Amazing! Those video series will be the golden standard for simpit building. Really looking forward to see the integration of the shown modules into a final cockpit.
Thanks for these videos - Simply the best content out there for this type of thing. I'm putting a pit together at the mo for DCS and this series has been invaluable! to me.
Thank you so much for another enormously interesting episode. You are becoming the bible on cockpit building. Keep it up!!! I see you have the battery dials made too, hope to see some info on how you made that happen. Thank you so much!!
Excellent video!!!! I absolutely agree with putting in a little extra work up front with the PCBs and save the wiring nightmare later. It looks so clean and easy to connect.
Thank you Scott for this new Christmas gift. I'm learning quickly, and I hope that in the upcoming year 2024, I can embark on my ambitious project for the construction of a TEDAC for the AH-64D. I still have a lot to learn.
I’ve designed my first PCB for an Apache Comms panel following your tutorial which has been invaluable but I’ve hit a snag. First I cannot find in my fusion library the con-jst-ph components. I only get the SH variant I think. I worked around this just using regular pin connectors (pinhd). However I want to mount to my PCB 6x6 tactile led buttons but I cannot find them anywhere in the library to do the layout. Any help on the library problem would be enormously appreciated. Please keep these tutorials coming.
Hey! That’s awesome to hear that you’re making your own PCBs. Yeah sometimes fusion doesn’t have all the libraries we want - so you can download individual components from websites like mouser, or find libraries to install I started using Eagle prior to it merging into Fusion - and it had a really easy way of adding components like 6mm tactile etc But I haven’t looked into adding new stuff into fusion - I’ll see if I can find something for you 🫡
Awsome videos Scott. Great job at bringing the information over in laymans terms. Defnitely my new UA-cam binge sessions. I have played with DCS Bios and it really brings making your own cockpit a dream come true. I can't wait for the next episodes. Do you follow the Open Hormet project? Thats also an awsome project to follow.
Hey mate! Thank you so much! Yeah they have an incredible design and I really think the community is going to win when they release Beta 1 I found them after I went and designed all the side console panels, but their design is so good that I can slot all my panels straight in :) so next year will have some dedicated OH tutorials to get people started
What type of wire are you using to connect the PCB to the arduino? It seems nice and flexible and yet strong, and I’ve been struggling to find such wire for my own panels and switches.
Amazing tutorial, but I have one question to ask. I'm a total beginner, and I'm wondering, what's the point of pcbs/circuit boards if you can just connect your switches straight to the Arduino?
Hey circuit boards allow your designs to be more modular, as well as give you better flexibility with how switches and processors connect You can definitely connect straight to an Arduino - but it can become messy and complex
Love this video. Very inspiring! You make it look so easy! Interesting choice of ground connector. Depending on what fusion provides, I would probably have used a standard grounding connector, as the upside down T is typically used for chassis ground connection.
Thanks mate! Yeah fusion provides a range of symbols I purely chose the upside down T because it looked good 😂 and kept them the same haha I’m sure there is a more technically correct GND symbol
@@aHornetsNest, I was just curious, do you know if fusion has female headers? I couldn’t find them. Although it’s not a big deal for creating the schematic or the pcb, it does matter for the BOM. I’d like to use female headers to directly mount arduinos to the pcb.
@@aHornetsNest, thanks for the response, looking forward to that! I think I found a way to get one, though no 3D model for it. Basically you need to go to library manager, and enable all other components. You will find a component named con-lsta, which is the female version. May I ask you one more question? Do you know how to place components and silkscreen prints accurately on the pcb? I have a couple of LEDs that need accurate alignment with some holes in the panel. The pcb sharp itself is already accurate with the panel. Thanks for all the good work and the responses!
@@baronvonrichthofen2021 hey mate, what I usually do with that is, create a DXF in fusion of the panel shape, plus any reference marks (generally I create small circles) Then I import that as a the board shape - those reference circles turn into holes as the PCB thinks they’re drill holes Align the components to those reference holes, then you can delete the reference hole either in the board editor, or in the sketch - it just depends how you do it Then you can push that board to a 3D model to see how it fits I do want to get around to making a video like this 😃
Hey!!! Im building an F/A-18c Hornet Cockpit with DCS Bios and wanted to ask if you could make a tutorial about Master and Slave between the arduinos. Cheers!
Downloaded the files from Open Hornet and looking to make a DDI. However in the Gerber DDI folder there are 10 various gbr files. How do you know which one to upload for PCB Way to manufacture? All panels have multiple GBR files?
Hey mate! I actually going to make a video on this 😊😊 message me in insta if you want the answer asap Otherwise next video will be on how to do it :) and I’ll be showing it for the AMPCD PCB
Hey Scott. First off, I love the videos. They are super informative. I have a few questions. First off, I built a button box and used a button matrix and a code I copied from another video. I am running into conflicts since I have too many buttons and on/off switches for the button matrix to work flawlessly. That being said, I just bought an arduino with more pin connections so that the box will work better without a matrix and I have room for expansion in the future. How would you write code for potentiometers and rotary dials? Can all the grounds for button, switches, and dials be connected into one pin slot on the arduino? Since I am currently not running DCS bios is there a way to write the code to reflect that, or do I need to install and run the bios? Thanks in advance for any help.
Hey there 😃 thanks for the comment! Too many inputs and too little pins is the story of my life 😂 you can use a technique called multiplexing and then storing that data in an array, so you can have 16 inputs go to one pin What’s the new arduino you got? Yeah you can connect all your grounds to the same ground pin, that is very common and I do that for all my panels Coming this Tuesday is how to use potentiometers!!! So perfect timing :) it’ll go through everything on why it works, wiring and coding Depending on your arduino will determine if you need bios If you are running a board with an AtMega32u4 chip in it - you can just make it a hid controller Anything else will need DCS bios Hope this helps :) anything else just let me know 😃
@@aHornetsNest ELEGOO MEGA R3 Board ATmega 2560. Can you use multiplexing with toggle switches? I never wired resistors into my matrix, so with 4 toggle switches, it screws my matrix up a bit. I figured with the massive amounts of inputs on the mega r3 I wouldn't need to use a matrix. Looking forward to the pot video!
@@JoshuaJohnson-ve7ty yeah most input types will work with multiplexing :) With the Mega, you’ll need to run DCS Bios with it :) go check out Ep.7 it’ll get you up and running within 20min 😃 I’ll also make a video for multiplexing later down the track
Suggestion from a brand new subscriber - could you do a video showing how to run a stepper motor and then a servo motor for something like an analogue guage? I have 3d printed a set of throttles for the Tomcat, that have 3 stepper motors for the throttles and wing sweep handle, driven via gt2 belts. There is sufficient tension/friction on the belts for the stepper motors to move the throttles, and the 'stiction' when moving the throttles by hand is acceptable, about the same as my t16000m throttle. I am currently running it with leonardos as an HID device. I tested the stepper motors with basic stepper libraries, and the throttles and wingsweep handle move beautifiully forwards and backwards. I have also managed to code the leonardo such that when a switch is thrown (ie the autothrottle switch, which will eventually be electromagnetically held), the throttle axis is 'disabled' and keeps sending the last known position to the computer. Thus it will fool DCS that the throttles aren't moving when in autothrottle so that the stepper motors can move them, otherwise the autothrottles would immediately be disengaged in DCS. So all the individual elements are there, I just need to put it all together. just getting to this point has been somewhat tortuous but I sure have learnt a lot!
Hey! That sounds like you’ve made some awesome progress!! Most people struggle trying to write code like that to disable the throttle axis I’ve got steppers and servos on the list :) definitely a key component in all cockpits Thanks for the comment and being part of AHN 🙌🏻
Great set of videos...I've watched them in a row and downloadeed Fusion to start playing a little. There's one thing which is not clear to me: ho do I create the connectors in the custom library? In my library there are only the XH connectors and not the PH. Thanks!
Hey mate! thanks for the comment 😊 that will be a up coming tutorial - I will need to have a look how to do it for fusion, the PH connectors were made during my time using Eagle, and they transfer across which was super handy You can though download custom library’s through Autodesk - eagle.autodesk.com/eagle/libraries?utf8=✓&q%5Btitle_or_author_or_description_cont%5D=jst I think I used this one for a long time before I created my own and kept the same naming style It says it’s an Eagle library, but it should install the same :)
@@aHornetsNest I have the same problem, impossible to find the PH library. I suppose that I can use your XH library a good approx to start and not being blocked. But thank you very much for those very didactic videos. You gave me tons of new ideas.
super interesting as usual ! what is the point of declaring variables with the Pin numbers at the beginning rather than doing it directly in the lines of code?
Hey mate! Reason for the use of variables is to not hard code/bake numbers into the code - variables allow you to dynamically change the code Episode 6 goes into depth about this :)
... did i miss where you showed you connecting the 5pin connector (first pin) to the Gnd mesh during board layout, you showed the other 2 connectors being linked to Gnd... or make that, how did it know that the mesh you created needs to make Gnd common ?
Hey!! So around 16:15 you’ll see me finish up connecting the 3 input connectors to GND Then I have a GND symbol attached to the cursor, I place it and then connect pin 1 (To CDU) to the GND symbol With both those “nets” all named GND (because the warning asks if you want to rename the net to GND) - they will all want to connect to each other regardless of what the schematic looks like (all nets of the same net name will connect) - so then when you see me Polygon Pour at 24:10 - I name the polygon GND and that’s how it knows to tap all the GND pins into the polygon You can do this for 5V as well - really you can do this for anything that has the same name :)
I'm not quite sure what the point of the PCB is. Why couldn't you just run the wires from the switches themselves to that very same white (JST?) connector that goes into the Arduino? All you would need to do is connect the grounds together to one same pin, that then also goes to the Arduino. Is the whole thing just for the sake of a cleaner looking or more accessible build? Thanks
Hey there, you can definitely do that, but at the end of episode 7 I talk about that 😊 When it comes to maintenance you don’t want to be pulling out entire looms of wiring just to remove and work on a panel. If you were running maybe a few key panels sure, but when you’re running a full cockpit - you will ratsnest all your wires very quickly if switches / panels were connected directly to an arduino
@@aHornetsNest thanks mate. Ill be ready to buy them when youre ready to sell. I have'nt started my build just yet. Ive only been tinkering with the panels on my laser to get the ready to make. Im looking for a company to cut my sim fuse but Ive had no luck here in Perth so far. I may need to look on the east coast to find someone to do it. I started with The Warthog Project as a guide but im liking what youre doing very much. Keep me in mind when youre ready mate
I went searching for the ghost audio… and it literally is just that Nothing shows that there is a seperate audio track from cut scenes So who knows :) but I’m glad you picked it up 🙌🏻🙌🏻
Amazing! Those video series will be the golden standard for simpit building. Really looking forward to see the integration of the shown modules into a final cockpit.
Thank you so much! I can’t wait
I should get the frame for the cockpit in January! And I can’t wait to start building
Thanks for these videos - Simply the best content out there for this type of thing. I'm putting a pit together at the mo for DCS and this series has been invaluable! to me.
Thank you! Awesome ☺️ great to hear
Let me know if you have an any questions 🙌🏻
Thank you so much for another enormously interesting episode. You are becoming the bible on cockpit building. Keep it up!!! I see you have the battery dials made too, hope to see some info on how you made that happen. Thank you so much!!
Thank you very much! Yeah I will be doing gauges in the new year!
I hope you had a great Christmas and have a wonderful new year!
Wow! You definitely deserve more views and subs... Keep up the good work. :)
Thank you!!! ☺️
Excellent video!!!! I absolutely agree with putting in a little extra work up front with the PCBs and save the wiring nightmare later. It looks so clean and easy to connect.
Thanks mate!!! Yeah absolutely - and this way you can take these panels anywhere and connect them to other systems if you need to :)
Great Tutorial. Greetings from North Germany.
Thank you!!! Wow! I’m going to need a map and start plotting where everyone is from 😃😃
Thank you Scott for this new Christmas gift. I'm learning quickly, and I hope that in the upcoming year 2024, I can embark on my ambitious project for the construction of a TEDAC for the AH-64D. I still have a lot to learn.
Thank you so much!! I’m glad you are picking it up
I look forward to hearing how it progresses!
I’ve designed my first PCB for an Apache Comms panel following your tutorial which has been invaluable but I’ve hit a snag. First I cannot find in my fusion library the con-jst-ph components. I only get the SH variant I think. I worked around this just using regular pin connectors (pinhd). However I want to mount to my PCB 6x6 tactile led buttons but I cannot find them anywhere in the library to do the layout. Any help on the library problem would be enormously appreciated. Please keep these tutorials coming.
Hey! That’s awesome to hear that you’re making your own PCBs. Yeah sometimes fusion doesn’t have all the libraries we want - so you can download individual components from websites like mouser, or find libraries to install
I started using Eagle prior to it merging into Fusion - and it had a really easy way of adding components like 6mm tactile etc
But I haven’t looked into adding new stuff into fusion - I’ll see if I can find something for you 🫡
G'day Scott, Could you please let me know where I can find the Season 1 videos? I can only see Season 2 vids on YT. Thanks for another great tutorial.
Hey mate! Thanks for the comment :D
season 1 is all on Instagram as IGTv and is in the form of Timelapse tutorials :)
Awsome videos Scott. Great job at bringing the information over in laymans terms. Defnitely my new UA-cam binge sessions. I have played with DCS Bios and it really brings making your own cockpit a dream come true. I can't wait for the next episodes. Do you follow the Open Hormet project? Thats also an awsome project to follow.
Hey mate! Thank you so much!
Yeah they have an incredible design and I really think the community is going to win when they release Beta 1
I found them after I went and designed all the side console panels, but their design is so good that I can slot all my panels straight in :) so next year will have some dedicated OH tutorials to get people started
What type of wire are you using to connect the PCB to the arduino? It seems nice and flexible and yet strong, and I’ve been struggling to find such wire for my own panels and switches.
Hey! I use silicone insulated 26AWG wire which allows it to be super flexible
And then I use a mix of DuPont connectors or JST-PH connectors
Thanks so much!
🤙🏻🤙🏻🤙🏻
Amazing tutorial, but I have one question to ask. I'm a total beginner, and I'm wondering, what's the point of pcbs/circuit boards if you can just connect your switches straight to the Arduino?
Hey circuit boards allow your designs to be more modular, as well as give you better flexibility with how switches and processors connect
You can definitely connect straight to an Arduino - but it can become messy and complex
Love this video. Very inspiring! You make it look so easy!
Interesting choice of ground connector. Depending on what fusion provides, I would probably have used a standard grounding connector, as the upside down T is typically used for chassis ground connection.
Thanks mate! Yeah fusion provides a range of symbols
I purely chose the upside down T because it looked good 😂 and kept them the same haha
I’m sure there is a more technically correct GND symbol
@@aHornetsNest, I was just curious, do you know if fusion has female headers? I couldn’t find them. Although it’s not a big deal for creating the schematic or the pcb, it does matter for the BOM. I’d like to use female headers to directly mount arduinos to the pcb.
Hey, I struggled finding female headers
I had to create my own unfortunately
I will make a tutorial coming up how to do that :)
@@aHornetsNest, thanks for the response, looking forward to that! I think I found a way to get one, though no 3D model for it. Basically you need to go to library manager, and enable all other components. You will find a component named con-lsta, which is the female version.
May I ask you one more question? Do you know how to place components and silkscreen prints accurately on the pcb? I have a couple of LEDs that need accurate alignment with some holes in the panel. The pcb sharp itself is already accurate with the panel. Thanks for all the good work and the responses!
@@baronvonrichthofen2021 hey mate, what I usually do with that is, create a DXF in fusion of the panel shape, plus any reference marks (generally I create small circles)
Then I import that as a the board shape - those reference circles turn into holes as the PCB thinks they’re drill holes
Align the components to those reference holes, then you can delete the reference hole either in the board editor, or in the sketch - it just depends how you do it
Then you can push that board to a 3D model to see how it fits
I do want to get around to making a video like this 😃
Hey!!! Im building an F/A-18c Hornet Cockpit with DCS Bios and wanted to ask if you could make a tutorial about Master and Slave between the arduinos. Cheers!
Hey I can definitely look into that 😊😊
Downloaded the files from Open Hornet and looking to make a DDI. However in the Gerber DDI folder there are 10 various gbr files. How do you know which one to upload for PCB Way to manufacture? All panels have multiple GBR files?
Hey mate! I actually going to make a video on this 😊😊 message me in insta if you want the answer asap
Otherwise next video will be on how to do it :) and I’ll be showing it for the AMPCD PCB
What a great video. Very helpful and informative. Can I ask where you got the con-jst-ph library from?
Hey there! Thank you so much
I created it myself 😃 I’m trying to find a way to share it with the followers 🫡 as soon as I do I’ll let you know
Hey Scott. First off, I love the videos. They are super informative. I have a few questions. First off, I built a button box and used a button matrix and a code I copied from another video. I am running into conflicts since I have too many buttons and on/off switches for the button matrix to work flawlessly. That being said, I just bought an arduino with more pin connections so that the box will work better without a matrix and I have room for expansion in the future. How would you write code for potentiometers and rotary dials? Can all the grounds for button, switches, and dials be connected into one pin slot on the arduino? Since I am currently not running DCS bios is there a way to write the code to reflect that, or do I need to install and run the bios? Thanks in advance for any help.
Hey there 😃 thanks for the comment! Too many inputs and too little pins is the story of my life 😂 you can use a technique called multiplexing and then storing that data in an array, so you can have 16 inputs go to one pin
What’s the new arduino you got?
Yeah you can connect all your grounds to the same ground pin, that is very common and I do that for all my panels
Coming this Tuesday is how to use potentiometers!!! So perfect timing :) it’ll go through everything on why it works, wiring and coding
Depending on your arduino will determine if you need bios
If you are running a board with an AtMega32u4 chip in it - you can just make it a hid controller
Anything else will need DCS bios
Hope this helps :) anything else just let me know 😃
@@aHornetsNest ELEGOO MEGA R3 Board ATmega 2560. Can you use multiplexing with toggle switches? I never wired resistors into my matrix, so with 4 toggle switches, it screws my matrix up a bit. I figured with the massive amounts of inputs on the mega r3 I wouldn't need to use a matrix. Looking forward to the pot video!
@@JoshuaJohnson-ve7ty yeah most input types will work with multiplexing :)
With the Mega, you’ll need to run DCS Bios with it :) go check out Ep.7 it’ll get you up and running within 20min 😃 I’ll also make a video for multiplexing later down the track
Suggestion from a brand new subscriber - could you do a video showing how to run a stepper motor and then a servo motor for something like an analogue guage? I have 3d printed a set of throttles for the Tomcat, that have 3 stepper motors for the throttles and wing sweep handle, driven via gt2 belts. There is sufficient tension/friction on the belts for the stepper motors to move the throttles, and the 'stiction' when moving the throttles by hand is acceptable, about the same as my t16000m throttle. I am currently running it with leonardos as an HID device. I tested the stepper motors with basic stepper libraries, and the throttles and wingsweep handle move beautifiully forwards and backwards. I have also managed to code the leonardo such that when a switch is thrown (ie the autothrottle switch, which will eventually be electromagnetically held), the throttle axis is 'disabled' and keeps sending the last known position to the computer. Thus it will fool DCS that the throttles aren't moving when in autothrottle so that the stepper motors can move them, otherwise the autothrottles would immediately be disengaged in DCS. So all the individual elements are there, I just need to put it all together. just getting to this point has been somewhat tortuous but I sure have learnt a lot!
Hey! That sounds like you’ve made some awesome progress!! Most people struggle trying to write code like that to disable the throttle axis
I’ve got steppers and servos on the list :) definitely a key component in all cockpits
Thanks for the comment and being part of AHN 🙌🏻
Great set of videos...I've watched them in a row and downloadeed Fusion to start playing a little. There's one thing which is not clear to me: ho do I create the connectors in the custom library? In my library there are only the XH connectors and not the PH. Thanks!
Hey mate! thanks for the comment 😊 that will be a up coming tutorial - I will need to have a look how to do it for fusion, the PH connectors were made during my time using Eagle, and they transfer across which was super handy
You can though download custom library’s through Autodesk - eagle.autodesk.com/eagle/libraries?utf8=✓&q%5Btitle_or_author_or_description_cont%5D=jst
I think I used this one for a long time before I created my own and kept the same naming style
It says it’s an Eagle library, but it should install the same :)
@@aHornetsNest thanks a lot for the prompt reply, I'll try to download it. And by the way...happy New Year!
@@robik.7542 no worries let me know how you go :) happy new year to you too!
@@aHornetsNest I have the same problem, impossible to find the PH library. I suppose that I can use your XH library a good approx to start and not being blocked.
But thank you very much for those very didactic videos. You gave me tons of new ideas.
Thanks mate! Yeah 100% 😃 you can definitely use XH connectors
I will try find a way to upload my PH connector library for everyone to use
super interesting as usual ! what is the point of declaring variables with the Pin numbers at the beginning rather than doing it directly in the lines of code?
This is explained in earlier videos
Hey mate! Reason for the use of variables is to not hard code/bake numbers into the code - variables allow you to dynamically change the code
Episode 6 goes into depth about this :)
... did i miss where you showed you connecting the 5pin connector (first pin) to the Gnd mesh during board layout, you showed the other 2 connectors being linked to Gnd... or make that, how did it know that the mesh you created needs to make Gnd common ?
Hey!! So around 16:15 you’ll see me finish up connecting the 3 input connectors to GND
Then I have a GND symbol attached to the cursor, I place it and then connect pin 1 (To CDU) to the GND symbol
With both those “nets” all named GND (because the warning asks if you want to rename the net to GND) - they will all want to connect to each other regardless of what the schematic looks like (all nets of the same net name will connect) - so then when you see me Polygon Pour at 24:10 - I name the polygon GND and that’s how it knows to tap all the GND pins into the polygon
You can do this for 5V as well - really you can do this for anything that has the same name :)
missed where you tagged the polygon as Gnd. that was the missing bit. thanks.@@aHornetsNest
@@georgelza 😃😃
Very nice Video. Thank you.
Thank you very much!
I'm not quite sure what the point of the PCB is. Why couldn't you just run the wires from the switches themselves to that very same white (JST?) connector that goes into the Arduino? All you would need to do is connect the grounds together to one same pin, that then also goes to the Arduino. Is the whole thing just for the sake of a cleaner looking or more accessible build? Thanks
Hey there, you can definitely do that, but at the end of episode 7 I talk about that 😊
When it comes to maintenance you don’t want to be pulling out entire looms of wiring just to remove and work on a panel.
If you were running maybe a few key panels sure, but when you’re running a full cockpit - you will ratsnest all your wires very quickly if switches / panels were connected directly to an arduino
Ok I can see that makes sense when you consider how many panels there will be…thx!
:D
Gday Scott, are you selling your PCB's?
Hey mate, I don’t at the moment
But I can look into when I finalise my cockpit that way I know everything works how it should :)
@@aHornetsNest thanks mate. Ill be ready to buy them when youre ready to sell. I have'nt started my build just yet. Ive only been tinkering with the panels on my laser to get the ready to make. Im looking for a company to cut my sim fuse but Ive had no luck here in Perth so far. I may need to look on the east coast to find someone to do it. I started with The Warthog Project as a guide but im liking what youre doing very much. Keep me in mind when youre ready mate
@@xyzsauce1 thanks mate!! I’ll keep you updated
Good luck with the build 🙌🏻🙌🏻
@@aHornetsNest scott how do i direct message you?
@@xyzsauce1 you can DM me on Instagram or messenger
Scott, are you aware we can hear background audio @6:30. hear you echo in the back.
Haha yeah thanks for that… it’s a ghost audio track that I can’t find in the premiere assembly 😂😂 so it’s probably hard rendered in there
Seems to be an audio issue around the 6min mark
Hey thanks for the heads up! Must be some random ghost audio track sitting in the depths of the video assembly 😅
I went searching for the ghost audio… and it literally is just that
Nothing shows that there is a seperate audio track from cut scenes
So who knows :) but I’m glad you picked it up 🙌🏻🙌🏻