F18 Hornet UFC

Stupid cornavirus.... i have put my email address in however nothing happens when i hit submit. No acknowledgement that i have subscribed

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Had the same issue first, came back a couple of hours later and it worked! No idea why

Bah i guess that puts me on the bottom of the list then......

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Any updates on your supply chain?

Any updates on your supply chain?

Things are still a bit dire, I have a few bits and bobs with shipping notifications of "regular' components ie rotary encoders, knobs etc. My parts that are manufactured are the issue as I'm told even though they are open for business, they themselves have supply chain issues. I've tried shopping around but I keep getting the same response.

I do wonder whats its "really" like there at the moment for their industry.

On the weekend I'll be contacting all who have registered for the UFC to guage what they are interested in , VR only , must have all displays from the get go or happy with VR with the option to self add Displays at a later time.

That will help me future plan for once I am able to start doing units.

Real Perty!

Things are still a bit dire, I have a few bits and bobs with shipping notifications of "regular' components ie rotary encoders, knobs etc. My parts that are manufactured are the issue as I'm told even though they are open for business, they themselves have supply chain issues. I've tried shopping around but I keep getting the same response.

 

I do wonder whats its "really" like there at the moment for their industry.

 

On the weekend I'll be contacting all who have registered for the UFC to guage what they are interested in , VR only , must have all displays from the get go or happy with VR with the option to self add Displays at a later time.

 

That will help me future plan for once I am able to start doing units.

Thanks, for the quick reply, hopefully things will get back close to normal soon. I look forward to your weekend contact.

Boy has the world changed since I last did an update on the UFC… My problems in January of just sourcing parts from china seems so insignificant to the issues we are facing now. I’m sorry for judging you so hard January..

I am still of course having delays with shipments from China, but some parts have been dribbling in. Enough so that I am able to come up with 2nd beta of the F18 Hornet UFC with all displays.

You have already seen the scratchpad in action, now I have added the Comm displays and the Option displays.

For the Comm Display I am only using a single digit.. Of course we can get 2 digit comms but sourcing a suitable display just was not possible. My solution is completely workable I feel and so you can tell when you are on a channel greater than 10 I am turning on the Decimal point. this should be enough of an indicator.

Now onto the Option displays, I have the displays, and I received my PCB board finally …. great lets solder this puppy in.. plug it in push some text and oh… this isn’t right. Turns out the suppliers datasheet is incorrect and one row of pins is around the wrong way. This means I get garbage text. This is easily overcome with a new PCB design but very dissapointing.

This Video showcases the current state of the unit (with garbage text)

We are getting close, I am already contacting those who are after a VR only unit, they are ready to go (subscribe on my page https://www.tekcreations.space/product/f18-ufc-usb-controller/ , and I will contact you with a survey link)

All thats left is for me to work out what pins are what on the Option display, redesign the PCB for those, and then test. Once thats done I can start ordering in larger quantities of stock in preparation for assembly.

Stay safe everyone

Great news looking forward to future updates.:thumbup:

I need this lol

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Pretty cool, looking forward to receiving my VR unit!!

Boy has the world changed since I last did an update on the UFC… My problems in January of just sourcing parts from china seems so insignificant to the issues we are facing now. I’m sorry for judging you so hard January..

 

I am still of course having delays with shipments from China, but some parts have been dribbling in. Enough so that I am able to come up with 2nd beta of the F18 Hornet UFC with all displays.

 

You have already seen the scratchpad in action, now I have added the Comm displays and the Option displays.

For the Comm Display I am only using a single digit.. Of course we can get 2 digit comms but sourcing a suitable display just was not possible. My solution is completely workable I feel and so you can tell when you are on a channel greater than 10 I am turning on the Decimal point. this should be enough of an indicator.

 

Now onto the Option displays, I have the displays, and I received my PCB board finally …. great lets solder this puppy in.. plug it in push some text and oh… this isn’t right. Turns out the suppliers datasheet is incorrect and one row of pins is around the wrong way. This means I get garbage text. This is easily overcome with a new PCB design but very dissapointing.

 

This Video showcases the current state of the unit (with garbage text)

 

 

 

We are getting close, I am already contacting those who are after a VR only unit, they are ready to go (subscribe on my page https://www.tekcreations.space/product/f18-ufc-usb-controller/ , and I will contact you with a survey link)

 

All thats left is for me to work out what pins are what on the Option display, redesign the PCB for those, and then test. Once thats done I can start ordering in larger quantities of stock in preparation for assembly.

 

Stay safe everyone

I very interested in your Hornet UFC panel for VR use. When do you expect to have any ready to ship? Thanks!

Ok, after refreshing the DHL Page frantically every day it seems that it is like watching toast and doesn’t speed things up.. But it finally arrived!.

Time to Assemble the V3 beta of the F18 UFC USB Controller

After a bit of anxious soldering I plugged it in and realised Thankfully I managed to correct the wrong datasheet data and we have working option displays!

You can see below the video showcasing the V3 Beta in action. As before when you are on a channel greater than 10 I am turning on the Decimal point.

Now with the Option cues I decided to turn on all the decimal points! I think it worked out quite well without the ability to custom design a display to have them in the correct position.

Getting to the finish line now, All I need to do is cleanup some code and do some more testing.

One thing to look at is the brightness, I am able to turn off the scratchpad but having issues with the Option and Com Displays.

I should say that I received my VR unit a couple of weeks and it is fantastic, a really really nice piece of Kit.

Thanks for the update things seems to be coming along pretty good, looking forward to placing an order.

Ok, after refreshing the DHL Page frantically every day it seems that it is like watching toast and doesn’t speed things up.. But it finally arrived!.

 

Time to Assemble the V3 beta of the F18 UFC USB Controller

 

After a bit of anxious soldering I plugged it in and realised Thankfully I managed to correct the wrong datasheet data and we have working option displays!

 

You can see below the video showcasing the V3 Beta in action. As before when you are on a channel greater than 10 I am turning on the Decimal point.

 

Now with the Option cues I decided to turn on all the decimal points! I think it worked out quite well without the ability to custom design a display to have them in the correct position.

 

 

Getting to the finish line now, All I need to do is cleanup some code and do some more testing.

 

One thing to look at is the brightness, I am able to turn off the scratchpad but having issues with the Option and Com Displays.

Thanks for the update, looking at placing an order for a full F-18 UFC with working displays, PM me when you are ready to accept orders plz, thanks!

It arrived!!! Thanks a lot!!! Now I have to figure out this DCS BIOS thing and I'm ready to go!

Next up on the block we have the first Prototype of the F18 Hud to be the companion to the UFC

The shape of this panel has a profile on it thats not rectangle. Now I did have a swing at this shape but after much cursing I determined this was just not going to be feasible to do at any kind of speed. So we have the nice stock standard rectangle.

Now that meant we had a bit of spare space in the corners, the logical choice was to utilise this to add in our HDG and CRS toggles.

The height of the UFC is 50mm, for the HUD Enclosure I have gone 40mm to give it the difference in depth. As always it will be backlit and controlled by the in game controls.

I did originally envision being able to daisychain the HUD off the UFC Panels Controller but I unfortunatley ran out of pins and this just wasn’t feasible at the time. So this unit has its own USB Port.

With this panel I don’t know how I am going to do the DCSBIOS/HID mode shift as I have controls that are likely to be used in flight. I’ll come back to that.

I am currently awaiting a final PCB for this unit to arrive and I will be able to start production. See below a video of the Prototype in Action.

As far as the UFC for those who are interested, I am releasing the full units in the wild now, but it is a bit of trickle at the moment, one of the IC’s is in limited supply so it is taking time sourcing it plus these units do take more time to assemble vs the others.

I am working my way through the subscribed list notifying as their time comes up.

So Subscribe to register your interest for the UFC to get in the queue.

Yes!!! Count me in for one of those as well! Can‘t find it in the shop currently but will come back later. Looks great and will fit between my UFC and TM MFD perfectly!

Thanks for the update any idea when you will have and subscribe list for the HUD enclosure and a price? Waiting on my name to come up for the Hornet UFC at the moment :thumbup:

More UFC's are starting to get out into the wild, once the next batch of LED chips come in I will get cracking a bit quicker.

In the interim I have had a couple of requests of Harrier Pilots who the want to utilise their F18 UFC with the Harrier Module

.

Never shy of a challenge I had a first crack at introducing the new "harrier mode" and as a proof of concept she works!

Obviously needs more work :) but I know it is workable I can start finishing it. I don't fly the harrioer so I'll have to gather feedback on what hornet buttons to map to the Harrier UFC.

I will be doing a harrier UFC at some point in the future but this will be a nice stopgap for those who fly both hornet and Harrier.

Hi mate. What 14 seg LEDs you end up with. Can you share a link. Please.

Hi mate. What 14 seg LEDs you end up with. Can you share a link. Please.

Hey mate, I couldn't end up sourcing a "ready to buy" product I can link, I ended up going direct to a Manufactuer to order what I needed.

It was 0.36" segment LED's I went for which were the size I wanted.

Very interested in the Left panel with the gear lever.

Il 12/7/2020 at 09:38, tekadept ha scritto:

Hey mate, I couldn't end up sourcing a "ready to buy" product I can link, I ended up going direct to a Manufactuer to order what I needed.

It was 0.36" segment LED's I went for which were the size I wanted.

TEK,

may i ask you why you dind't choose the 14seg display also for the main and the CH1 and CH2 display instead the 7seg ? 

Thanks