Momma

Busy for the last days with designing and building my Momma board. The Momma board is the main bridge between the computer and the hardware of the computer. It translates incoming data and send it back to the computer or the internal communication bus.

Momma Main Board v1.0a

On the photo I am drilling my just developed new double sided Momma main board. On the left you see a part of the Momma switch board and on the top of that, the Momma PSU.

Development Board

Radio Development Board

Busy with building a development board to test out my design and write the code for the radiostack of my cockpit. This ‘develop board’ is equipped with 10 7-segment displays, a MAX7219 display controller, PIC18F458 or PIC18F258 as MCU, 5 LEDs, 10 switches and 2 rotary encoders inputs.

The strength of this design is that it can be used for each type of radio. It is programmed to handle the communication, receiving VOR and NDB beacons for navigation, display DME information, controlling a GA autopilot system and sending the transponder code to the ATC. Only what you need is one print of this and the USB-Avionics controller which can control maximum 16 units.

Can’t wait to have this board up running and testing my sourcecode…

Encoder Week

I declare this week as my rotary encoder week. Busy entire week to get my interface on a easy simple way working with various types of rotary encoders.You have several types of encoders like gray types, quadratures and half cycles. The cheaper ones, from Alps, are half cycles and most of the time not supported by existing interfaces.

Key thing here is that Alps is producing double rotary encoders which are widely used in many functions of the flightdeck. And my interface need to support them. Don’t want to glue or alter existing rotary encoders when they for a decent price available from the market.

Display

Display 3 Controller

Just finished the 3 Display Controller PCB layout for the AP. Display is used for the course, speed and heading sections of the MCP. On the top you see 2 connectors for the rotary encoder and a push button switch. In case you use a rotary encoder with push and pull button function, then this PB switch becomes the pull button. You can also program this switch as IAS/MACH or HDG/TRK switch. The display get connected with a 14 pin flat cable on the right. The connector on the bottom is the SIMBUS to communicate with the other modules of the MCP.

3 Display PCB

This is the little display PCB to display the heading on the MCP. The two leds on the left are used to highlight or LNAV is in HDG or TRK mode. Within the software you can change both LEDs to other values. Plan is to etch both PCB’s at the end of this week and have it running this weekend.

SimDeck Software

Started today with writing the software interface that will run between my hardware and FSX. Instead of much other interfaces where you have to program everything on the computer, my system has a few parameters for each module. Like this one for the lateral navigation module of the autopilot.

Each configuration can be saved seperate for various type of aeroplanes. With simply loading one file, the entire flightdeck is changed into a totally different aeroplane.

Lateral Navigation

HDG of the MCP on a breadboard

After programming and testing the entire weekend, the Lateral Navigation part of my MCP is operational on the hardware side. Next step is developing the software link between the hardware and FSX.

My MCP exist of several modules which can be used independent of each other. Only what you need is the Central Autoflight Module (CAM) which is responsible for the communication between the flight simulator and the autoflight modules.

What is supported on the hardware side:

– Three digit heading display with Rotary Encoder to select a heading from 1 to 360 degrees.
– HDG HOLD with LED when activated. When HDG HOLD activated, LNAV will be automatic disactivated. HDG HOLD button can also be configured as HDG SEL.
– HDG SEL integrated in the rotary encoder of the heading selector. This button can be configured for other purposes as HDG HOLD, SET 180 or 360 degrees, swap intervals between 1 or 10, etc.
– LNAV with LED when activated. For aeroplanes without LNAV, it can be also configured as NAV. You find this mode for example back in Cessna’s, Beech Baron or a King Air.
– APP button with LED when activated.
– VOR LOC button with LED when activated.
– Bank Angle rotary switch with 6 position for Boeing’s.

LCD readout of HDG PCB

Course displays for NAV 1 and 2 (see Boeing 737 MCP) are considered as Lateral Navigation but to keep our system modular for each type of aircraft, it will be build on a seperate PCB.

All settings are send over the CAN BUS to the CAM. To check out or the CAM does receive all data traffic from the other modules, I connected it temporary to a LCD screen.

Saab 340

Saab 340

Love this new version of the Saab 340 by Brett Hendersons. New features we’re trying are a fully modeled interior.. along with a multi-player friendly co-pilot seat, there will be a camera view from a passenger seat (both viewed by selecting them from the cockpit views). You can also roam the cabin using the default view key-strokes, and even open the cabin door from inside by a mousable door handle. Takeoffs and landings viewed from the passenger seat, are quite realistic. Meet your friend online.. share the aircraft, and one of you can sit back and enjoy the flight as a passnger (airsick bags not included).

ERJ-145

After surfing around on the internet I found this nice little aeroplane from Project Open Sky. The flight enveloppe is quit realistic and it is FREEWARE. But what took me more attention was the livery of BonairExel PH-RXB and KLM Excel PH-RXA. After my Citation time I make some flight hours as PF on this baby with the same registrations. For sure that they will end up as one of my standard aeroplanes on my fsimdeck.

ERJ-145 BonairExel PH-RXB

Microprocessors

When studying the PIC series of microcontrollers, the first thing to realize is that the architecture is completely different from anything you are probably used to. This makes understanding the PIC quite confusing at first. You are probably familiar with the spinal cord type of computer with memory, cpu and perpherial chips hooked in parallel to the same data and address bus. The PIC chips have two separate ‘data’ busses, one for instructions and one for everything else. Instructions are essentially in ROM and dedicate the microcontroller to doing one task. There is very little RAM, a few dozen bytes, and this is reserved for variables operated on by the program. There is also very little ‘data’ storage, again a few dozen bytes, and this is in EEPROM which is slow and clumsy to change.

Saitek Pro Flight Instrument Panel

Compact colour LCD screen which works with Flight Simulator software to display real time cockpit instrument information.

Displays the following cockpit instrument panels from Flight Simulator X:

• Altimeter
• Attitude Indicator
• Airspeed Indicator
• VOR1 Indicator
• ADF Indicator
• Exhaust Gas Temp. Gauge/Fuel Flow Indicator
• Fuel Tank level indicator

Can be mounted on the Saitek Pro Flight Yoke System

Modular mounting system allows multiple FIPs to be bolted together to form a larger cockpit panel