Nice looking pit! Jealous of the sim room too! Just curious, where did you get the covers for your throttle and flightstick?

I got them from Deadman on the ED Forums. You may be out of luck though, as he said it was the last batch he was going to do. Give him a shout though, it can't hurt.

Another update! I will file a picture later for this, don't have the time right now. But years ago, I ordered the Aimsworth MFDs and ICP. When I dug out all of my old gear for this project, the power cable for the ICP was cut and the DCS switch was loose. I figured it for a loss and went with the X-Keys58 for the ICP.

Well after flying the past few days, not having that four-way switch for the ICP and the accurate button arrangement was bugging the hell out of me.

This afternoon, I opened up the ICP and discovered that the DCS switch was simply a paddle that hits four switches on the PCB inside the ICP, and a screw on the switch itself was loose. I tightened it up, and it worked! I also took some scotch locks and spliced the power cord back together, and now I have a working ICP!

Will program it later, the CO is on my ass to get ready for dinner.

Pics of the ICP and the inside assembly would be great!

Well I don't plan on making any interior photos, as the ICP was a pain to get back together properly and I've got it working. Don't want to tempt fate. Let me see if I can better describe it.

The PCB has push-button switches wired into it. The buttons on the ICP with the exception of the Drift C/O and FLIR 3-way switches are all loose buttons that when pushed simply hit their corresponding buttons on the PCB. The exception is the DCS switch. In that location there are four switches on the PCB and the switch handle screws into a rectangular piece of plastic. When the switch is moved in a direction, that rectangular piece butts up against the proper switch. A little clunky, but it works.

I had some BIG strips of velcro holding the X-Keys 58 on, so you can still see most of that at the bottom. I may eventually put something else there, perhaps my X-Keys 20 or maybe I'll order a new XK24, but for now, it holds my name tapes.

Awesome work! I love the added monitor mount, never would have thought to do something like that. I just ended up modifying the desk portion of my ABC to accommodate my 15" monitor behind the dash. Keep posting updates!

Thanks for posting! I am hoping to be able to build an ICP for myself later on as well, but don't know where to start.

Actually, Renic, it was your pit that gave me the idea to mount the UM80 monitors behind a piece of wood. However to keep things more real (and easier to reach!), I built the addition to mount them vertically. Getting the angles of the side pieces right was the hardest part, as I had to hold them against the angled dash and use a level to check it, and then make adjusting cuts until I got the top and front at a 90 degree angle.

Having that piece there also gives me something to hold onto when extricating myself from the cockpit!

Been doing a little more work this weekend. I got tired of using the Warthog throttle to fly an F-16 (I still have F-16 muscle memory), so I'm cobbling together a working Cougar throttle. I had 3: one old and not complete, one used with functioning ant and range detents but a non-functional microstick, and one new in the box but with no detent in the ant knob. So I transplanted the MS from the new one into the one that had a working ant knob detent, and also had to swap out the throttle pot.

I also am working on removing the Warthog stick baseplate in order to mount the stick close to my side. Pics will come after I get this huge mess cleaned up!

One other thing... I got the download version of DCS A-10C and got the mfd monitors working with it also. I'm not terribly into it though... Perhaps it may eventually grow on me, but I think I prefer the speed of the Viper.

Just a little update...

My Warthog stick is off to TM for repair, so I'm flying BMS against right now and have the FSSB. As for the pit, things have been rearranged a bit and I have built my first switch box, using the GP Wiz40.

I have a center mount for my Warthog, but have removed it until I get the stick back.


The wide view: I'm not using the G13 for anything at the moment. The keyboard is velcroed in place and I can remove it and insert the original keyboard tray I built if I need to do heavy keyboard/mouse work or if I'm playing an FPS (not very often).



Close up of the button box and my CH Throttle Quadrant. I've used a label maker that does white text on black tape to label everything. From left to right the levers are: Gear/Landing Light, Alternate Gear/Alt Gear Reset, HMCS brightness, COMM1 Volume, COMM2 Volume, and the last one has been scripted to actually move THREE CMS axes for MSL volume, THR volume, and Intercom volume. The switches below are in a state of flux right now, but control the Air Refuel door, the CNI switch, Probe heat, Fire & OHEAT detect, Mal&Ind Lights, and the ILS/TCN/NAV selectors.

Now for the box. The first row of switches are for the external lights. The second row are MPO, Canopy, Emer Stores Jettison, and Stores Config. The third row are DPDT switches (ON-OFF-ON) and are for RF Norm/Quiet/Silent and the two autopilot switches.

On the bottom is a little interesting. The guarded switch is the ejection lever. The knobs have six-way rotary switches behind them. On the first one I only used four positions and it's for the CMDS Program 1-4. The second one uses all six and is for the CMDS Mode.

I'm using Helios for the switch control as I had already made a Falcon profile, and with Helios I can set a separate event for on and off of a switch. That's particularly important on the first row of lighting switches, because those are SPST and thus are only on or off.

All switches and the enclosure box were from Radio Shack... I cleaned them out! At some point I may make extra switch panels for the side consoles. If I do so I'm inclined to put them in plastic enclosures like this one, so I could make separate ones for different aircraft and switch them out if desired. I might've gone with an X-Keys matrix if the breakout boards mentioned a while back were still available.

Thanks to TigerShark at the ED Forums for the inspiration!

The button box