PSX WINCTRL PFPx

[Jamie]

If only they had a 777 or 747 FMC, would be an instant buy! -> Seems to have hard-plastic keys instead of the rubber ones on the WINCTRL. They're good, but hard-plastic would be better.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

It's funny that after 25 years of waiting for affordable yet quality hardware that "just works" we now get a flurry of products. Apparently both the market and the technology hit the sweet spot.


Hoppie

[Jamie]

Vibe designed boards, vibe coded molds, who knows

[JRBarrett]

Hoppie,

I work in a corporate flight department. We are now using Avionica Mini-QARs in all six of our fleet aircraft, and they work really well! They have the cellular modem option and transmit a complete flight report of all recorded FDR parameters after every landing.

I have been working with Ricardo Herdocia who does tech support out of your Miami office. Curious if you know him since I know you used to work at the Miami facility...

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Listen. We are SMALL. If I would not know Ricardo that would be a SHAME.  :-)

Although I am no longer physically based in Miami, I am one of the few Avionica people that are not in Miami. All the people in Miami behave like I am still there, just happen to not be at the office right now for an hour. I still have my own desk and it's alive... remotely (and for real 2-3 times a year).

That mQAR has some of my software as well. I'm not "the design engineer" unlike for the SATCOM stuff but nobody at R&D can claim innocence because their work is not on product X.


Hoppie

[JRBarrett]

Listen. We are SMALL. If I would not know Ricardo that would be a SHAME.  :-)

Although I am no longer physically based in Miami, I am one of the few Avionica people that are not in Miami. All the people in Miami behave like I am still there, just happen to not be at the office right now for an hour. I still have my own desk and it's alive... remotely (and for real 2-3 times a year).

That mQAR has some of my software as well. I'm not "the design engineer" unlike for the SATCOM stuff but nobody at R&D can claim innocence because their work is not on product X.


Hoppie

Well, you folks at Avionica produced a hell of a fine product. We are very impressed by how well it works. A lot of power in a very small package!

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

:blush:

[JRBarrett]

:blush:

The only problem (and it is nothing to do with the QAR itself) is where it is mounted in the lower avionics bay in our three CRJ-200s. To connect a laptop to the unit I have to drag my 70 year old fat body on my belly 20 feet down the catwalk to get to it😁 Of course, that's also true for any of the other avionics black boxes that reside down there.

It's in a much better location on our three Dassault Falcon 900s - mounted right next to the primary FDR in the rear maintenance compartment. I can stand on the ground next to the access hatch and reach it easily.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

In many cases you can use the cellular link to do things ... we can push updates to the unit if properly provisioned. Ask York or Ricardo for details.

[JRBarrett]

In many cases you can use the cellular link to do things ... we can push updates to the unit if properly provisioned. Ask York or Ricardo for details.

Will do!

[Jamie]

I should stop this.
The MCDU head now has full auto-brightness from in the sun down to total darkness, with trim option if needed anyway, can display any monochrome (1 bit) square image (minimum 132x132) during its RESET screen, and has a completely revamped font file that has all ISO-5 ARINC 739A glyphs and renders beautifully on its native display. It also lists all WinCtrl units found on the USB, picks one if there is only one MCDU, or lets you select which one you want with a --pid switch. Color mode, monochrome mode (green default, all other colours available).

I think it will even be useful as a cockpit-themed StreamDeck this way. And competes in price, even with a RasPi3 or 4 included.

Currently it speaks "my" MCDU language (https://www.hoppie.nl/mcdu/design.html) but it's trivial to add a PSX adapter to it. I don't want to compete with Jamie's variant though.  :-)

So I built the WinCtrl base driver separately and use that to make a MCDU that listens to "my" language and has all the smart features.

I will announce when it is available as beta.

Back home
I'm not particularly interested in the brightness feature, to me it's more like a nice gimmick, but not very usefull. I'm more interested in the fonts. I find the resolution of the WINCTRL units quite limited. Did you manage to get a better result with the (probably better fitting) new fonts?

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

I think so. I re-rastered a few things, added glyphs...

Now polishing stuff up. Not done yet. I need this thing to do a few more tricks.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Ok, so I think this may be a first. This is PSX, normal, unchanged. Notice the MCDU.



That prompt comes from a satLINK MAX Iridium SDU mounted on the rooftop of our office in Miami, with its 429 linked down to my office desk by Ethernet, then blasted over the Atlantic and ending up in my office in Lisboa, where it gets picked up by the thing I now am building. Besides displaying it on the WinCtrl head, it also can inject it straight into PSX. So you see real avionics being fooled that they are talking to a real 747.


Main pilot page -- two SATVOICE ATC safety voice channels.


All channels. I have one channel deactivated on this box.


And an actual ACARS Link Test, on the live system, I just don't want to mess too much so I don't really do ACARS full blast to not bother the good relationships I have with SITA Montreal.    :-)


Hoppie

[Captain_al]

Oh my gosh Jamie, this is so cool! I have been flying the 777 a lot just because I like having the physical CDU, now having it in PSX is so great, thank you for your work on this, excellent job!

[Jamie]

small v1.56 update. The position of the mini controls are being saved. I made the app borderless.

For the macOS version: I repacked the executable, now it starts almost instantly.

See the first post for the download links.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

... since there never is a problem having more choices, I am nearing the completion of my over the top MCDU driver that has PSX mirror (using WinCtrl heads as PSX MCDUs) as one of the options. The thing is built for pro use on an avionics bench really... but this PSX mirror was 90% available because of the ARINC 739A injection into PSX, so...

I am sure both our implementations have strong sides that make some people select one and others the other. And I will publish the code -- ARINC 739A implementation and all.

[Jamie]

my over the top MCDU driver

I must admit that made me chuckle

Looking forward to it!

p.s. I made my little program (like everything else I've published here) purely for my own use, not with the intention of competing with anyone else. I'm curious to see what other versions people come up with.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Not yet ready for release, but currently clean & working:

ARINC 739A implementation using our company's AID. Real avionics think they see a MCDU on 429. It can do MCDU L, C, R and spare on any WinCtrl panel, all Boeing models and even the Airbus model all supported out of the box. When dumped onto a RasPi4 this becomes a bench-ready MCDU simulator (but still needs a 429 AID).

PSX-in, which is the ARINC 739A backend now driving one or more PSX MCDUs, creating a prompt reflecting whatever the 739A-capable LRU told it to put up there. This displays real avionics onto PSX's MCDUs.

PSX-out, which mirrors any of the PSX MCDUs onto the WinCtrl panel. It follows to the letter, colours, sizes, annunciators, everything. But it has no MENU of itself, it is not an independent MCDU, it is a mirror head. Exception: it still has its own brightness sensors and trim. It is not (yet?) connected to the PSX overall dimmer etc. (but it does follow the LAMP TEST). I am not sure whether linking the brightness to PSX would be needed, and I don't have a flight deck around to test it (I can make it work technically but you need to balance stuff and that is difficult on a desk).

Also, the Airbus head has a few buttons that have no PSX equivalent (like FUEL PRED) and in reverse PSX has a few that the Airbus head hasn't. The same hold for the annunciators. I have only mapped equivalent buttons and lamps. This obviously can be "fixed" for those people who want to fly PSX with an Airbus MCDU keyboard, so it depends on demand.

"Of course" you can run PSX-in and PSX-out together, so you get your real avionics display on both in lock step.

Add another PSX-connected program I made, and your real EFB thinks it sits on your real airplane and follows PSX.

Getting interesting, this.


Hoppie

[Jamie]

Add another PSX-connected program I made, and your real EFB thinks it sits on your real airplane and follows PSX.

Getting interesting, this.


Hoppie

But we (LH) use these hardware boxes that act as Ethernet device on the iPad.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Yes, for this particular program that makes no difference, each iPad has all the software it needs to support both Ethernet and WiFi -- the only thing you need is a splicer that combines Ethernet with power. Those things are about 12 euro on web shops.

But of course we would need to reverse-engineer the Teledyne output. Can do.  :-)  When are you at LPPT for a stopover?   :-)  :-)