Whats the gizmo at the bottom, or top, or bottom I guess, with the little screeen?

Can you post a link to the type of security monitors you are speaking of?

retro, come in, come in

Ah yes, the comm panel.

Originally, I wasn't going to recreate that panel. (I'm still hopeful that I can get the voice recognition software to run properly.)
Then, I realized I still needed a place to hide all the computer related stuff.

That "gizmo" is what I'll be using for my mouse. It's a Cirque Easycat touchpad imbedded into the faceplate.
The panel also has a keypad for navigating the comm menu, hotkeys for the most used commands, and FAA menu buttons among other things.





As far as the monitors....something along these lines.
security monitor

Thought you chap's might want to take a look at this

Nice job..and quite cheap if you know what your doing and got a X45 lying around

I've seen the concept, but never with that Saitek unit. Very nice find !!!!!

[quote=GrizzlyT]


Fantastic collective, I'll copy the upper button section and apply it on the platform from the kiddies scooter as posted earlier, as seen in "the danish collective mod from scooter".

Very nice pit! You can start working on wiring up your status status lights to a controller and assigning the SIOC commands for russian birds already. If/When Retro or other dev will finish this application for the US helicopters you will have the workflow ready..

Funk, got any pics of what you have built so far?

I am working on major upgrade to the simpit. Heres one panel I've done so far. On top of this will sit 3 19" wide screen monitors.




I picked up this electrical panel off Ebay for $15.00. I plan on incorporating it into a workable "power on" station for turning on the pit. There is Soooooo much wiring going on now it is a must. Damn thing will probably have its own meter from the power company before too long. LOL



Heres the new front module with the cutout for all the USB encoders, USB hubs, ETC.

Hi Kim, 3x lcd gonna rock for sure!
Is it going to be w. fresnels or just plain monitors?

My setup is basically still the same from the UDPspeed testing period pictures (summer), one LCD at top with the game in "freeflight look" and lower lcd with UDPspeed gauges, no masking or bezels etc.

In terms of collective, just an exact copy of that linked danish setup, i.e. chopped kiddies alu scooter, 10K linear pot, OpenCockpits usb card, no fancy cover/housing for it yet.. Hopefully, I'll post soon pics of more refined version with the GrizzlyT inspired additional buttons on the handle.

Let's hope Retro and DickDastrdly will come more often so we get
a new version of those data export programs and more importantely connect it with SIOC. If you recall I did post all the necessary documentation incl. examples for this EECH->RetroProgiee->SIOC communication workflow, skilled coder could have done it easily long time ago. Unfortunately, the other active EECH devs have other priorities and interests to pursue.

Therefore no news at the switches/warning lights front either, I'd like to do it with one platform and in one block. Perhaps if Retro would be able to forward his source code we might try to ask someone else (outside this board) to finish it to ver1.0

Just 3 monitors for now. I tried the Fresnel deal and it was , well, OK. Not super impressed for the type of viewing I want to do. I am thinking that the 3 monitor might lead me in the direction of the Matrix TripH2go later. Or I might scrap the whole thing and go to a projector. Just not sure. I think these things evole as you go along. I just want to be able to actually move my head to look around at stuff. Fs has excellent "views" that you can literally surround yourself with. But keeping other programs in the mix that don't have the extra views , is the real challenge. Thats what might eventually lead me to the TH2G. Cause it works with EECH.
Pretty sure Dick is still around, we're just waiting on the gracious efforts of retro to come through.

Kim, you might wanna look into the TH2Go real close before buying monitors. It has very specific resolution limitations, and you really have to match up the right LCD to get the best image. Native resolution of your LCDs is a big factor, because if they're 1600x1200 native (for instance) they'll have to scale the image for the TH2G rez. We all know, scaling on LCDs sucks.

What I did was expand my single 22" CRT to triple 22" CRT. CRT is by far the best value right now, and has numerous advantages over LCDs (brightness, scalability, no dead pixels, etc) with the only disadvantage being size. The only reason anyone should consider an LCD is if size/weight is their biggest consideration... but everyone just blindly jumps on the LCD bandwagon without considering why.

BTW, you can get a hold of off lease/refurbished CRTs for ridiculous prices nowdays... I purchased my HP p1230's for $175 CAN each, shipped. They're just rebranded Mitsubishi 2070SB tubes, match up perfectly with my origninal NEC 2141SB, pretty much the best CRT tube every produced (my desktop runs 3x 1600x1200 at 100Hz). Check out http://www.canadamonitors.com -they even ship to the US now, dirt cheap. Find yourself monitors based on the Mitsu 2070 or Sony G520P tubes, but make sure you do your research, because not every claim on that website is correct. For example, right now they're claiming the NEC FE2111SB is a 2070 tube, which is incorrect, that monitor can't touch the resolutions a real 2070 can.

Last point, before someone starts complaining about huge screen gaps w/ the multi-CRT setup, fresnels solve that. I'm still trying to figure out how to mount mine, but I have 3 16"x17" 650mm focal length fresnels already sitting here. I just need to go all arts-and-crafts on a stack of cardboard boxes to make some mounts.