A couple of weeks ago I chased down a lead and found a Mylar vendor that can supply material up to 124" wide. It's _cheap_. For example, a 100 foot roll of .5mil @ 96" wide is roughly $200 shipped.

We've also come up with a way around the patent issue - instead of the curved "ears" at the ends of the mirror, it can be more square - something shown as "prior-art" in the patent, but a feature we couldn't use because we couldn't get Mylar wide enough.

What this means is that we're now open to making plans & short kits available to people.

We're looking at two "reference" designs.

The first would be large enough to accommodate standard GA aircraft right around Cessna 152-172 size up to something around a Lear or Cessna Citation.

The second would be a "big iron" display that could be used with cockpits around the size of the Boeing 737.

If there is enough interest, we'll go ahead and get the design work done and I'll build Inventor models so you can see what they'll look like.

However, we're not going to build prototypes for either one of them until there is enough commercial interest. This doesn't mean a bunch of folks going, "Hey! I'd buy that!", it's some number of people (say 5 for this example) willing and able (and actually do!) put down a down payment for a short kit.
We're doing this because building one of these things takes a ton of time and effort when you're writing the manual for it at the same time. The materials aren't cheap either - the prototypes and kit parts will be in 18mm and 12mm Russian Birch - it's a high quality material. It's not the kind of endeavor that either one of us can fund ourselves on the hope that someone might buy one someday.

A "short kit" is typically parts that most folks can't make themselves - all the shaped parts, etc. Any dimensional lumber, fasteners, Mylar, projectors, etc. would be supplied by the builder.

We'll also look into providing the vacuum management system - this would likely consist of an Arduino Uno style "shield" and the parts to build a servo controlled bypass gate similar to what you've seen in our videos. Servo not included.

There will definitely be size issues you're going to need to be aware of if you're going to build one of these. Our single-seat version is a tight fit in a room with a 9' ceiling. You can just about be guaranteed that the GA display is going to be bigger than that and I shudder to think how much shop space that 7x7 display is going to eat up.

Because of the size & scope of this thing, don't expect any concrete results out of us until April-ish.

I'm going to re-post this to various places in order to make sure the folks that are interested see it.

Thanks all!

g.

Maybe kickstarter could be useful...
http://www.kickstarter.com/

tityus

Tityus, the problem with that is the display has a VERY narrow market and that market is narrowed further by the requirement that the builder be reasonably skilled.

If we were going into series production with these things, then yes, something like Kickstarter would be a godsend.

We're using the Jack In The Box school of manufacture - "We don't make it until you order it!"

g.

Glad to hear you've had some good news on the patent and mylar supply fronts.

I don't mean this in a negative manner but I think you're going to have a hard time finding even 5 people in the flight sim community ready to lay down cash.
Not because you don't have a great product, but because of the space necessary to dedicate to it and the cost (not to mention likely spousal resistance).

I wonder if you wouldn't be better off targetting flight schools and such, where it would be seen more as an investment (and deductible as capital business expense).

Just my $0.02.
Best of luck.

Cold_Gambler, flight schools often want a turn-key system. This is very much NOT a turn-key system.

I suspect that there are enough seriously hard-core simmers out there that would want this kind of thing - you figure there's enough of them out there to support a number of companies that make kilo-buck and above hardware for homebuilt heavy jet sims.

Keep in mind that a collimated display is very much a "pro-am" kind of thing. If you're happy with a desktop rig or have to beg SWMBO for square feet, you're NOT going to want a collimated display. It's no different a commitment than something like rebuilding and racing cars - it's not for everyone and it's time, money and space intensive.

BTW, for those that have no clue what we're talking about, head over to http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll to see construction pics & videos (more at http://www.youtube.com/f15sim) of the world's first (and so far, only) DIY collimated flight simulator display.

g.

Gene, did you solve the loud vacuum sound for these types of pits? Can you give me an idea how big the smaller kit will be? And how much space total it might require?

Finally, what sort of downpayment and total cost are we talking about here?

Gene, glad things have progressed so well on this project. My own space is so limited (not mention my wallet) but I do think this may be a project aviation clubs or student clubs may be interested in. Best of luck in the home stretch!
Derek

Kudos, guys.

I don't know what the down payment is going to be - likely the cost of the materials in order to make the kit. The total cost will be determined by the part count and how much machine time it takes to cut them. We won't know any of those details until after the designs are done. No ETA on that either, sorry.

The vacuum sound can be mitigated if you build an anechoic box to hold your vacuum source as well as the bypass gate. We haven't done that simply because it's un-neccessary at this point in the project.

The size of the current simulator & display can live in a 10x10 room with an 8 foot ceiling, but it'll be cozy. The two seat capable display will be wider, but I don't know how much taller. Note that those measurements were just taken in the shop - it's very cold and I was moving fast, but they're pretty close.

Thanks Mike!

g.

to avoid to keep vacuum pump on all the time shouldn't be possible to paint the entire structure with some kind of rubber/latex based paint before attaching the Mylar and install some kind of valve and using the pump just to recreate the vacuum when the air leaks in?

Bluedeath, I don't think that's possible - the big commercial simulators from the likes of CAE use active management systems. That isn't to say that sealing the vacuum plenum isn't a good idea - the better seal you have the easier the PID controller will be able to manage the mirror shape.

g.

Some seal for sure would allow to use a smaller pump so less noise. But is of course just a theory since my last studies on gas dynamics are back 18 years when i was in high school physics classes. If the the problem is just the noise you can try some kind of active noise reduction (sampling the vacuum noise and playng it countephased like the real acive noise reducer, but again is a complex issue to address)

Bluedeath, you're right that sealing the whole assembly would allow the use of a smaller pump. Our 60° prototype was poorly sealed, and worked well with the first valve box we built. When we built the full-size version, we sealed all the surfaces and joints, and ended up having to drill about 2 square inches of cheater holes in the valve box.

Simply drawing down and leaving it is not a real option, as the mylar can have a tendency to 'creep' when it's that close to it's stress limit. You can't even apply a constant suction and have it work. Basically, it's very close to the point where stretching further requires -less- force, so as it pulls down, it just wants to keep going. It's an unstable equilibrium, much like a ball at the top of a hill. Active management to keep the mirror in the right spot is a necessity.

Vacuum noise is something each user would have to deal with on their own. Gene's plan seems to be to build a soundproof box for the vacuum and valve box; my plan is to put the vacuum on the other side of my office wall, in my garage.