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Comment by Tim Davis on April 27, 2013 at 5:59

Ya know, an 80" HD TV with HDMI input would solve your projector problem!   HA HA HA!  But think of the cool in-flight movies you could watch .... 

The issue with a moving projector mount would be getting the projector re-aligned every time you move it.  We have two big projectors in my church/gym and they are a pain to adjust after blowing out with compressed air - especially at 24 feet (7.6 meters) off the floor and no man-lift on site, it's all ladder work.   

Another possibility:  You might consider playing with a couple of mirrors to redirect the image.  You need two mirrors, the first one will give a reverse image and the second one will put it back to normal.  The only issue would be maintaining correct aspect ratio - just a matter of mirror/projector positioning.  

Another idea would be to use telescoping tubing with a pin you can pull to lower the top section down to working height.  

Comment by Tony Chilcott on April 27, 2013 at 4:09

Tim,

Hey thank you so very much for your comments 

My projector is located some a4 meters from the screen and is located presenty at sit down head height.  This means that whilst I am flying, every time I look to the right  or down to my FMC screen my shadow appears magically (LOL) on the main screen.  The intention is to raise it to a height of 3.2 meters (my ceiling is at 3.5 meters) but I am looking at a way to be able to bring it up and down on an elevator system or something.  This is to facilitate  cleaning as I live in a very dusty area.

My pedestal has wire mesh sides for cooking  and yes I do have an additional fan inside the pedestal to provide a little extra.  The down side to this is that whilst the computer never exceeds 75 degrees, the hot air generated by the computer makes the room very hot and I am looking at having to install an airconditioner to try to combat that.

I think I covered most of the rest in my last comments on this post but if I can help with anything else ... please just ask.

Oh, by the way, this whole project to build cost me approx AUD230 for materials and approx AUD150 for labour. (3 men x 9 days)  Very cheap in Indonesia but I would guess the same thing where you are would be considerably dearer.  All in all, for me, a very worthwhile project.

Regards

Tony

Comment by Tony Chilcott on April 27, 2013 at 3:51

Well, I hope you found that at least a little bit interesting. A few more morsels for you.

1. Things to do.... a roof over head to cut out the top of the desktop display. (desktop display not needed as this is a dedicated to FS9) and the roof will house an additional 19inch display for Overhead display eventually.

2. The projector (BENQ mx511) is presently sited at sit down head level and has to be raised -- this will also effect the roof level when done and I anticipate doing this shortly.

This whole project was inspired by Jeff Chandler (Simsamurai - Prepare for Take Off.  His website is absolutely mindblowing and incredibly professional.  I found him to be enormously helpful  and I can highly recommend his tutorial book (UGTAFS - User Guide for flight sims) for beginners and for experienced simmers alike and pretty well covers all subjects Flight sim. At only USD22.00 it is a bargain.  Check out his site.

The construction of this cockpit was designed to be modular and in fact the whole thing can be dismantled and moved out of the room in approximately 20 minutes (after disconnecting the computer of course)  In fact, the whole cockpit was dismantled, all electrical cables and access relocated, and re-assembled at the opposite end of the room in just less than half a day.  The only thing I would change at this stage is that my room is two and a half metres wide and so is the cockpit. It really is slightly too wide and give the budget and motivation I would decrease the width slightly.  The reason for the current width is/was the flexibility to upgrade the cockpit monitors in the panel to 24inch in lieu of 19inch.  in retrospect, I could decrease the width by at least a foot (12 inches) and still have enough space to upgrade the monitors. The two outside cockpit views are 32 inch Samsung LED TVs and the rest of the monitors used are 19inch LCDs

My computer specs:

Mother board is MSI x68 GD80 Pro, CPU is Intel Corei7 2600K (not overclocked) Ram 8GB (upgrading to 16GB shortly) PSU is Xigmatic 1200watts and VGA cards are 3 x XFX HD6970 2GB DDR5 andf OS is Win 8 Pro.

Peripherals:

Saitek Yoke, pedals and trim wheel.  I purchased an extra 2 throttle quadrants and set up the one which comes with the yoke and an additional one as a twin prop set-up (throttles/Prop Condition/Mixture) and the other extra one is used as Gear up and down/Spoiler/Flaps.

Still testing it all but enjoying the process.  

In conclusion, If anyone is building a cockpit and wants to access my limited experience, I would be more than happy to offer my help.

Thank for listening and looking.  I hope you have all appreciated it as much as I have enjoyed building and sharing my cockpit

Regards to all

Tony

 

Comment by Tim Davis on April 27, 2013 at 3:43

Wow! That's cool, nice and clean, no wires running everywhere! Where are you hiding the projector?  Do you have fans in the console to keep the tower cool?  I'm really impressed with the quality of your construction, very nicely done!  

Comment by Tony Chilcott on April 27, 2013 at 3:23

Completion (at least to present stage)

Comment by Tony Chilcott on April 27, 2013 at 3:19

Day Eight

Comment by Tony Chilcott on April 27, 2013 at 3:15

Day Seven

Comment by Tony Chilcott on April 27, 2013 at 3:12

Day Six

Comment by Tony Chilcott on April 27, 2013 at 3:08

Day 5

Comment by Tony Chilcott on April 27, 2013 at 3:06

Day Four

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