MobiFlight Community Support

Hi all!

I have wish with my cockpit building, that is that you have one cabel to comunicate with one card and one powercabel.

You could call it network based or buss system which is common in industry to day.

Why do flightsimers have to go back to the old way of thinking connecting one button to one input and one annunciator to one output. Only 256 in resolution in PWM output.

My wish is that in the future we will be able to connect most things with a few cables. You could say multiplex. But is that not very limiting? Only four cards and no output if I understand Mobifligt correctly?

What will we see in the future when it comes to “bus or network systems” for buttons and annunciators?

I like the CP Flight route. But I don’t like the CP Flight prices.

This is basicaly what I want: https://youtu.be/BByGcmEm62k?si=MOpaTxp5J_dyX5yb

But as I understand you can only connect 4 cards?

Or can you connect the hole 737 MIP? What typ of signals can be sent or received with the this interface? And what about buttons?

This setup is not recommended from my side and MobiFlight doesn't work like that.

MobiFlight supports multiple Arduino boards at the time.
All boards will have a stable USB connection including power. Use a powered USB hub which will in many case be enough to run advanced cockpits.
Split your cockpit up in sections, e.g. overhead, glareshield, autopilot, etc. For every section use one or more Arduinos.

Advantages:
* If one arduino fails, the rest of your cockpit is not affected
* troubleshooting is easier, since the error can be found easier since only a part of the cockpit is affected
* stable messages across multiple USB connections
* use USB hubs to run less cables from your PC
* shorter signal lines to the components like 7-segment displays when you arduinos are close will yield more stable operations
* distribute the processing load of the system across multiple boards

... and I could go on with this list.

Very said.

When you build a large cockpit like 737, you soon find that the more USB connected devices the les stable the sim becomes.

I have earlier built my cockpit around (Overhead) FDS SYS-1X Board (256 led outputs and 128 button inputs) a Pokeys card and a relay card connected to that. A custom Arduino Uno based dimmer solution. It becomes extreme amounts of cables. Also a Arduino Mega running Mobiflight for all stepper motor gauges.

I built the MIP first with Leobodnar and Pokeys plus "LED" cards and relay cards. Then I changed everything to only Pokeys. I run ProSim in the background.

When I put the saw in the wrong place in the MIP, I decided I want to re do the hole MIP, and that is what I have bin working on for the latest year.

I am an electrician and now maintenance technician.

I started to think of a better solution to the hole cockpit and thought of work where everything is connected threw PLS and ProfiNet and CAN BUS.

In a Perfect world I want to connect MIP with one network cable, and some kind of buss between all panels. I can't understand why no one have thought of this before.

The mane thing is that I don't want to run a lot of cables around in the cockpit. Then I want the system to be basically plug and play with Zibomod, PMDG and ProSim.

I understand that I could connect Arduino Pro Micro to each and every Panel or similar. There would then be 11 panels with 11 with 11 Arduino Pro Micro. And this would still not be enough. The master caution and 6 pack would also need one card each, so there we have 13 cards. And for the Autobrake panel that would not be enough with a Arduino Pro Micro.

Then we have the diming of leds. Not perfect solution.

If I want cables to run to each led and each switch. Phidgets LED 64 card looks like the best option, supports Bothe Zibo and ProSim, And pokeys or Arduino Mega for inputs, I have constructed a shield that fits boteh pokeys and Arduino. In that case I could select if I want to run the MIP with 4 pokeys 57E or 4 Arduino Mega:

But the problem is I don't want to run cables threw out the system. Is there any way to have any kind of bus system with Mobiflight. I can construct the PCBS MY self. I2C or something.

I cant understand why no one have thought of this before.

I understand where you start, when you are happy if you get one switch and one led to work, but Hole cockpit is something ells.

And of course you just want it plug and play, as I understand it you can do that with config files for Arduino?


Best regards.

I have researched a bit, and the best system seems to be canbus.

So I searched for canbus and flight simulator and found these links:

https://openfsb.org/

https://www.simsystems.biz/io-solutions.html

https://www.can-cia.org/fileadmin/resources/documents/proceedings/2017_antunes.pdf

But most of them seem to Adress a professional market.