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Some questions about interfacing the overhead panels.

Started by b744erf, Thu, 26 May 2016 11:34

b744erf

Hello guys. The questions below may be to silly to ask, and may be asked by many guys already. But I still can't find the answers in the forum.
I am Jack Law from Guangzhou, China. I am now building my 744 home simcockpit with 3D printing and some real components from retired 747 (an ACE yoke, a 3D printed throttle quadrant, a set of CP Flight MCP and EFIS, and 1 computer with 4 monitors). I knew some of the function could by applied by USB plugin board, such as Leo Bodnar, which is the way I make my throttle quadrant alive. But I want to step further in with a full set of overhead (Real panels from retired 744 training simulator without hardware). I think most of the functions other then the one included in the USB list, can only be applied by Internet interfacing. But I don't have any experience with it.
I knew there are two brand of interfacing card are on sale, Flightdeck Solutions and Opencockpit SIOC card. May I ask:
1.   Which one is better? (or easier to interface? Which is more cost effective. What is the different?)
2.   Are both of them full functioned with PSX?
3.   Any other brand of interfacing cards with PSX on sale other then these two? Are they good?
4.   How to work with each brand?
5.   I may actually incline to FDS, since they also sells a full set of 747 hardware. Am I right?
Talk about my coming project. To interface the full set of overhead, I need about 166 input and 175 output. So, I plan to purchase 2 FDS card: a FDS-SYS1-XT and a FDS-SYS2-XT.
6.   6.Are they good to choose?
7.   Is it possible to interface the overhead with these 2 card? How to work?

Sorry to trouble you guys. And thanks to read my post.

kiek

Hello Jack,

Welcome aboard.

I can (only) give you some information about the Opencockpits solution.

Opencockpits has been developed specifically for building Flight Decks (contrary to more generic cards such as Arduino and Phidgets).
You will need at least one USB expansion card. This card supports up to 4 Master Cards.
A Master Card gives you 72 inputs and 64 outputs, and you can connect up to 4 Display cards supporting 4 * 16 display (7-segment) digits.
Certain types of rotary encoders can be connected directly to two inputs at the Master Card, others need to be connected to a rotary encoders card.
There are 4 A/D inputs at a USB expansion card. There are also separate USB cards to support A/Ds and servo motors.
All these cards are around for about 10 years now, and are very reliable, and rather cheap.

You can connect as many USB expansion cards as you need.

In order to connect an in- or output to a Flight simulator interface you need to write scripts in the SIOC language. This SIOC is free.

For the PSX I have made an application called PSXseecon, which provides 99% of the PSX network interface by means of 2191 pre-defined SIOC variables. PSXseecon connects SIOC directly with PSX. So you don't need to know about IP-programming. You only have to learn to write some simple scripts. Many examples are available in my PSXCockpit.zip archive, or you can share scripts from others here that have done it already.

Summarized:
- Opencockpits hardware is mature, reliable, scalable and cheap.
- Opencockpits software (SIOC) is free.
- PSXseecon offers a full PSX network interface; PSXseecon is free to use if you are not using it commercially.
- The Opencockpit solution is not plug and play, you have to wire/solder, and to write SIOC scripts.

In general one could say that the Opencockpits solution is targeted to the hobbyist with some basic knowledge of electronics and programming.

Regards,
Nico Kaan

b744erf

Quote from: kiek on Thu, 26 May 2016 13:58
Hello Jack,

Welcome aboard.

I can (only) give you some information about the Opencockpits solution.

Opencockpits has been developed specifically for building Flight Decks (contrary to more generic cards such as Arduino and Phidgets).
You will need at least one USB expansion card. This card supports up to 4 Master Cards.
A Master Card gives you 72 inputs and 64 outputs, and you can connect up to 4 Display cards supporting 4 * 16 display (7-segment) digits.
Certain types of rotary encoders can be connected directly to two inputs at the Master Card, others need to be connected to a rotary encoders card.
There are 4 A/D inputs at a USB expansion card. There are also separate USB cards to support A/Ds and servo motors.
All these cards are around for about 10 years now, and are very reliable, and rather cheap.

You can connect as many USB expansion cards as you need.

In order to connect an in- or output to a Flight simulator interface you need to write scripts in the SIOC language. This SIOC is free.

For the PSX I have made an application called PSXseecon, which provides 99% of the PSX network interface by means of 2191 pre-defined SIOC variables. PSXseecon connects SIOC directly with PSX. So you don't need to know about IP-programming. You only have to learn to write some simple scripts. Many examples are available in my PSXCockpit.zip archive, or you can share scripts from others here that have done it already.

Summarized:
- Opencockpits hardware is mature, reliable, scalable and cheap.
- Opencockpits software (SIOC) is free.
- PSXseecon offers a full PSX network interface; PSXseecon is free to use if you are not using it commercially.
- The Opencockpit solution is not plug and play, you have to wire/solder, and to write SIOC scripts.

In general one could say that the Opencockpits solution is targeted to the hobbyist with some basic knowledge of electronics and programming.

Regards,
Nico Kaan

Thank you Nico. You are so nice to give me such a detail suggestion. I will start learning the SIOC soon.