King Air 350i Home Cockpit

[ccmh15]

Hi Guys!

Trying to make the best out of the my time at home during the last few weeks, I finally started a long-planned project - a new dual-seater, FNPT II-Style Home Cockpit setup.

I wanted to introduce my project here a little (rather than in the support forums), because I also want to underline that the MilViz KA 350i is absolutely brilliant and perfectly suitable for such a project. So, in case anyone else is still thinking about getting this beautiful bird for a proper home cockpit setup, go for it!

Some things that are already up and running:

• Main Instrument Panel on two 25" ultrawide TFT screen (120cm usable screen width)
• Visual System using three 42" TVs
• Complete dual-seater shell with mechanically synchronized PFC Column Yokes and Rudder Pedals
• Self-Developed electronic hardware interface using ATMEGA32 microcontrollers

For the MIP, I was able to create a customized panel.cfg with one undockable 2D-Panel including the two PFDs, MFD, ESIS, RTU, the Clocks and (temporarily) the CDU and CCP. This works perfectly well, and the PL21 displays look absolutely fantastic on the large screens!

Next steps to take:

• Finishing the hardware CDU
• Creating laser-engraved front panels for the MIP and the Overhead panel
• Finishing some more from the actual cockpit hardware (e.g. landing gear lever)
• Building a front face panel for the MIP, including all LSKs, ESIS and RTU control buttons and rotary encoders
• Building the two annunciator panels using real LED lit annunciators

Here a few pictures of the current progress (actually perfectly flyable already, but obviously still a lot to do )






Greetings
Chris

[gibo]

Wow!Looks great.

[Victory103]

Really nice job on this, looks better than the Redbird sim my company purchased that hardly worked.

[ccmh15]

Thank you! But it's still missing all the panels and a lot of other important things...

Currently, I'm working on the electronics of the CDU - as there's nothing available yet for the Proline 21, I decided to do everything on my own from scratch. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons I have to change the layout a bit from the original one, but I guess while flying in the sim it won't make much of a difference.

[ryanbatc]

Wow looks awesome!

[signmanbob]

That looks complicated!

[qqwertzde]

Cool

[ccmh15]

A quick update!

The annunciator panels are fully working and ready to be mounted.

It is not intended to be a 1:1 clone out of the real plane, instead I did chose a layout that allows me to use the same PCB three times (just with different colored LEDs) for both the upper and the lower annunciator panels.





I also made a short video demonstration. Yes, I was not really following the correct start-up or shutdown procedure, and no, I'm obviously not used to control this bird with the mouse



The FMS and CCP unit is also almost done - unfortunately I accidentally destroyed the display, so I had to order a new one from China - so, a couple of weeks delay...

[Slayer]

This is very very cool. Thanks for sharing!

[YoYo]

Nice work, CRG!

[Raphael_Chacon]

OMG this is awesome!..... New features added so far? This one is soooooo pleasant to look at........!

[ccmh15]

OMG this is awesome!..... New features added so far? This one is soooooo pleasant to look at........!

Thank you!

At the moment, most of the work is done on the software/firmware and electronics... so not much to show currently.

FMS prototype is working very well, I'm just not very happy with the acrylic front (the very thin material between the keys is causing some issues)
However, my local fab-lab is about to get a brand-new CNC laser cutter, that will also be able to cut up to 12mm steel or aluminium - this is going to be the next level of panel production!

In the meantime, below are some new pictures of a prototype of my acrylic version of the PIC Lower Left panel.
As you can see, I didn't design it 100% accurate like in the real thing, but I had to compromise a bit to actually be able to fit it in my generic shell.

Cheers!
Chris

[Slayer]

Looking good. Can't wait to see when it's all done.

[Raphael_Chacon]

Freeking awesome!..... You kidding?

That looks soooooo good!..... Keep pushing, as real as you can get.... it is only one time in life!.....

Ahh, dont forget to put some pictures on!

[pato_galex]

hello and you sell the fms sorry for asking