This was large custom job that we finished back in mid-2017, although we've been so busy that it's only now that we've had some time to write something up about it. The job itself was co-ordinated between our customer in France and ourselves in New Zealand, with some of the items being sent to us to fit (the General Simulator G1000 units, the TRC mixture pots, and the Flight Illusion standby gauges) and the rest of the parts being manufactured in our workshop and the entire instrument panel assembled and wired.
After spending a long time calculating various angles etc. to get our drawings correct, we had the glareshield formed for us by a local company and upholstered.
A quick note: as this was made more than two years ago now (back in 2017), we've since modified a couple of the components to better reflect the actual aircraft. Small details perhaps, but more aesthetically pleasing (see below) ...
Here are some photos that show an AS350 MIP that we designed for a local customer back in 2017. It was designed to sit in front of an LCD monitor, so everything was constructed to be as low-profile as possible whilst still being functional.
[ Click on the photos to see the larger images ... ]
A separate post that details the individual bezels and their hardware will follow shortly ...
Backlighting was also incorporated ...
And the following viewpoint shows how little (if anything!) protrudes out the back ...
Whenever possible we like to make improvements to our products. Sometimes these stem from better manufacturing processes, and sometimes they're the direct result of customer feedback and suggestions - which we're always keen to hear!
Several of these enhancements are shown below on our LCD1000 units (which are based on the Aspen EFD1000) ...
Adjustable backlighting
The button back-lighting in these units can now be set by the user at any time, and the selected brightness will be saved in memory. The saved brightness setting will even be used after the unit has been turned off.
It's a simple process to perform:
Press the BRG1 and BRG2 buttons at the same time to enter the brightness setting routine.
Press the BRG2 button to increase the brightness.
Press the BRG1 button to decrease the brightness.
When satisfied with the brightness, press the CDI button and the setting will be saved.
More accurately profiled knobs
As shown below, the knobs are now subtly tapered to better reflect the real ones.
Always keen to help out our customers with some custom requests that they can't find elsewhere, below is a Cabin Briefing Panel that we made for a King Air simulator a couple of years ago.
The size of the window was based around a single-row 5x7 dot-matrix 8 character display that our customer already had and which was fitted once the panel was received, hence the empty space shown in our photos.
It all looks pretty enough from the front, although it's a different story from the rear. This is not the typical way that we build our panels, but with a one-off job, sometimes there are aesthetic compromises that need to be made. To ease the drama of opening the parcel to find this inside, a wiring diagram was supplied so that everything could be easily wired up by our customer once the panel arrived ... and we'd discussed how things were going to be constructed prior to beginning the job too, so there weren't too many surprises.
This customised Altitude Alert Panel was supplied with its own USB controller, and we wrote a small program which allows it to operate with FS9, FSX, ESP, and P3D.
The Altitude Alert controller uses a 12 Volt DC power supply and we normally suggest using a spare computer power supply for the 12V, as these are cheap, easy to find, and reliable. All of our control boards are fitted with the correct type of socket for this. Also included was a small beeper for the 'alert' sound.
Below is a screenshot of our software running; the digits actually change whilst the unit is operating too, so that the incoming information can be verified in real-time.
Pushing theENG button allows the user to change the vertical speed settings. This will also light up the VS text next to the ENG button.
Pushing the ARM button will allow you to change the altitude alert settings. This will also light up the ALT text next to the ARM button.
TheSETknob is a dual encoder. The lower knob changes the value in 1000's and the upper knob changes the value in 100's.
The above photograph shows the panel during the initial test phase, with the illuminated text and one illuminated button.
The especially keen-eyed reader will also notice that the width of the display is not uniform across all of these photos. This was because we actually had to re-make the front panel halfway through the process on account of forgetting about the extra 'minus' digit ... !
This is a panel that we built for one of our good customers a couple of years ago as a one-off custom job, although we actually supplied a pair of them.
It's based on the MD41-1408 unit from Garmin.
As you can see in the next couple of images, we had an interesting time trying to get the correct sort of lighting without having too much undue light-bleed visible between the different legends.
Here are a few photos of a Bell 407 Overhead Panel that we made recently.
The dimensions for the unit which is shown here are actually the same as our standard Bell 206 Overhead Panel, as the two panels are going to be interchangeable within the simulator for which they're destined.
Each of the circuit breaker positions has been designed to accommodate either a real circuit breaker, a dummy circuit breaker, or a toggle switch - or, where there's no hardware to be fitted, one of the blanks.
To change the hardware configuration (e.g. replacing a dummy breaker with an operational one) is simply a matter of removing the five screws down each side of the panel to allow access to the mounting plate upon which these are all fitted.
The panels that are in our standard product range are not always exactly what our customers want, and so we're happy to customise items wherever we can.
Sometimes the alterations can be fairly major, whilst other times it's just a simple word change here or there.
In this particular instance, we swapped out the standard 1/4" jacks for some 3.5mm versions, added some blue backlighting, and made some fairly minor modifications to the text and its positioning.
Subsequent to taking the above photo, we actually wired a pair of our intercom units to this panel as well. There were still a couple of connections for our customer make once it arrived (we only left them off for reasons of safe transit), although these were fairly straightforward.
As a comparison to one of our standard B200 Audio Panels, below is a photo which shows the standard engraving layout and the holes for the 1/4" jacks.
As mentioned in this blog previously, the simulator that we have in our workshop is based on an ATR-72 and has become something of a test-bed for various components over the years without having had the time to properly complete it. The overhead panels shown there were the first iteration of ATR componentry that we used to sell.
Recently though, as the result of a specific customer request for some ATR overhead panels, we have embarked upon something of a re-design process utilising the same techniques that we've begun implementing across our entire range of panels. This includes fully backlighting them.
The first panel that we've just completed is the Engine Start Panel, as shown below:
The above photo (when compared with the photo below) gives some indication as to the amount of separation there is between neighbouring legends which are housed on the same annunciator; there is no light bleed whatsoever between the two halves.
Similarly below, in the korry switch that displays 'FAULT' there is no bleeding of the amber light into the well of the legend which reads 'ON' (and vice versa, had I thought to take a photo of it!)
Another challenge was the Prop Brake switch latch, which had to be loose enough to operate but tight enough not to fall open on its own accord (it's upside-down above one's head, of course). This problem was overcome by fitting a small customised spring onto one side of it.
Below is a photograph of what the panel looks like from the rear. You can see that it's supplied as one fully-populated unit, with all of the components pre-fitted to various mounting plates. For connecting up the korry switches, we've fitted 3-way connectors, which hopefully make things a bit more convenient and will lead to our customer spending more time flying and less time soldering!
Below is a very quick video (without any commentary) which demonstrates (hopefully) some sense of how solid the korry switches sound, and how 'positive' their action is ...
