Building an Airbus Cockpit

Hi people, still with me???

First off, a big thanks to people for visiting the site and especially to those who have gotten in touch with me recently. It's always good to meet new builders and share ideas. So thanks guys, and keep the emails coming!

I've got a few things to talk about in this entry, most of it good news! So lets start with the bad news...

USBKeys card

So as noted in my last entry, this card arrived and I was really looking forward to using it. I bought it from Opencockpits in Spain and they are very cheap really. The manual that comes with it is next to useless but luckily Mr. Ian Sisson (Jedi master of cockpit building) has written some very useful documentation to help. Even with all this and his kind repsonses to my emails, I got - nowhere. The card installed and was recognised. But none of the switches worked. pulling apart all my soldering and just crossing wires from the two matrices produced - nothing. I was very disappointed. Ian went through some problem determination with me and as far as I can tell the card is not faulty or damamged. It just does not work. I sent an email down to the guys at OC, and have had no reply.

To be fair to them, they are usually quick to reply, and most of what I could find on forums about this card was positive. Maybe I got a bad one? But I am very disappointed at the lack of response from them on email. I am also disappointed it did not work! I was looking forward to getting a lot more switches connected to the cockpit...

EFIS and Engine Panel

Now for some good news - these panels are almost complete. I have connected the engine panel with start/cutoff switches, an engine mode switch (using a rotary switch) and a parking brake on the same panel. It all works as expected. I got my white-on-clear labels and made a few for the various panels. I think they look really good, if a little crooked! The captain's EFIS panel is mounted too. It's not connected yet (thank you USBKeys card) but I think it looks great! Makes the FCU look rather bare by comparison... I intend to buy a BU0836 card from Leo Bodnar which allows momentary switches to be easil connected. It's a little cheaper than the BU0836X card so I will put all momentary switches into that. I will still need the X card for rotaries.

ECAM

Good news - I won a 17" wide monitor on eBay at a great price. Bad news - same damned problem when it is rotated on it's side! The viewing angle just does not allow the pilots to see it clearly. I was gutted about that. So I decided to put it in in normal orientation - it's not right but it works. I had to do some modification to the ECAM stand to make the monitor fit - there are problems with made-to-measure when the plan changes!

I undocked the EWD and SD onto it, along with the Squawkbox window and a couple of small things. Looks good I think. No frame rate hit either, that I can see. I have to remake the panel overlay for that one as the old one for the 15" monitor is totally wrong now. One potential problem I can see is with the mouse. I will still need it to interact with Squawkbox and such. That's no problem right now, but when the overlays are in place, I think it would be easy to lose the mouse completely. Need to think about that . . .

Other News

I've asked my siblings to get me Mike Powell's book on building recreational simulators for me for Christmas. Here's a link to it. Looks like a good book and it has had good reviews on the forums too. That will give me some new ideas and maybe point me to some new solutions.

Still waiting for some decent weather so I can get the First Officer's side up and running. I've got the sidestick waiting. I need two more monitors - another 17" for the first officer's PFD, and one for him to look out of, using a splitter. It will be a mirror of the captain's side. Seems the easiest solution for now. I'm think a couple of 19" widescreens would do. Once the first officer's EFIS is built, I will run all the wires to both into the same card slots. Both EFIS will work exactly the same.

Oh, I installed the headsets too - don't think I mentioned that before. I got a simple USB soundcard and connected my single-sided headset to it. All ATC and Teamspeak (used for company comms) comes to my ear, all other sounds through the main speakers. For once, something worked as I expected! I'm using a simple Y connector to have the first officer on the same loop, so both pilots can communicate with ATC and still talk to each other easily.

I am approaching a point where I need to start thinking about ouputs for numerical displays. My recent experience with OC has left my confidence in them very low. Not sure what I will do on that score. I like the look of the LCD displays that are available. Stay tuned on that score!

That's it for now, guys. thanks for reading and stopping by. Have a good Christmas too!