Something to look at

The first panels are installed...

Last weekend I installed the first two panels and the steering columns. I hope I will soon get the seats and can start to play :-)

Reverse gear

Full reverse please....

This little board is responsible for good landings on short runways. It's the interface between the throttles, the reverser switches and the Simkits I/O adapter.

The problem was that real Connie thrust reverser don't work in the way it is needed for the flight simulator. If you pull the levers in the real airplane, then the propellers go into reverse pitch and the engine power is increased to approx. 30%. That means the propellers blow backwards and the throttles open up the more you pull the lever.

If you connect that directly to the flightsim you will get a problem. The simulator doesn't know if he has to reverse or accelerate, a movement of the throttles disables the reverse mode. The result is a wild switching between forward and reverse thrust if both commands are given simultaneously.

This little relais board does something simple. It disconnects the throttle potentiometers as soon the reverser switch is activated and the movement of the levers has no effect anymore. If you pull the levers, you will get that amount of reverse power as programmed in the flightsim.

Many thanks to the guys at mycockpit.org for helping me to solve this problem.

Fake panels

Old and new faceplate...

The old faceplate from the ignition switch was a 'little bit' corroded. So I made a new one as described in the last post.

But how do you 'make' such a faceplate or label??? It's easy... really. If you have drawn a new plate on your computer (that's the difficult part), then print it on self adhesive paper with a good printer. If you need color, take a color printer.
To protect the paper and the printing on it, you only need some self adhesive transparent plastic sheet. Cut the label with the plastic on it into the right size.... that's it!

Sounds easy and with a little practice it really is.

Fonts needed

Another panel is functional...

Today I finished the work on the pilots overhead panel. From the many switches on that panel I will use only the engine ignition switches and maybe the command bell and the "no smoking" and "fasten seatbelts" switches... I only have to find a nice sounding bell.

The faceplate underneath the ignition switches was completely corroded and I had to replace it. I did it the easy way...
I scanned the original plate and used the picture as a background in Adobe Illustrator. Then I used that program to draw a new plate over the original picture. That way I was sure to have the correct dimensions and locations for the holes and letters.

The biggest problem was to find the right font for the words. I found that Copperplate Bold was very close. The only difference was that Copperplate had some little "spikes" on it's letters. But by chance I found a solution to get rid of the spikes. In Illustrator it is possible to define areas and borderlines of objects freely, also for letters. I used a thin borderline in the same color as the background and that line made the spikes invisible. Result... a perfect Super Connie panel font!

USB trouble

My airplane....

... so far. After a couple of strange problems with my new USB hub, I took the old hub I used for my Mac and now all the stuff seems to work as intended. The new hub us now working under my desk and connects Mac, printer and scanner... here it works fine.

The problem was that some devices connected to the hub suddently stopped working. Plugging them out and in again cured the problem but.... other devices disappered instead. A very strange behaviour. Maybe it has to do with the USB device numbering, I don't know how the PC assigns the addresses to the USB devices... maybe it's something different.

However, there are no problems with the Keyspan 4 port hub so far.

Cheap interface

10 buttons for 19 Swiss Franks...

Do you need some buttons or switches hooked to your PC? Simply buy this little USB game controller for 19 Franks (about $15 ). It has 10 buttons, a hat switch and two miniature joysticks... and two vibration motors.
The second picture shows the PCB inside with everything removed except the connecting wires for the buttons and of course the microprocessor on the other side.

All switches have one ground connection and one signal connection, so it will be easy to attach all kind of flightsim switches. :-)

Metal worker

Cut, drilled, sanded....

The pilots instrument panel is finished - at least the metal work. Now the instruments have to be seated into the holes. Some of them will need some additional cutouts but more or less this is it.
It will be painted in black instead of the original army green because it looks better.

It feels good...

Today I connected the Connie throttles to the USB analog input controller and after some playing with the settings and adjustments.... it really works.
It's a great feeling to push the throttles forward and to hear the roar of the engines from the speakers. The adjustment is a bit tricky because there are two locations where it must be done. First you do it in the settings of the MS-FlightSim, then again in the settings of FSUIPC. And don't forget to assign the axes to the correct joystick! If there are only two joystick devices (at the moment) it's easy, but if there are three and more devices, you have to concentrate on what you do :-)

I'm happy that it works because the TRC-Simkits analog input is designed for 10kOhm potis and I'm using 50k because I could not find the right ones. To correct the resistance I connected two 20k resistors in parallel to the potis, this gives a total resistance of about 15kOhm and that's fine.
The only disadvantage of this trick is that the travel of the throttles is not linear anymore. The response is a bit flat around the center position but that is no problem.

Checking altimeters

I am playing a bit with the instruments... again. A few years ago I bought this vacuum chamber and a pump to seal some electronic parts, now there is a new use for it.
It seems the altimeters are still working good, despite my unqualified 'servicing'. Until 20'000 feet they go perfectly synchronous, above 25'000 they have a little difference of 300 ft. But I don't know to what altitude they are calibrated, so I assume that's more or less ok. They won't be used in an aircraft anyway.

By the way... did you know that on 20'000 ft there is only half the pressure than on the ground? It's a vacuum of -0.5 Bar (0.5 kgf per cm2... or 5N per cm2... or 500 hpa.... or 14.76 inches of Hg)
And you have a 80% vacuum at 40'000ft.

Amazing stuff

I don't know why I didn't start earlier to play with the instruments I got. Each one works in a completely different way and all of them are fascinating precision devices.
Yesterday I repaired the gyro heading indicator. The rotor of the gyro was stuck because of corrosion. The whole cockpit must have been standing in the rain or something. Everything shows more or less signs of water damage.
The heading indicator ist an amazing toy :-)... It makes a lot of noise since I'm not able to balance the rotor properly, but it works. It runs on 28 Volts DC so it's easy to hook on my lab power supply.

The most amazing instrument until now is the vertical speed meter. Not so much because of how it works but because it is installed inside an vacuum insulated glass jar (picture). I presume this has the function to prevent that thermal changes can alter the reading.
I already know what to do with this glass thing.... it will be a PERFECT tea cup! I already tested it with hot water from the tap. Outside it stays cool like it was empty. I just have to attach some kind of flat bottom to it.

Synchros and RPM

How does an RPM indicator work?

In a car it is simple.
You only need a flexible shaft to connect a RPM meter to the engine. Inside the meter is a rotating magnet and a aluminum disc on a shaft with a return spring. The magnet spins and induces currents in the disc. These interact with the magnet and the disc begins to move... and so does the pointer.

And in an aircraft?
Well, at least in the Super Connie it is exactly the same principle with one difference. It is not possible to use a flexible shaft since the engines are 10 or more meters away from the cockpit. So they made something clever; they mounted a small generator on the engine and a even smaller electric motor inside the instrument. If the generator turns with 500 rpm for example, then the instrument motor does exactly the same.
And the rest is like in your car.... your old car... without electronic displays.

Fire in the garage!

A very hot car!

In fact a little bit too hot for my taste.... it almost burnt down today! Just at noon when I was heating up my lunch in the microwave, my phone rang and my brother (he's a fireman) told me to look for my car because there was a fire in the garage where I parked it.
When I arrived there, the road was already blocked with firetrucks and hoses and police cars, firemen (and women) running around and the wole area smelled like burning plastic. Smoke came out of all openings of the garage.
I tought "well, there is not much to do at the moment" and I waited there and looked what's happening. About one hour later, when the firemen cleared up their equipment and the police had finished investigating, I was allowed to enter the garage for a look.
What can I say... everything was completely black. Even the light from the few remaining lamps on the ceiling seemed to be black. In fact the lamps have also been blackened by the huge amount of smoke.
What I saw was that my car was still there, on it's wheels and it seemed to be more or less ok. In fact it suffered amazingly little damage despite the fact that the fire was on the parking field directly next to it.
It was not a car that burned but some stuff from the janitor who stored his tools and stuff down there. I don't know how the fire started, that's what the police will try to find out now.

It took almost an hour to wash all the dirt from my car. There have also been some drops of molten plastic on it's backside. It must have been really hot there.

Well... it seems my car needs a new painting as you can see on the pictures and I need a good meal and some rest now. That was an exciting day...!

Old tech goes digital

Interfacing the interface....
To drive the landing gear indicator and the unlock warning lamp, some reed relais and optocouplers are necessary. The simkits interface is able to drive only LEDs but I need 24 Volts for most of the original parts.
But this one was easy. The indicator has three wires, one common, one for "up" and one for "down". You just have to connect the 24 Volts to one of them and the corresponding sign will show up. If there is no signal at all... it shows the well known stripes.
The lamp socket has also three terminals. A common, a signal and one for the "push to test". You can push the red cap and the light will go on to test the bulb inside.

That's the good side of this old technology, everything is built simple and reliable.

Cheating with servos

The first original instrument is modified and "computerized". The frontal view is unchanged...

The same thing from behind. Almost everything is gone and an RC-car like servo is installed instead.
In fact it is not so differnt from the original design. The Mangenyns are replaced by servos but they have almost the same function, only the signals to drive them are different.
And yes... only one of the two pointers has survived. I glued the right and left pointer together because it makes not much sense in a simulator to show each side independently. In the simulator, the wing flaps always work on both sides, defects are not possible :-)

...and now also with illumination... :-)

Simkits

Yeppee...! The packet from Simkits has finally arrived. Friday I looked into the UPS website to check the tracking number and guess what... it was already delivered. Nice, but where? A unknown person has signed for the delivery shortly after noon. Who could that be...? Maybe someone of my new neighbours? I checked the online phone book and found the name, it's in the next house. Unfortunately there is nobody at home.
Two hours later I see the car of my neighbours coming. I ran over to ask them if they got my packet and yes... there it is.

Isn't that a bit strange ? Hardware for $2000 delivered to the wrong address without notice to me. If I had no internet access, how would I ever know? Well, everything went fine at the end . Thanks god I have a good relationship with my neighbours.

Two days later all the pointers are pointing correctly, the illumination is illuminating and I'm feeling a bit like at christmas.

Pinching my finger

The reverse-lock actuator.

I'm still waiting for the Simkits packet, it should arrive next week. In the meantime I built the drive for the reverse lock. This motor will be installed inside the throttle pedestal and unlocks the reverser levers when the airplane is on ground.
While testing it, I pinched my finger between the lever and the bracket... and the motor jammed. I first had to reverse the power supply to release my finger.  Ouch!

Mobile simulator

This is also a nice simulator... installed in an old bus somewhere in Sweden (http://www.novelair.com).

Flashback

Apropos... that's the HI-548CT when she was still flying. The picture is from 1989 (lent from www.airliners.net, a great site for airplane pictures)

678 rivets

I have cleaned up a little today and counted the rivets I have left... I used 678 pieces of 1000.

Nobody wants to know that but I'm writing it anyway :-)