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Building My First A-10 Panels For My Pit


Deezle

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These guys here http://www.alliedelec.com/idec-corporation-ab6q-m1p-b/70173293/

 

Took me a long time to find something the right size for a reasonable price.

 

The UHF and FM homing "lights" are turned out of aluminum, painted black and laser engraved.


Edited by Deezle

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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I hope you didn't pay $8 bucks a piece for those push buttons.

 

If you did this link is gonna make you cry.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5Pcs-Green-Square-Cap-DC12V-Light-SPDT-5-Terminals-Momentary-Push-Button-Switch-/141732400034?hash=item20ffe8cba2

:music_whistling:

 

I spent many hours on eBay looking over the Chinese components and for what we are doing their products and pricing is just whats needed to make this whole effort affordable.

 

I used those Chinese push buttons for the NMSP and the Fire Ext. in my first cockpit...

 

IMG_0091.jpg

 

When I started my second cockpit I decided to go for a much more realistic approach so I made my own Korrey switches from scratch. Each button has two LEDs, one for the top and one for the bottom.

 

IMG_0177.jpg

 

 

IMG_0180.jpg

 

 

Deezle, I was thinking that even if those 7 seg displays are a little intimidating, you could always use LCD 1x8 displays for the radios. There is an excellent video tutorial in the first DCS-BIOS thread that Ian made to demonstrate how easy it is to use them. You should check it out. The displays cost virtually nothing if you buy Chinese.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8x1-LCD-Display-Character-Module-w-KS0066-HD44780-Controller-Black-White-/301020329281?hash=item461635b541

Regards

John W

aka WarHog.

 

My Cockpit Build Pictures...



John Wall

 

My Arduino Sketches ... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-Dc0Wd9C5l3uY-cPj1iQD3iAEHY6EuHg?usp=sharing

 

 

WIN 10 Pro, i8-8700k @ 5.0ghz, ASUS Maximus x Code, 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum Ram,



AIO Water Cooler, M.2 512GB NVMe,

500gb SSD, EVGA GTX 1080 ti (11gb), Sony 65” 4K Display

VPC MongoosT-50, TM Warthog Throttle, TRK IR 5.0, Slaw Viper Pedals

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Balls, knew there had to be something cheaper, just hard to search by specs on eBay. I'd like the lit ones but just using this as a normal HID instead of through DCS bios gives me flexibility with other modules (I think it will work for selecting modes on FC3 type aircraft).

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 3 months later...

What Deezle is using is DCS- BIOS to interface with DCS. The GPWiz is an HID device. DCS-BIOS was not designed to work with a device like that. You néed an Arduino board where you use pre made code and paste it into a sketch that is then uploaded to the Arduino board.

 

If you wish to use the GPWiz, the best I can suggest is to read the manual for it. They are really very easy to use. Also do a quick search on this forum and you should be able to find what you need in more specific detail than described on the GPWiz site.

 

If you want to use DCS- BIOS and an arduino, go to the DCS-BIOS web site and read the users guide for it and all your immediate questions will be answered.

Regards

John W

aka WarHog.

 

My Cockpit Build Pictures...



John Wall

 

My Arduino Sketches ... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-Dc0Wd9C5l3uY-cPj1iQD3iAEHY6EuHg?usp=sharing

 

 

WIN 10 Pro, i8-8700k @ 5.0ghz, ASUS Maximus x Code, 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum Ram,



AIO Water Cooler, M.2 512GB NVMe,

500gb SSD, EVGA GTX 1080 ti (11gb), Sony 65” 4K Display

VPC MongoosT-50, TM Warthog Throttle, TRK IR 5.0, Slaw Viper Pedals

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  • 4 months later...
What Deezle is using is DCS- BIOS to interface with DCS. The GPWiz is an HID device. DCS-BIOS was not designed to work with a device like that. You néed an Arduino board where you use pre made code and paste it into a sketch that is then uploaded to the Arduino board.

Actually I don't have any DCS-Bios stuff yet. The teensy boards I'm using work like HID boards. The rest of my panels are on hold as of right now.

 

 

But I figured I'd do a small update on my pit. I since switched to a universal racing seat, it has a transducer mounted to the bottom of it for a homemade buttkicker type setup.

 

hGX4gCt.jpg

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 5 months later...

My pit now with MFG Crosswinds.

 

BGQ1QLh.jpg

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Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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Thanks!

 

Looking back I guess I didn't post anything in this thread about the collective I made which can be partially seen in the last photo.

Build thread

 

ylyOO2B.jpg

 

Mkz1xek.jpg

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 3 weeks later...

The lighting panel finally. Probably my last panel build. The pots are mapped to the A-10 via Helios, the whole thing acts like an HID so I can easily bind it to other modules.

 

1rnuYt0.jpg

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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Hey Deezle

 

That lighting panel looks really great.

 

However, that said, I wanted to give you a heads up on the pots mapped to Helios. I used that exact same method with my second "mini" cockpit. I use an HID board and mapped all of the pots for lighting and the volume controls for the radios to helios. At first it worked really well but over a short period of time I started to get issues with the pots...jitter. But just a little. The problem really started to show when I was using all of the pots where they were set to various positions. I believe the combined jitter caused Helios to go crazy due to it being overwhelmed with data. Buttons rapidly flipping all over, displays turning on and off etc. I couldn't pin down what exactly was causing this so I started selectively removing components from play to see if any of them had an impact. As soon as I removed the pots from Helios everything settled down.

 

I did some research on this to see if it could be fixed. There were several comments about how the pots are configured in Helios. I tried the fixes that were suggested but it made no difference. The problem always returned. As such I ditched the pots in favor of rotary encoders and life has been good ever since.

 

I'm unsure whether you will encounter similar issues. However, on the off chance you do, I thought I should let you know what I had to deal with as it was an extremely frustrating time.

 

Best of luck with this.

Regards

John W

aka WarHog.

 

My Cockpit Build Pictures...



John Wall

 

My Arduino Sketches ... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-Dc0Wd9C5l3uY-cPj1iQD3iAEHY6EuHg?usp=sharing

 

 

WIN 10 Pro, i8-8700k @ 5.0ghz, ASUS Maximus x Code, 16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum Ram,



AIO Water Cooler, M.2 512GB NVMe,

500gb SSD, EVGA GTX 1080 ti (11gb), Sony 65” 4K Display

VPC MongoosT-50, TM Warthog Throttle, TRK IR 5.0, Slaw Viper Pedals

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I concur with Warhog. I had same lag problem when using potentiometers with Helios. I switched on something and then 10 seconds later it switched on in DCS. I did install some capacitors to even our the signal. It helped a bit but it was never perfect.

I remember writting Ian about this in the very first DCS Bios Experimental bersion. I seem to recall that he said a that back in those days DCS Bios would suffer same overwhelming amount of data.

 

There may very well be a filtering in later DCS Bios. I honestly haven't tried.

 

Oh and very nice panel Sir :-)

 

Cheers

Hans

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So far no troubles, these pots are very clean. Also, I'm only using Helios for this and the RWR overlay (Simshaker and Helios gauges do no play nice together, so I've chosen Simshaker), perhaps it's more of a problem if you're using a bunch of gauges and switches.

 

I did have that trouble with DCS bios when I did a little testing with it but I found a bit of code that smoothed the input signal completely.

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 3 months later...

I am a cnc programmer and parts designer if you ever need help with cnc mill or router programs. Or general mechanical Design. No, I don't want money for helping, I am retired, and just want to help others with our pation of flying.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

AA_Slautter

Dell XPS 8935|I-7 8700K|GTX 1070 Ti|16GB Ram|TM WH|SAITEK PRO PEDALS|TM COUGAR PANELS|7280X1440

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  • 1 month later...

Some updated shots of my setup. I decided to ditch the triple 27" monitors for a single 34" 3440x1440 ultrawide curved monitor. I do kinda miss the immersion in DCS with the triple setup but I really like the higher resolution of this display, it also gives you more FOV than a standard monitor without having to resort to modifying LUA files (which also causes problems in multiplayer) like with a triple setup. Also I never have to mess with Nvidia surround ever again for other games. Surround sucks and blows.

 

I have a VKB Gunfighter Pro with WH adapter on the way too.

 

 

pSA0aD8.jpg?1

 

PHHmMoa.jpg?1

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 1 month later...

Finally got my VKB Gunfighter Pro. Been tweaking it, I like how adjustable it is, but I must admit it feels weird after using the TMWH for so long. I also made my own combat pedals for the MFG Crosswinds. Also pictured are my Steelseries Arctis 7 headset. I got these a couple months ago and love them, never going back to wired again.

 

 

xpHKKVi.jpg

  • Like 1

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 6 months later...

I did an A-10C startup video using my pit.

 

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 1 year later...

Long time no see, guys.

 

 

So a while back I tried a DSD input board for my collective, I had trouble with all the axes moving about in a cyclical fashion, back and forth, even when the controls weren't touched. I emailed DSD about it and their response basically said there's nothing wrong with their board and that I can pound sand.

 

 

So I ordered a Leo Bodnar board not long ago, got it all hooked up and I must say it works perfectly, LB boards are bit spendy, but worth every penny. I then used the DSD board in my NMSP since it doesn't have any axes to worry about, it works fine in that capacity.

 

 

 

My next plan is to buy the big Leo Bodnar board and combine my right panel and lighting panel into one device. This will simplify my pit even more, then I will have no more Arduino stuff, which is fine for what it is, but has a few problems. I have also added a 3rd MFD to my display monitor since I got the F/A-18C.

 

 

 

 

I did some cleanup in my pit today, took the pedals and stick out and vacuumed them since they were covered in dust and lint. You may also be able to notice a new pickle button on the stick. It's an OTTO Mil-Spec type switch, the original started going bad, the new one sticks out a bit more, but it's pretty nice. You can also see the custom pedals a bit better.

 

 

4akb5Ng.jpg

 

 

 

I also worked on cleaning up the rats nest of wiring behind the monitors. I wasn't that happy when I was done, but looking at the before picture, I must say it's a huge difference.

 

 

 

jXqixSS.jpg

 

 

 

Please forgive the dust bunnies still present back there.

 

 

VNO3doD.jpg

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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Ah how time flies, (pun intended).

 

 

Hey what size aluminium stock did you make those switch heads from back in 2015 and was it solid bar?

 

 

I was going to try and make some using a drill press as the lathe and a dremel as the tool but local DIY store only has very small diameter bar.

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Good questions, I wanna say they started out as 1/4" (~6mm) rod.

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 2 weeks later...

One more small detail. I decided to paint the 3 black rotary knobs grey to look more correct, small thing but makes a big difference in appearance.

 

 

4esclBx.jpg

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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  • 1 year later...

A few years later, still going strong. I finally combined the lighting panel with the other right side panel and converted it over to a single Leo Bodnar board. No more Arduino stuff in my pit, everything is working pretty smoothly now.

 

 

d0gI41d.png

Intel 9600K@4.9GHz, Asus Z390, 32GB DDR4, EVGA RTX 3070, Custom Water Cooling, 970 EVO 1TB NVMe

34" UltraWide 3440x1440 Curved Monitor, 21" Touch Screen MFD monitor, TIR5

My Pit Build, VKB Gunfighter Pro w/WH Grip, TMWH Throttle, MFG Crosswinds W/Combat Pedals, Cougar MFDs, Custom A-10C panels, Custom Helo Collective, SimShaker with Transducer

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