MobiFlight Community Support

Hi all,

I found and am using a great PCB for the display portion of the A320 FCU. the designer did a fantastic job! It is designed to work with the Opencockpits Displays II card. I have the Opencockpits hardware and it works fine with this PCB, but it would be very helpful to myself and many other A320 builders if there were a way to make mobiflight emulate the Displays II card from OC. The way the PCB is laid out, the LED displays are grouped in a way that doesn't work with normal 7219 interfacing, but rather with common segment pins and 16 anode leads. Is there a way to make mobiflight do this, rather than drive 7219 chips?

I don´t think so..... But last decision have Sebastian himself !

Mobiflight is concepted for Max7219 systems.
Your OC Panel is designed for SIOC ( Not Mobiflight)

If you like to use your Hardwarepanel with Mobiflight you have to make improvisional rebuild that the result work with Mobiflight technics.
I Not Know the PCB Datasheet..... If your lucky and this is working with Common Cathode LED Segments then it´s possible....

You Say...

but rather with common segment pins and 16 anode leads. Is there a way to make mobiflight do this, rather than drive 7219 chips?

I not completly understand..... How many Common segment pins do you have additional to the 16 Anodes..... Or do you mean you have 16 Pins completly ?

Basicly.... A 8 Diggit Display must have 8 Cathodes and 8 Anodes.....
You say "16 Anodes" Maby you mixed up it and you mean 8 Anodes and 8 Cathodes.
If you realy got 16 Anodes i would think you talk about more then 8 Diggits.... For example 16 Diggits..... then 8 Anodes are for Diggit 1-8 and tho other 8 Anodes are for Diggit 9-16.
Finaly you must have Cathodes in the Number of used Diggits.

Summary..... If the Displays are Common Cathode THEN you can wire it to Max7219 Chips and use it via Mobiflight !

My mistake, I meant common cathode. The Opencockpits displays board drives 16 digits with 7 segment leads and 16 digit leads. The FCU PCB I have is meant to be driven by a board that has 16 separate digits, not groups of 4 or 8, like with a 7219. I was hoping to find a way for people to use the FCU PCB with Mobiflight, instead of having to buy all of the Opencockpits hardware. It's good stuff, but expensive to but the USB expansion card, the master card, and the display card just to get 16 digits working.

The PCB design is free, and is perfect for DIY A320 FCU builders. A way to drive it with Mobiflight would be perfect! Here's a link to the original designer's website:

https://www.simucockpit.fr/a320/6-le-fcu-les-efis/

I need to Check this tomorow when i´m out of work..... please stay patient: Pretty shure we find a solution for you !

EDIT: Or Maby Stephan can have a look at the stuff..... Look like the SegmentPins are shared for all 16 Diggits.... we need to split it up in 2x8 then it should work.

Hi guys,

if I understood everything correctly, then the OC PCBs should not be used to run the displays with one or more MAX7219 boards.
After looking at the OC-PCBs and their instructions, it would not be possible to control the MAX7219 with OC hardware.

The OC hardware runs exclusively with SIOC. Accordingly, the entire PCB philosophy is geared to this.

Certainly it is possible to split the displays, this is emphasized by OC. These data are not suitable to control a MAX7219.

What remains, if you want to control the displays with MAX7219, is the homemade. This is not very expensive. If you have the reasonably priced MAX7217 boards with the pluggable displays, you only have to unplug these displays and replace them with your own displays of 1 to 8 digits. Here one is then no longer arrested by the red digit color, but can choose it freely.

Most Chinese vendors also provide the connection diagram for the MAX7219 with their sales ads. Now, as with the OC-Display II Card (here 16 digits), you can freely connect 8 digits to the MAX7219. These need only be defined in MF. Here it is necessary to comply with existing conventions.

So it is quite possible, based on the existing display socket corresponding PCBs to develop, which, compliant with MAX7219, allow any display sizes and can be plugged into the existing socket.

The MAX7219 boards are organized in 2 x 4 digits, but using them so is not mandatory. I myself use 16 5 digit displays in white, which I have manufactured with self-made cable connections.

If, for example, you use 1x3 digits and 1 x 5 digits on the MAX7219, all you need to do is connect the 7 segments of all in parallel and connect the cathodes that control the segments to the display individually. Simple, right?

Either you put the PCBs directly behind the displays or extend the sockets by leading appropriate cables to the displays.

At a price of $ 1.86 for an 8-digit MAX7219 display plus the selected displays and possibly specially developed PCBs compared to € 88, - for only 1 Master and a Display II card, this alone is without any price!

Considering that one can represent 64 digits at MF with only one DaisyChain (8 x MAX7219) the financial expenditure is unbeatable and gladly for every purse.

I can recommend this conversion to anyone who wants to build custom displays for little money. All you have to do is to spend a little time with the technology, save a lot of money and be happy about your own advertising.

I agree.

Just look at the stuff and if i understand right then the Oc Display card work with a 16 diggit System.....
that means it use 8 Segment Lines ( 7 Segment+DP) for ALL 16 Diggits.

Max7219 workes with 8 Segment Lines shared for a maximum of 8 Diggits.

To make this Possible with max7219 Chips and Mobiflight then the Segment Lines must be split up in TWO Systems.... So digit 1-8 use Segmentblock "A" and digit 8-16 use Segmentblock "B" from the second Max7219.
BUT
This is not possible with taht Premade PCB cause the shared Segment lines are on PCB itself and can not be split i think.

Finaly.... You can use all the stuff there.... But you have to make your own PCB ( or you just wire the Displays external and use the PCB Only for the other things.

An update, I redesigned the FCU display PCB to work with 7219 chips. New boards should be here any day now. Once tested with 7219 on breadboard I intend to have some dual 7219 PCBs made to interface with whatever one wants to connect for display purposes, driven by Mobiflight.