Super King B200 panels

As the result of a specific request from a good customer of ours, we have recently designed some new backlit panels that are based around the Flight1 Super King Air B200 'Blackhawk Super XP52'.

Currently the only completed panels are the four sub-panels, although work is ongoing with regards the Fuel and the Fuel Circuit Breaker panels too, and these will be finished shortly.

First up is the Captain's Right Panel ...

And some close-ups to show the engraving detail.

This panel has been designed around the fitting of one of our Landing Gear Levers at a later stage, which would normally be held in place by the two screws you can see here.

Next are a couple of shots of the Captain's Left Panel

The backlighting circuit boards that we fit to these panels are contained wholly within the thickness of the panel, meaning that the only item protruding out the back is the small two-way header for the power supply. Other than that, it's a flat surface.

The F/O's Left Panel

The backlighting we've used on these panels is 5V and of the warm-white variety, so as to mimic incandescent bulbs somewhat.

And finally the F/O's Right Panel.

A replica 15 Inch MFD

Based on a GDU1500, below are a few photos of a replica Garmin 15 Inch MFD unit that we recently finished for a customer who's building a Cessna Citation simulator ...

The buttons are actually backlit in a cool-white, although it's difficult to see that in these photos.

Here's a picture showing the rear of the unit. It has its own USB controller and we also supplied a small program that allows for whichever keypresses are required by the MFD software to be assigned to the correct buttons. 

And without the logo ...

A wired set of Cessna Citation panels

We normally supply our populated panels with all of the hardware fitted onto a backing plate that's already fitted to the main panel, but they aren't typically wired. On this occasion however, we had the opportunity to do some of the wiring here in our workshop. Not all of it could be completed prior to shipping of course, as various items need to be fed into the main instrument that everything will eventually be fitted to - but we could do a lot of it, which also meant that we were able to test and verify all of the initial interfacing we'd organised for it.

Okay then, the Left Switch Panel ...

Each Starter Button has been programmed to illuminate when activated. Here they're unlit.

This isn't actually the standard wiring for one of our Left Switch Panel's, as this particular 
module needs to communicate with another existing piece of hardware that 
our customer already has installed in their build.

Now, the Right Switch Panel ...

Next, the Landing Gear Panel with the gear lever fitted ...

The Push/Pull switch shown here is the Park Brake

The Lighting Panel ...

With the dimmer wired to the Panel Lighting potentiometer

Some examples of custom work ...

Over the years we've made a lot of custom components, a small sample of which are shown below. Most of these items will only ever be one-off pieces ...

Customised King Air B200 Captain Left Panel

Customised King Air B200 Captain Right Panel. The Gear Lever
Panel was another item that we made separately.

A set of AS350 buttonheads

A custom Audio Panel

The rear of the customised Audio Panel, utilising one
of our modified PCBs for the purpose.

This panel was part of a large custom job that incorporated our 64INS and 64OUTS 
boards, gear lever with transition lighting, backlit panels, a customised
interchangeable flaps system, as well as various parts that our customer 
had already purchased elsewhere (Flight Illusion radios, iPad, etc.)

This is how the rear of the aluminium panel looked with all of our wiring completed

Another free-standing main instrument panel ...

An operational KAP140 incorporating LCD screen. 
The dummy blank panel above it helps to disguise the real size of the LCD.

This was a custom, fully-enclosed, stand-alone MIP that again incorporated
many of our own components in combination with those from other vendors,
which our customer had already purchased before sending them to us for installation.

A custom B200 MIP

Autopilot System

Custom Autopilot Knobs

EFIS System

A custom bezel designed around hardware our customer was already using.

10 Encoders Board

The 10 Encoders Universal program that's supplied with this board allows the user to configure and connect up to ten encoders which interact with Flight Simulator software, and a user-friendly configuration program allows each encoder to then be individually configured using either FSUIPC Offsets, FS Controls or Key presses.

As shown in the screenshot below, there's an option to select which type of encoder will be connected. This is important as they operate differently via the PC board. The default setting is CTS288.

There's also the ability to test the function of each encoder within the configuration program itself (without the PC board actually being connected) to make sure that all functions will work as expected.

Once the encoders have been configured, this will be shown on a separate screen:

This product isn't actually available through our official website yet, although please feel free to contact us for more details.

Magneto Switch

We have recently started manufacturing magneto switches which have a spring return from the Start position. The key actually just fits into a slot, and can be removed, but it is not a real key barrel.

We connect these ignition switches (Off-Right-Left-Both-Start) to our own I/O boards of course, but they can also be easily connected to a Bodnar BU0836X control board: the common connects to one of the BU0836X GND terminals, and the others connect to one input each. 

Beech 99 Lower Overhead

This is actually going back a couple of years now, but for the sake of keeping our blog as complete as possible (we're still well behind!), here are some photos of a Beech 99 lower overhead panel.

The gauges shown here are only dummy units, which I think our customer actually replaced with fully operational ones later in the build.