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Flightdeck Technology Interfaces
In those early days, they sold a range of interfaces that connected to the serial port and allowed to control inputs and outputs. One of the problem was (and still is with the serial version) is that you had to install all the boards in one location in a sort of tower. This makes cabling an issue of course. one other problem was the cabling of the 7-segments with solid core cables which is a story in itself. Or the cable connectors on the boards that tend to fall out after some use. PICTURE TO FOLLOW The software to control the boards is quite nice, except basically its all made for 2-engine operation. 4-engine functions are not available. Support comes in spurts. The author has a real life job (I think he is a pilot) and it can easily take 1 -2 weeks until he answers particular questions or gives other support. Together with my own traveling schedule 4 weeks passed easily until a particular problem was sorted out. As far as I could see, there also were problems with the software interfacing with localized versions of WIN2K. This was for the serial version which I got to work after a while, but then it was discontinued. I am now working with the new USB version and have spent a considerable amount of money on this. The boards now look like this: - PICTURE TO FOLLOW. The old boards came with metal stand-offs that allowed installation somewhere on the cockpit structure. Nowhere it says that you are not supposed to use those to install the USB hardware. BUT: DO NOT use metal stand-offs to install this !!! It will create serious troubles to your wallet, because it will probably destroy your boards. Plastic (no-conductive) stand-offs are hard to find where I live and it would have been nice to find some of those in the package of FDT. I found another solution in the end to install those things. I have spent a lot of time recabling (sounds like the A380, doesn't it ?) my stuff and tried to get things to work... After it did not work on my old WIN2K system, I went out and bought a new computer and installed XP Pro on it in the hope that this would solve my problems. Well it did not. The USB-master module (I had bought a new one because I thought I had damaged the one I was using) refused to start. After more than 4 weeks of waiting, I finally got a mail telling me that I should better try an active USB hub (one of those with a power supply). With that one, the SIMBOARDS software finally managed to boot the master module and to recognize the attached modules. Until now, I have managed to get switches and rotaries to work, for an initial session. When I leave the program and restart, the system needs a couple of resets until it accepts the hardware and recognizes my allocations. My 100K pots for flaps and spoilers do not work, probably because the angle of rotation is too small for SIMBOARDS to recognize. EPIC still can read it, so I will keep it there. I have yet not managed to light up a single LED, but I'll keep trying. More to follow.... 31-08-2008: Quite some time gone since I last updated this.... In the meantime, I managed to get 2 separate installations (on 2 different computers) working, each of them in a mixed (serial and USB) environment. It just takes time and a lot of patience.... The software is still called BETA, I wonder if it ever will get into production stage <G>. After having replaced the major part of the glareshield with the Flyengravity FCU-cum-EFIS, I am running the remaining couple of I/O's for the glareshield from the FDT boards without problems.
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