Howto:Build your own Panel or Cockpit - Planning

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Planning can save you a lot of time. You can also overplan. Plans can be a one page list of things you know you are going to do. It can also be a Document or Notebook with Tasks broken down into smaller tasks. Or you can just do it all in your head and wing it.

Regardless of the shape of your plan, It's usually time well spent to think about the various things you are going to do.

Elements of a Plan:

Major Task Categories:

  • Planning
  • Documenting
  • Education
  • Shopping for parts
  • Prototyping and Expirementing
  • Designing
  • Building
  • Using what's been built


If you're like me, You won't know the detail tasks for Designing and Building.  As you progress toward your goal, details will occur to you and you can add that to your plan in whatever form you keep it.


Planning

Planning's important, but don't get lost in planning. If you get stuck defining specific tasks for something, come back to it later when something occurs to you.

Planning can cover the categories of tasks of the project, but keep in mind that you'll probably be jumping back and forth to different categories on different instruments, controls etc. There's no set order to the tasks in these categories. You can be working on Education tasks, prototyping and Design tasks for one instrument at the same time.

You may be the type of person who can just wing it and get it done. If so, that's a plan. And if you do get it done, its a good plan.

If you run into trouble, you may want to revisit your planning decisions.

Whatever form your plan takes, make it to suit how you actually work and get things done. Add only as much detail as you personally need.

Reviewing the plan every so often to see where you stand is probably a good thing to do. But don't get fussy about it. This is a hobby isn't it?

Documenting

There's three aspects of documentation you'll need to consider:

  1. General information about cockpit building. Could be a book, some magazine articles, links to websites. You do not need it all, just what you will probably want to refer to later.
  2. Materials needed to make purchase and design decisions. These can include a list of bookmarks to sites for vendors, Links to or copies of Datasheets, covering a specific microprocessors or other hardware items. Most of the major electronics vendors have links to datasheets covering the products they sell. You might want to keep links to the parts you order from supply houses.
  3. Documenting prototypes, designs and building can be a sketchy as you want, or you can go all out and create a page for [instructables.com]

If you wait to document things till you're all done, very little documentation will actually get done. A little planning goes a long way for documentation.

You may want to take some pictures.

Education

Ok, maybe you know everything you need to know to build a professional looking full motion 747 simulator in your garage. I don't. You probably don't either. There's stuff I need to learn and stuff I think I need to learn. Plan on spending time educating yourself about things you'll actually need to do. Here's some examples from my plan: Electronics to the level where I can choose circuit element values in a design. Drafting Skills. CAD Software usage. the list goes on.

If you keep track of what you need, and devote specific times to learning with specific objectives, you'll be ahead of the game. Start with "I want to do X - Now What?" Ask yourself what you actually need to know and go as directly after that as you can. Experiment a little with what you learn. Be prepared to trim out any items you can do without. This is not a college course. Nobody's going to give you a grade, mark or certificate. And as Yoda says: "There is no try, There is only do or not do." Spend your time wisely.


Shopping for parts

It might help to make a list before you go shopping. There's lots of vendors out there selling everything from single resistors through complete simulator panels. Make the list fit your project.

Here's a few:

  • DigiKey.com Electrical and Electronic Components
  • Mouser.com Electronic Components
  • Ebay Used Instruments, Used Airplanes, Electronic components (be wary of fake chips)
  • Ali Express Just about anything

Consider shipping charges and minimum quantities.

You'll only need a few types and values of resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc. A kit with 2000 resistors in the E96 values probably will mostly go unused.

TBD: List common electronic components used in circuits useful in building simulated instruments, radios and panels.


Prototyping and Experimenting

If you are building circuits from parts, you're going to need a breadboard. Maybe more than one. Keep your wiring neat and tidy. Some parts need to be close to the chip pins in order to work correctly.

Check your circuits more than once. Did you know that what makes the microchips work is the magic smoke contained inside? If you mis-wire something you can let this magic smoke out and the chip will no longer work.

Designing

I don't know much about design, so I'm leaving it to others to say things here. Designs are worth documenting. Your design may depend on the tools you have available.

Building

Build things one step at a time and test things to make sure they went together the way they should.

Using what's been built

Remember why you are doing this in the first place. Each control, instrument, gauge and radio that you hook up needs a flight test! Often more than one.

Enjoy!