Never thought I would have a blog but what the heck, everyone else has one!
I started this blog is to track the progress I am making on my flight simulator project. Perhaps other SimBuilders will find some of my ideas or solutions useful.
My goal is to build a flight simulator cockpit to work with Microsoft's Flight Simulator X. There is a new way to get information to and from the game now called SimConnect and I am going to use it in my project.
This project is going to take a long time! My guess is at least 3 years. But in the end I hope to have a real airplane cockpit, maybe a Cessna Skymaster 337, hooked up to MS Flight Simulator X. The cockpit will be fully functional and I will not have to use a keyboard or any other input device other than the cockpit controls and instruments to control and fly the Sim. The reason I would like to use the 337 is that it is a two engine plane and is a bit wider than most small single engine planes. Plus I happen to know where I can get two of them!
Of course they are not in the best shape but will work for what I need them for!
I also have a bunch of old used aircraft instruments and avionics to use. Some are in really good shape and some are not.
I will try to hook these up to electronic Input/Output boards and Servo Controllers that will talk via SimConnect and relay information to and from the Sim. I have two of these boards now. I build a Velleman K8055 USB Experiment interface board from a kit.
I will try to hook these up to electronic Input/Output boards and Servo Controllers that will talk via SimConnect and relay information to and from the Sim. I have two of these boards now. I build a Velleman K8055 USB Experiment interface board from a kit. Well so far I have connected with SimConnect thanks to guidance I got from NOTASENATOR's Blog! Thanks for the contribution! SimConnect is not the easiest thing to find information about!
After following his tutorial I was able to connect to Flight Sim X and get the landing gear status from the Sim. Then I linked my program to the K8055 board so when the gear was toggled it would activate an LED on the K8055. I know that does not seem like much but knowing I can send signals to my board from the Sim is a big step forward!
That's where I am so far. I will try to get back and post some of my code for connecting to the K8055 in case others would like to see how I did it. And who knows, maybe some programmers will tell me how to do it right!
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