The Ikea pit (sort of)

New pit/desk build

After several years of fruitless flying at my desk I decided to take the plunge.

I have always been one to make my own kit, I trawl forum after forum soaking up knowledge and until now I have never had anywhere to put the stuff that I make, but that was about to change.

FSC2009 was a flight simulator event held in Weston super mare and I am fortunate enough to be one of the event organisers, but in order to really help I hade to make a setup for my flight sim so it could be set up and flown by the public. Not having a desk this proved a little difficult. But after knocking up some boxes I managed to achieve this:

All setup at the helicopter museum.

Looking odd but worked a treat with my own panels.

I nagged and nagged the other half and joking she said I could build a pit as long as it looked like a desk. This got me thinking – 1 trip to BandQ later I started work.

This is the area I have to work with. I need to make the most of it.

The desk is designed with 5 sections. 2 of them form side walls, another is a monitor shelf and centre console, a central “between the knees” section and a fold away top that becomes a wall to shield me from the outside world.

Work begins. This will be the top. It needs to be cut in 3 different directions, its too bug for the band saw so I become VERY good at jig sawing in neat lines. TIP – Laser guided jigsaws LIE.

This is the hinged section folded flat, looks nice and neat.

When cutting large pieces of wood that are the same size on all sides – run some lines across them before you cut, it really helps keep it all making sense.

The finished hinged section.

The idea is that when folded flat, this will bear my weight, so it needs to be strong .

Test fitting the sides and monitor shelf.

This is a quick fast forward to the sides being test fitted after fixing them with shelf’s.

The holes in the sides are to allow wiring to pass from one side of the desk/pit to the other without training everywhere. The will pass through the monitor shelf section. Notice how one of the sides is cut down, the cut away has been kept and will be put back into place but hinged so it can drop away to the side when I want to fly and stay up to help support the top section.

The side sections need doors – here they are.

This is the monitor shelf (its resting against a wall) The holes in the side match the ones in the side sections and the front is hinged to allow for access.

This shows the internal construction a little better and the hinged front.

Painting begins, she chose the colour. (part of our bargain) The bit ill be interested in is on the inside of these sections.

The side flaps are held up with little brass slide bolts.

This shows the drop down section a little better.

The slide bolt on the left section.

Sorry - had to contiinue in a new post.

The right hand section pained black.

And the left.

View from the front

The monitor shelf from the front all painted.

Says it all really.

The finished article, looks like a desk, wife likes it, looks normalish.

But then this happens!!!

The top of the desk folds in half and is fixed to the wall on the right by a hook, the right hand side of the desk top is attached to the right side section with 2 heavy hinges, this allows the whole thing to lift up and out of the way easily.

My collective is on rails and extends passed the desk to the perfect position by my left hand. The panel on the right is now complicated enough to allow me to fly DCS Blackshark without a keyboard. But as the keyboard looks so bloody pretty , it gets mounted on the monitor shelf.

My right hand panel, monitor is my GPS in flight sim and will hopefully by my schvall (sp) in DCS.

Lit up at night.

There we have it, everyone is happy, I get a cockpit – she gets a neat lounge.

Thank you for reading my huge write up.

Talisman

That is sweeeeeeeeeet!!!!

good job!

Awesome stuff!!:thumbup:

I've been thinking about building me a cockpit with side panels and all, and what you built there is exactly what im looking for, very cool:pilotfly:

Sweet.

Can you give us some more details on your collective? I can't see it very well on the pictures.

Thanks.

Have you proposed the idea to Ikea? Could be a hit within sim world. :P

Nice Job!

Sweet.

Can you give us some more details on your collective? I can't see it very well on the pictures.

Thanks.

Of course I can - pics to follow.

Have you proposed the idea to Ikea? Could be a hit within sim world. :P

Nice Job!

I might do that - but by the time it hits the shelves it will be baby blue with built in lava-lamps and an electric tin opener.

You've just upped IKEA's reputation by a mile!

Great work, man - impressive how you got so much out of so little, and such a primitive start. (Ikea) :)

Wow man it never ceases to amaze what guys can pull off! Great looking set-up! I'll bet you got a lot of great comments!

My collective is based on the bell 206 and is build to exact scale. - but since black shark it has undergone a few changes.

It has three built in panels, one long panel with a second throttle on the right hand side, a second 4 way panel with 2 momentary switches and a third larger addon panel which is still under construction and will be my targeting and control panel within blackshark.

The grime under the collective box is glue from the original starter, lights and gov labels.

The rear section – the white label is a schematic for the KA-50 the silver knob is the friction control for the collective.

A better view of the collective showing the lighting.

The collective box. The POV HAT is in fact a thumb joy – I used the same materials as Triggerhappy69 for mine but the top of the thumb is in fact the trim button from a real westland cyclic.

The throttle control on the cyclic works as well rotating anti clockwise through 60 degrees from full throttle to shut off. Underneath is the idle shutoff as it is on the bell long ranger. This was designed for the DoDoSim jet ranger to simulate hot starts.

A close up of the hinge inside the collective.

The friction lock assembly.

I am a great fan of the KISS principle – so the collective up-down is as simple as possible just a slide pot and a wire rod. I have made these commercially in the past and not one has failed so far in 2 years. Also here is a close up of the rail system I made using drawer runners and steel box tubing.

The rats nest as I call it – this one is simple – you should see the other side, Leo’s board sits happily within the miles of wire.

The unit stowed on its rails.

All of the switches on the panel are momentary (on) – off – (on) switches or push to make switches. The unit was designed to have just 12 inputs but that number has grown to over 24 and I plan to add to it further. There are 6 functions on the collective head plus the thumb joy. The main front panel has 12 inputs plus a lighting switch and the other panels have 8 inputs.

My right panel has 36 inputs and will be doubled up very soon.

Man, you have to create a set of drawings, that is a great build with a very high Wife Acceptance Factor.

awesome job!

That is the whole thinking behind the pit, i can do with it what i like and as long as i can close the lid it doesn't matter. Im not sure how to use all this CAD stuff. i learnt drafting at school and still deal in inches (for those in the US, europe is metric and so is the UK by default) Everything i draw is with a setsquare.

I figured that since i had the pics i might as well put them up. Here is my cyclic. Its not pretty - but it does the job.

My cyclic is a modified top gun with its guts ripped out and replaced with USB and extended – built in fact to Triggerhappy69s specs using the same techniques. O didn’t bother with the triggers and the brake though. Respect for that goes to trigger. Although I found that using fibreglass was a nightmare and opted instead for cutting the toes out of a couple of pairs of black socks. Once the resin set – a perfect fit.

The center toggle is a two function (on) off (on) switch.

Again no HAT – this is another thumb joy and is used to slew the schvall (sp)

I love that to everyone it looks like just an extended top gun joystick, but really it’s a USB legend. My home paid pedals also connect to the cyclic

Thanks for the collective pics Talisman. Much appreciated. You did an outstanding job. I guess I am not alone to be very curious about how you made the throttle control work.

The linear sliding pot is an excellent idea. This is helping me greatly in my quest for finishing my pit.

A very ingenious solution to a tough problem (wife acceptance). Very well done!

Just a quick update.

added some labels and tidied up the panel a little.

This is the new Thumbjoy for the Shkval

Tidied up the cyclic a little looks a lot better.

also changed the colour of everything and painted the center consol so it matches the rest of the pit.

due to all sorts of problems with getting used to trimming i added a center return to my rudder, not all that real but will be better for the new A-10 if it comes around.

Also added a triplehead2go - at last i feel like im really there. !!! more pics to follow.

Great to see your progress looking really good.

Thanks for the collective pics Talisman. Much appreciated. You did an outstanding job. I guess I am not alone to be very curious about how you made the throttle control work.

The linear sliding pot is an excellent idea. This is helping me greatly in my quest for finishing my pit.

I second that, I would love a collective with throttle control.

Awesome!

Thank you guys for the encouragement. I was just looking back at the piccies in the thread and they look bloody awful, never take pictures on a mobile phone! you wont be proud.

The pit is teally picking up pace now - i have new monitors so now have 5 feet of visuals :D

Also added a new chair and a couple of new functions to the panels.

Next is the PVI- 800 and some of the overhead functions which ill be using another of Leos boards for - that will make 5 of them :S

Also decided to add 2 buttons whcih dont feature in the real cockpit - auto start and auto shutdown - sometime i really cant be assed.

PS - if like me your using leos boards - resetting toggles so they match the sim can be a pain - pause/break is your friend.

Auto start - pause - reset switches - unpause

done.

Very beautiful and practical build!! :thumbup:

I had something similar in mind for a while, but then I remembered that I don't have a wife :P

Your collective is especially nice!!

I have to say it depends on the phone. I have a iPhone 3Gs and it takes amazing pictures. All the pics I have taken of my pit so far are from my iPhone! So - depending on the camera and the lighting, it can either be a good thing or a bad thing!

Thank you guys for the encouragement. I was just looking back at the piccies in the thread and they look bloody awful, never take pictures on a mobile phone! you wont be proud.

Please, please and please post some more pictures :) and any construction tips you are willing to share on the collective control. I'm rethinking my setup and following you lead would be perfect for my needs.:helpsmilie:

Please, please and please post some more pictures :) and any construction tips you are willing to share on the collective control. I'm rethinking my setup and following you lead would be perfect for my needs.:helpsmilie:

Of course i will.

As this is the third time ive been asked about my collective ill do a full write up and post it here tomorrow. I have a couple of collectives lying around in various states of construction so ill tear them up and take piccies.

Anything i can do to help fellow simmers.