A customised King Air MIP

We've recently completed a full King Air main instrument panel for a customer who will be using LCD monitors in behind it to display the gauges etc. Outside of the extents of these main monitors, a separate couple of small 8 inch LCD screens will be employed to display an additional couple of gauges.

[Also, please excuse the variety of colours in these photos, which makes the same panel appear to be different shades of grey in each photo - this was merely a result of poor lighting, poor photography by myself, and poor colour correction!]

The buttons on the above DME bezel are operational and are fitted to a small circuit board that's recessed into the rear of bezel itself, which allows for it to be set away from the surface of the LCD monitor that will be placed behind it (see the photos below for the rear view).

As you can see here, the rear of the encoders are also well forward of the LCD screen's surface whilst still allowing some room for the wiring.

On this occasion we left room for one of our RNS530 units, an operational Altitude Alert System, and six of our Collins-style Dual Radios (as shown partially mocked-up in the next photo). As we try to assemble parts as fully as possible in our workshop prior to shipping, all of the hardware that's shown on this panel has been fitted onto a separate mounting plate which has then been fitted to the rear of the main panel. This hopefully makes installation a little easier ...

In the photo below, because of where the outer limits of the LCD monitors finish, the large switch on the EFIS Aux Power bezel could still protrude out the back of the panel without causing any issues. All of the other buttons have low rear profiles however, so that they can be used on other jobs in the future if necessary.

Custom ISFD Bezel

This bezel was one of several custom items that we recently made for one of our customers - a larger post that covers the rest of the components will follow in a few days.

The bezel, and the panel that the bezel is housed in, are designed to sit in front of an LCD monitor, so we had to make some very low profile buttons that still operated but wouldn't be too deep. These buttons are able to be illuminated as well, although this isn't shown in the video.

Also, the button clicks are nowhere near as loud as they sound here!

Below are a few photos to show how it's been constructed ...

Audio Panel: GMA350c

This is a panel that was requested by a customer recently. It was designed ready to be connected to the particular interface board they are using and is based around the actual measurements of a real unit. The panel itself is backlit and all of the buttons are illuminated too (as are the indicators when necessary!). The volume indicators are also pre-wired for easy connecting.

Below is a shot of the rear of the unit. There's no visible mounting screws on the front panel, so a mounting panel is needed to fix this onto the MIP. This is not shown here, however.

ACARS Printer Buttons

Not much to say about these really: a set of custom-made buttons and indicators that were designed to fit an ACARS printer that a customer already had fitted in their sim ...

Pilatus PC-24 components

A couple of months back we made some bits and pieces for a customer who's building a Pilatus PC-24 simulator. 

The first item below being a bezel and buttons for an L-3 Avionics Standby ESI Bezel, of which we supplied two. The buttons on these units were just dummy items.

Honeywell MFD/PFD Bezels (x4) - again with dummy buttons.

Some Glareshield Buttons that we constructed in a vertical 

configuration as opposed to the standard horizontal 

versions that we make.

And then to finish it all off, a Pilatus logo badge as well ...

Finally, video of the LCD1000

Below is a very short demonstration video of one of our LCD1000 units, which is based on the Aspen EFD1000.

And this product is now up on our website for purchase too, so more details can be found about it here.

DFC90 Autopilot Light Test

Further to our recent post regarding the DFC90 Autopilot, below is a short video showcasing the dual-coloured button lights. This was recorded by the new owner of the unit and, by way of a disclaimer, just shows a test harness with the supporting controller and digital logic.

It's always great to see how our parts are eventually used in various projects because often, once they've left our workshop, that's the last we ever see of them!

Avidyne DFC90 Autopilot

This was another interesting project that we recently completed for a customer. Or rather, we completed the front end of this project - our customer is using a Teensy Micro controller and interfacing it to X-Plane 10, so he's doing all of the programming for this himself and has kindly offered to supply the code when he's finished so that these autopilots can be made an immediately more viable option for other builders in the future. 

We've said it before but it's true - we have some great customers!

Below is a shot of the unit up close, although it's difficult to see just how vivid the blue and green LEDs actually are. Here they look as if they might be fairly subtle, but in reality they are much brighter and deeper in colour. 

The text on the actual panel itself is backlit with a bright white, which due to the way I've focused the camera appears to look a little 'pinkish' beneath the right-hand knob - you'll just have to take my word for it that it's white!

In the dual photo below, you'll notice that the blue and green illumination has been 'switched', in keeping with how a real DFC90 unit operates: "captured" or "engaged" is shown by the associated button glowing green, whilst "armed" is indicated by the blue. We managed to source some custom LEDs especially for this project - which was great! 

(Note again the tinge of non-representative 'pink' in the top photo ... tsk, tsk)

As seen below, we also manufactured and mounted a PCB to the unit so that it's one complete piece and didn't require any assembly once it got to our customer ... other than all of the necessary wiring (which he was happy to do anyway)

Obviously, to lessen any complication that might have been affected by the PCB's construction, we supplied a full wiring diagram!

And here's the completed unit, with my hand hopefully providing some sense of scale, which is 1:1 with a real DFC90.

Oh, and a photo of a real unit, for comparison ...

You'll notice also that there's no means of actually securing it to a panel from the front, so we devised a mounting bracket that allows it to be held firmly in place from the rear without creating too big a footprint on the rear of panel, as there are very often other parts nearby whose space also needs to be considered.

Embraer Panels

This has been a long-term project that we've been working on for a customer who's thankfully been very patient, which has allowed us to employ new and much better techniques along the way, resulting in a much tidier end product than might otherwise have been the case.

By way of disclaimer, these three separate panels were designed around a combination of measurements that were provided to us by our customer (he has a real Embraer cockpit already populated with a lot of real parts), various online images, screenshots, and several dimensioned sketches.

The Altitude and Airspeed Panel

This panel has been temporarily connected on our test bench to show the colour of the digits. The pushbuttons would normally be backlit as well, although in this particular photo they aren't. This was simply a first fitting to verify that all of the basics are okay - fully interfacing it all is the next step. The panel will eventually be interfaced using our own input and output boards.

The Flight Mode Selector Panel

It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but this panel has some fancy newly-designed pushbutton heads, all of which are subtly backlit with a bright white. The 'Test' pushbutton is actually only a dummy, but the rest of the unit will be fully interfaced with our customer's program. 

There are still a couple of minor light bleed issues to be remedied here, but in general terms we're pretty happy with the result.

The CRS/HDG/Vertical Speed Panel

A mercifully simple panel really, and again, this panel will be fully interfaced. You might just be able to make out the 2-way header for the backlighting in the third photo down, which exits from the built-in backlighting PCB.

P-51 Mustang MIP

This was an interesting project that we completed earlier in the year, again based on good information which had been provided to us by our customer and then worked around the available dimensions, in this case an LCD monitor that was to be placed behind the eventual MIP.

Here was one of our original previews, based on the image shown below it. You'll see subtle differences between the two pictures, as whenever you have to work within space/proportion restrictions there are inevitably some compromises. Keeping these to a minimum is of utmost importance, of course.

Below are some photos showing the finished product:

Some engraved labels for added detail.

Again, little details like attempting to replicate the specialised knobs (above) 

are an important, sometimes challenging, part of the process.

The photo below shows the rear of the panel, which is designed to sit flush 

against the face of the LCD monitor and so has all of its wires etc. 

recessed neatly out of the way to avoid unnecessary damage.

And a photo sent to us of the MIP sitting 

in front of it's screen upon arrival ...

For further information about the P-51 Mustang simulator this instrument panel was built for, you can see more of the stunning job being made of the project here. The attention to detail is phenomenal, and he's provided lots of photos!