and get his oversight on my pit project. I'm hoping he'll be well enough just to tell me what to do at this point.

I'm more curious in the design specifics for the cutouts and holes on your pit. Diameters and whatnot.

Well other than the MFD cut-outs (built for TM MFDs) the other cut-outs are just good faith guesses on size. I had to take some liberties as to fit everything within the confines of the monitor but the great thing about HELIOS (thanks GADROC) is that all the gauges can be re-sized and made to fit. In other words I just loosely based my layout on the real A10 panel and swapped out a couple gauges for the flaps & fuel gauge on the small bottom left 4 cluster of gauges. I could measure everything for you but unless you have the same monitor I'm not sure it will end up the same.

When I go back to my final front panel I may have to re-draw, re-cut and re-do some of the gauge layout for the new monitor I'm using. As well I have to take in account some design changes for the arming & landing gear panel. Since now there will be a monitor behind I'll have to raise up the sections for the latter two panels so I fit switches and such behind and in between the monitor. Always happy to answer questions so fee free to ask.

awesome. Do you know of a way to simulate dials and turn knobs for things like the heading indicator without costing tons of money? I don't know a ton about electronics. I'd like t have actualy knobs and dials that when I turn them, they move the items in question, like if I turn the Heading Indicator knob bug, the bug moves in game/helios (I do have Helios)

this is amazing! great job so far! with all the technology out there and free image warping software, you could easily get some cheap projectors and make a surround visual for it as well. It'd beat the 20 million dollar sims our airline uses! Wish I had a "man cave" to do this with. Closest would be a corner of the garage. I'd be happy right now if my computer would just not shut down after 10 mins of playing the sim

Droz - There are custom input products out there that can do that. I have an XKeys 128 keyboard encoder I'll be using for my pit to start. I'll probably add to that with some other boards as time goes on.

Clr4ils - Thx for the kind comments. Unfortunately I don't have the $$$, hardware or space for a large wraparound projection set-up but I agree that would be cool. Speaking of garages I might be moving all this out there as my baby girl needs a play room (undecided though yet).

Bump (to myself) - as soon as I find some free time I'm gonna get going on this again. Hell I might even find some time to fly A10C if I'm lucky. Almost a year to when I started! Damned responsibilities of life!