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#4167415 - 09/10/15 10:22 PM Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more  
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Attackmack Offline
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Attackmack  Offline
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Been looking around mainly for fun and educating myself within the hobby.
Ive come across two candidates for what has to be the go-to products for main IO interface:

The hagstrom KE-USB108 and the EPIC.

The hagstroms seems pretty affordable with its 108 inputs and I recon two of these would be enough for a resonably sized simpit (functionwise).

The EPIC comes at a hefty price, especially with its expansion cards, but all said and done this piece of hardware is likely to be able to handle all inputs from a simpit, making the entire input inteface function though a single piece of hardware.
Which does sound tempting even with the pricetag, with the MFDs, HOTAS, pedals, trackIR, etc etc its best to reduce the number of devices as far as possible.


So ive a question to all of you with experience, how are you setting up your simpits? Are you using a single big interface or are you dividing it up over several pieces of hardware (one for left console, one for right console, one for CDU and so on)?

And are there other hardware alternatives to these two, if wanting to reduce the number of connected devices as much as possible.

Just curious how people do it smile

Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#4167509 - 09/11/15 07:33 AM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: Attackmack]  
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LocNar Offline
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That thing is expensive! My favorite way so far is to hack TARGET capable thrustmaster gear into more useful things. You can buy a dilapidated Cougar for the same price as that board and you get TARGET functionality, 10 axes (8 on the device but 2 more dx designations in the control panel for pedals, although windows still limits to 8...), the x/y are 12bit and the rest 8bit, 32 buttons and a bunch of nice metal parts to work with.

TARGET allows you to combine other capable devices into a single output as well and allows a lot of comprehensive control you don't find in many other programs as well, and I've found situations where having that functionality made the difference of having working controls or not. Buttons are easy to add if you want more. Worst case scenario you can hack a mechanical keyboard and rewire the switches to your own.

Njoy32 looks promising although not as easy to come by, and of course don't forget about Hempstead's Hempstick option http://www.hempstick.org/The_Official_Hempstick_Site/Welcome.html, or the more common Leo Bodnar boards.

#4167728 - 09/11/15 06:23 PM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: Attackmack]  
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AndyB Offline
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AndyB  Offline
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Ayrshire, Scotland
Hi Mack,

I used Opencockpit's interface boards along with their FREE SIOC program. Quality of boards is good and you can save money if you can solder them up yourself (kit).

Have a look here:
http://www.opencockpits.com/index.php/en/iocards/available-cards

Hope this gives you another option.

Cheers,

Andy

PS should have said, I have a Master card (LPT version) for outputs, Display card for 7 segments, Encoder card for switches inputs and an LCD card for the up front display in my Comanche pit. I also have a Bodnar card for the control inputs cyclic, collective, throttles and pedals.

Last edited by AndyB; 09/11/15 06:27 PM.

Andy's simpit: http://www.simpit.me.uk
#4167831 - 09/11/15 10:29 PM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: AndyB]  
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Attackmack Offline
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Attackmack  Offline
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Originally Posted By: AndyB
Hi Mack,

I used Opencockpit's interface boards along with their FREE SIOC program. Quality of boards is good and you can save money if you can solder them up yourself (kit).

Have a look here:
http://www.opencockpits.com/index.php/en/iocards/available-cards

Hope this gives you another option.

Cheers,

Andy

PS should have said, I have a Master card (LPT version) for outputs, Display card for 7 segments, Encoder card for switches inputs and an LCD card for the up front display in my Comanche pit. I also have a Bodnar card for the control inputs cyclic, collective, throttles and pedals.


Interesting.
Soldering and such is not a problem as Im fairly used to it. And building your own stuff is the fun part isnt it smile

But in short, please tell me a little about those boards. Do they function together, connected to the computer as a single device, or do each of the various cards act as its own device?

#4168042 - 09/12/15 04:10 PM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: Attackmack]  
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Mike Powell Offline
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Mike Powell  Offline
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Take a look at the Arduino family (arduino.cc). This is a small, low cost USB device that has become a popular interface for the A-10 flight sim community. Arduinos are widely available, have a large support community, and the software development tools are free. If you're interested in any of Eagle Dynamics flight sim products, check out DCS-BIOS, a free user developed I/O package here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=141096

#4168968 - 09/15/15 03:45 AM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: Attackmack]  
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Redhornet Offline
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I've been researching stuff like this too and I have to say those 2 control boards are quite pricey, $499 for the Epic?!?!? I think not. Especially considering what can be done with the Arduino or even a Raspberry pi. The Epic looks like it was made for official pilot training schools and such.

I'd go with AndyB's suggestion or base your stuff on Arduino. You'll probably have more boards in your pit but it will be considerably cheaper.

#4169119 - 09/15/15 02:27 PM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: Redhornet]  
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Attackmack Offline
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Attackmack  Offline
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Originally Posted By: Redhornet
I've been researching stuff like this too and I have to say those 2 control boards are quite pricey, $499 for the Epic?!?!? I think not. Especially considering what can be done with the Arduino or even a Raspberry pi. The Epic looks like it was made for official pilot training schools and such.

I'd go with AndyB's suggestion or base your stuff on Arduino. You'll probably have more boards in your pit but it will be considerably cheaper.


Yes those boards sure look interesting and as I understand it, you can pretty much do anything with them. Which is great to know, even though my ambitions is far lower then that!

#4169305 - 09/15/15 07:40 PM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: Attackmack]  
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AndyB Offline
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AndyB  Offline
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Ayrshire, Scotland
Hi,

I'll try and explain the Opencockpits boards as best I can.

Master Card: this plugs in to the Parallel port (you can now get a USB expansion card that you can plug up to 4 master cards in to) and handles 64 outputs and 72 inputs.

Displays Card: you can have up to 4 display cards and they plug in to the master card. Each display card handles up to 16 independent 7 segment displays.

USBkeys Card: Uses an 11 by 8 matrix to allow 88 separate key inputs. Connects to a USB port and allows key mapping.

USB-LCD Card: controls up to 4 separate HD44780 type displays.

SIOC: Programming language specifically written for these cards. Allows IF THEN type decisions and, with the right program, can read data from flight sim in to variables. It is event driven, so changing one variable will automatically change any others dependant on it.

Example:
in cockpit you flip down the landing gear lever. This hits a microswitch attached to the USBkeys card. This has been encoded to the key press for the gear down in the simulator. This is also detected by the master card which sets a port on and this lights the LED in the gear handle. The variable associated with gear down in SIOC has changed and so it also changes the gear light variable. This sends a keystroke to the simulator to switch on the landing lights.

I'm not sure if this is a valid example (probably not) but I hope you get the idea.

Cheers,

Andy


Andy's simpit: http://www.simpit.me.uk
#4169375 - 09/15/15 09:32 PM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: AndyB]  
Joined: Dec 2012
Posts: 218
Attackmack Offline
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Attackmack  Offline
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Joined: Dec 2012
Posts: 218
Originally Posted By: AndyB
Hi,

I'll try and explain the Opencockpits boards as best I can.

Master Card: this plugs in to the Parallel port (you can now get a USB expansion card that you can plug up to 4 master cards in to) and handles 64 outputs and 72 inputs.

Displays Card: you can have up to 4 display cards and they plug in to the master card. Each display card handles up to 16 independent 7 segment displays.

USBkeys Card: Uses an 11 by 8 matrix to allow 88 separate key inputs. Connects to a USB port and allows key mapping.

USB-LCD Card: controls up to 4 separate HD44780 type displays.

SIOC: Programming language specifically written for these cards. Allows IF THEN type decisions and, with the right program, can read data from flight sim in to variables. It is event driven, so changing one variable will automatically change any others dependant on it.

Example:
in cockpit you flip down the landing gear lever. This hits a microswitch attached to the USBkeys card. This has been encoded to the key press for the gear down in the simulator. This is also detected by the master card which sets a port on and this lights the LED in the gear handle. The variable associated with gear down in SIOC has changed and so it also changes the gear light variable. This sends a keystroke to the simulator to switch on the landing lights.

I'm not sure if this is a valid example (probably not) but I hope you get the idea.

Cheers,

Andy



Hi and thanks for your reply.
That is a great explanation and sounds like a very solid solution for simpit IO.

Think im gonna have to read up on this smile

#4169710 - 09/16/15 03:31 PM Re: Hagstroms KE-USB108, EPIC and more [Re: Attackmack]  
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 172
DudleyAz Offline
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DudleyAz  Offline
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Phoenix, AZ
I have been using the Hagstrom KE-USB108 boards in my sim for years and I really like them. I have three in mine as I have a LOT of switches going in my pit between fixed wing, rotary wing, and auto racing stuff. They are easy to wire (especially if you use their IOX36 breakout boards) and with the included software, getting them set up is pretty easy as well. You can't do any real 'keystate' or If/Then programming like you can with some of the others talked about in this thread, but I found for simply being able to input button presses or keystokes, the KE-USB108 was a perfect fit.

Hope this helps!


They say "If you didn't fail, how would you learn?"... I learn a LOT!
http://cnadeau.webs.com/index.htm

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