Saw a couple people asking around about F/A-18 pits, or as I like to call it "the cure for the common Viper."

Figure this would be a good place to pol resources and findings as we come across them.

That said, I'm currently looking at making mine a long term project. Starting with a restored Suncom Hotas, then probably modifying an office chair into a NACES seat.

Nice to see a thread like this started!

I'm in the same boat as you! My Suncom HOTAS arrived at the post office today, still can't beleive I found it and was able to grab it for a ridiculous price:

1 SFS Throttle
1 Talon stick
1 Hawk stick

Everything is like new, in original boxes and been used only a few times back in the days, then put back in boxes and forgotten in a closet for years, until de guy moved and put those gems for sale on Kijiji! I was second in line to buy them, but I was lucky enough that the first guy didn't reply to the shipping quotes and the seller got tired of waiting!

I paid 45$ for all this!!!

It's also the base of my BUG-PIT project!

What I'm looking to build is not a 100% replica like those artists are building on viperpits. I won't be buying thousands of dollars of panel replicas and real gauges.
What I want is a close match, functional, pretty, clean setup. I'm DIYing almost everything, from framing, to panels to interface softwares! I'm on a tight budget, we just had a baby, and the better-half is unemployed until August.

I started drawing my setup in Sketchup. MDF will be my primary material for the build. I already have 2 7" VGA TFT screen lying around, found on deal extreme for 68$/each that I'll use for the DDIs.

I'm using 2 hacked keyboard controllers for switches interface, which gives me way more key-combos than I'll ever need (keys, shift-keys, ctrl-shift-keys, alt-ctrl-shift-keys...). I'm done resolving the matrix of each controllers. This took actually a lot less time than expected. Using a multimeter and continuity test, it went very well.

I'm writing my own macro software, using c# (already started on this), only because all the softwares available right now aren't doing all the features I'm looking for in a single package.

My tool will support any number of keyboard controlers and let you map any keys as a modifier, so it won't be limited to shift/ctrl/alt.
it will suppoprt key press/key release/key repeat etc. So should work fine with on/on, on/off/on, off/on/off switches and all the array of rotary switches/encoder, pushbuttons etc.

With all this work ahead of me, it will also be a long term project, but at least it's started! The interface software dev is progressing well and I finished soldering a bunch of wires to the tiny copper pads on the keyboard controllers, all wires tested fine with the matrices I came up with.

I'll try to post pictures later of the sketchup WIP drawings.

Cheers!

Wow, your way ahead of me iam73!

Do you plan to ever release your software to the community? It sounds like one would have to get their hands "dirty" with some code, but I'm sure a lot of people could put it to good use.

Looking forward to the sketchup pics btw