F5E Panel dimensions

On 2/27/2019 at 4:31 AM, krusty2111us said:

Okay, I was able to get some pictures and some measurements of an F-5 / T-38 cockpit trainer at The Fort Worth Aviation Museum this past weekend. Give me a few days to process and post what I have.

Any updates?

Crosslinking

What measurements are needed?

.. 

On 2/1/2023 at 12:27 AM, agrasyuk said:

What measurements are needed?

 

 

.. 

 

Isn't it F-5A? It's quite a bit different

I'm personally focused on the controls. The length of the control stick arm would be great. From the hinge axis to the top of the grip or the bottom of the grip. Or some point on the grip.

I'd also use something for references in horizontal plane:
A-C

B-C

per the attached image.

The rest of what's needed I'm dumping in the original post here https://forum.dcs.world/topic/318106-f-5e-simpit-cockpit-dimensions-and-flight-controls

34 minutes ago, Bucic said:

Isn't it F-5A? It's quite a bit different
 

T-38A. I think it's close enough to your asking. 

I relayed your question of stick length to the owner. will ping you as soon as.
had I seen your request week earlier I would have gotten the measurements first hand...

side console is 40" long from porkchop to bulkhead . EDIT: no, they don't come factory equipped with a CDU


throttle position

Thank you so much! Speaking of that last photo - the operation of the split throttle mechanism is a big item on my list! How do they connect/disconnect from each other? The detents are trivial but that particular aspect I couldn't figure out.

This might be the place to repost this. I'm fairly new to the DCS forum so please forgive my bumbling around.

I've been working on a 3D printable F-5E Left Console. Roughly based on the 'Authentikit' process but not compatible with regard to momentary switches and universal HUB.

So far, I have worked my way forward on the left console panel to the throttle quadrants using momentary switches and rotary encoders. Yes the TDC works (4x tactile switches) as does the elevation wheel (also rotary encoder).

This has been an exercise in learning as much as anything else. Thanks to all who have posted images etc (especially those with tape measures in them), I have collected quite a few and watch a lot of Youtube on this plane. No, I don't have accurate design drawings to work from, however, I have done a fair bit of reverse engineering in the past.

At this point I intend to stop and reassess after the throttles are done. I should have a usable rig for the important stuff with my head in a VR set.

If anyone is interested (and has a 3D printer) I'm happy to provide more info and share the .stl files when they are finalised and fully tested. I will probably put them in the 3D printing topic (thanks for the heads-up Bucic)

Otherwise I look forward to seeing the work of others. 

On 6/6/2023 at 12:12 PM, Bcamel1 said:

This might be the place to repost this. I'm fairly new to the DCS forum so please forgive my bumbling around.

 

I've been working on a 3D printable F-5E Left Console. Roughly based on the 'Authentikit' process but not compatible with regard to momentary switches and universal HUB.

So far, I have worked my way forward on the left console panel to the throttle quadrants using momentary switches and rotary encoders. Yes the TDC works (4x tactile switches) as does the elevation wheel (also rotary encoder).

This has been an exercise in learning as much as anything else. Thanks to all who have posted images etc (especially those with tape measures in them), I have collected quite a few and watch a lot of Youtube on this plane. No, I don't have accurate design drawings to work from, however, I have done a fair bit of reverse engineering in the past.

At this point I intend to stop and reassess after the throttles are done. I should have a usable rig for the important stuff with my head in a VR set.

If anyone is interested (and has a 3D printer) I'm happy to provide more info and share the .stl files when they are finalised and fully tested. I will probably put them in the 3D printing topic (thanks for the heads-up Bucic)

Otherwise I look forward to seeing the work of others. 

 

 

 

Since you're offering - could you please upload your files somewhere? I've got a <profanity>ty printer and have to make multiple test prints. I might as well make it spit out something useful.

Here are the preliminary "work in progress" files for the F5-E left console. Provided "as is". Hopefully you find them useful. If you need any adjustments for different switch specifications let me know and I'll try to accommodate the changes.

I'll probably put the files on Thingiverse or similar in the future.

Any useful feedback is also welcome. If you do print them let me know how you get on.

F5-E Tiger 2 -Left console v0.0.zip

On 8/22/2023 at 6:21 AM, Bcamel1 said:

Here are the preliminary "work in progress" files for the F5-E left console. Provided "as is". Hopefully you find them useful. If you need any adjustments for different switch specifications let me know and I'll try to accommodate the changes.

I'll probably put the files on Thingiverse or similar in the future.

Any useful feedback is also welcome. If you do print them let me know how you get on.

F5-E Tiger 2 -Left console v0.0.zip 13.95 MB · 27 downloads

& @rubylight What fonts did you guys use? Isn't it the correct one? It seems too narrow to me. Especially evident by letters C and G.

The DCS texture for comparison

I've been staring at it for a long time and still don't know which part of the cockpit is this. Any hints?

Never seen before | F-5 Freedom Fighter part 2 - YouTube —

Font used was "looks about right". Happy to update with a nominated font. I'll look at incorporating the font on the sheet you supplied as it shouldn't be too hard (famous last words) to recreate the letters and numbers from it.

I haven't had time to work on this project for a bit so probably time to reacquaint myself with the details and possibly find the correct font online myself. I do like to be as accurate as possible, however, it will never be perfect.

Thanks for the links on the F5. I'll watch them to see what extra details I can include.

Thanks for your interest.

@Bcamel1 and @Deadmand Both, the MIL font and the Gordon one are too narrow. Yesterday evening I did a font id session but I didn't know you'd be such a fireball and I don't have the names at hand. One was similar to Futura something (20th century something) and the other was one of the Gothic fonts. The most distinguishing features of the F-5 font are very round O, C, G, R letters, technical writing numerals.

What software do you use @Bcamel1m? Do you do the labels within the modeling software or do you import them from e.g. Inkscape?

As for the walkaround video it's more of general use for the purpose of this topic as the F-5 is completely stripped of avionics, with bare DZUS rails.

When I'm looking for a font I always go through the ones actually available in my system or Inkscape. It often saves a lot of hassle. I found a font that may not be perfect but it's closer  to the original than Arial. Gothic-like fonts are certainly the way to go. Here you can see the original (pixelated, from the cockpit textures) vs Yu Gothic UI vs Arial.

Why Yu Gothic UI is still not perfect. The original font differs in that oval letters in the original font like O and G are even closer to a regular circle (wider) and the non-oval letters and letters that are not M, W etc. are narrower. In short, the original has wider O, G and even narrower R, S, T, H etc.

I used the available Fusion fonts and just looked for the ones that were similar. I have used Inkscape for vectored images before but not letters. 

I just checked and it was Arial Bold. Seemed ok at the time ... I have now downloaded MIL-M-18012B so will work with that however I would prefer a more relevant standard font to save time.

8 hours ago, Bcamel1 said:

I used the available Fusion fonts and just looked for the ones that were similar. I have used Inkscape for vectored images before but not letters. 

I just checked and it was Arial Bold. Seemed ok at the time ... I have now downloaded MIL-M-18012B so will work with that however I would prefer a more relevant standard font to save time.

What do you mean by more relevant? A 100% match? I'd like that too as well but in my opinion the Yu is very very close. I'm going to check 2 others later in the day.

As for the production of the panels I'm still debating printing the entire panels and cover plates vs:

A. Not printing the layers with labels and replacing them with laminated paper print.

B. coverplate as a sandwich in the form of sheetmetal-printedbevel. Then switch plate in whatever, sheet metal or acrylic/policarbonate. As obviously the embossing of a sheet metal is not a production process suitable for home workshop.

Here's the svg test file I'm using for quick trials. Remember to try various "boldness" levels and that in inkscape for a font you need to have Fill set to color and Stroke to NONE. Then again, you can use stroke options to achieve interesting effects, like easing of sharp corners or bolding the font up in a controlled manner.

http://font-alphabet-styles.blogspot.com/2011/11/century-gothic.html

https://www.fontsplace.com/twentieth-century-medium-premium-font-download.html

SIMPIT F-5E FONT TEST.svg

@Bcamel1 Have you got any references for dimensioning of throttle grips? Sheet metal or 3D print - it would be great to rely on a starting point.

Done with font matching. For me it's either Yu Gothic UI or Louis George Cafe - bold. Onwards with the throttle grips. But since it's controls I'm going to carry this over to my thread.

Hi Bucic

Sorry I have been away with family and unable to respond. Thanks for your interest in the project, I will put more effort into keeping up with the posts and with your thread.

I'll update the cover plates with one of the fonts you recommended. It should be a relatively simple step as they were designed to be separate from the switch plates. The plates were intended to be separate to simplify 3D printing as well as the ability to update fonts etc. without having to reprint everything again. At a guess the original panels were designed this way for easy reconfiguration for different customers or equipment updates. 

Regarding dimensions I have been working with an assortment of photos and images (some from this forum, some from google images searches, and some from grabs from youtube articles) and interpreting logical spacing dimensions on them as calibration points. The throttles were the next logical step, however, I haven't done it yet. When I do it will have hall sensors with a central bearing along the lines of the Authentikit throttle Maghall setup. I will also look to put some dampers to give it a better feel.

I'm not sure about copyright on the images, however, I would be happy to share my collection if we can work out a suitable platform for the file sizes or I can try to minimise. I really like to acknowledge sources as otherers have been very generous posting them in the first place. It might take a bit of backtracking to find the source for all of them.

@Bcamel1 Hi! No worries. I come and go in waves as well. Look what I found the other day. That might be "common knowledge" to some, it wasn't to me. Also some T-38 Cockpit Familiarization Trainer.

https://www.simpits.org/fileproc/showfiles.php

Here's my plan for right now

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/318106-f-5e-simpit-cockpit-dimensions-and-flight-controls/?do=findComment&comment=5349053