Upgrading the Reading Lights and Floodlight in the Skalarki Overhead

I've never been a fan of Skalarki’s implementation of the light fixtures in their overhead panels. A few years ago, I purchased two OEM 54VU light panels intending to upgrade. Unfortunately, upon returning home, I discovered that the panels were physically incompatible with the VierImPott overhead structure. Additionally, these OEM panels use a 5-volt backlighting system and a 28V high-power incandescent bulb, which doesn’t align with Skalarki’s electronics.

Recently, I came across these panels while sorting through a drawer and decided to repurpose their light fixtures. To make it work, I drilled a 60 mm hole in the Skalarki panel to mount the light fixture and replaced the original bulb with a 12V light strip consisting of two sets of three LEDs.

The next task was upgrading the floodlight in the Audio Switching Panel. For this, I sourced an OEM 48VU Audio Switching Panel and extracted its light fixture. This required a 90 mm hole in the Skalarki panel. As before, I swapped out the bulb for a 12V light strip to ensure compatibility.

It has been a long time since I updated this website

• I have replaced the captain's side stick with a Trustmaster Hotas Magnetic base and a FlightSimProjects A320 side stick.
  
• I added console lights to the captain's and F/O's side base.
• Because I started to use SayIntentions as an ATC service, I had to revamp the audio system.  I added a Peiker Microphone to the captain's side base.

The PTT button on the Peiker microphone is just a simple switch, so you can connect it to a spare input on a Leo Bodnar card.  Since I am using a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro as the side stick base, I use one of its button inputs.  The button input can be read directly by an ATC program like vPilot, SayIntentions or Beyond ATC.  It can also be read by ProSimA322, that’s what I do.  ProSimA322 has a gate “Loudspeaker Mute” that I use to trigger the ATC PTT function.  The beauty of it is that if you pull any of the side stick PTT buttons (Captain or F/O) or the RAD switches on the ACP's or the microphone PTT buttons, it will then activate the ATC PTT function.

• I have moved the simulator outside to the garden shed.  The shed has been rebuild and insulated.  It is now fully dedicated to the home cockpit.
• I have added brightness controls to the EFIS controls by going to a double-axis potentiometer, and a 3D printed knob.  The interface is through a Phidgets 8/8/8 board
• I have replaced the beamer with a ultra short beam 4K laser projector
• I upgraded the main PC with a faster processor, motherboard and video card
• I replaced the two secondary PC's with one that handles all the displays
• I added MSFS as an alternative flight simulator

January 2017
 

During FSWeekend in November I saw Skalarki's hardware using warm-white LEDs for the backlighting. This looks so much better than the yellow backlight that I decided to rework all my panels.  I ordered 2000 warm-white SMD LEDs in China, plus a 5 meter LED strip and started to work.  It took about 3 weeks that get all the LEDs replaced.  The hardest job was to replace the LED strips in the TQ, because it almost needs to be totally disassembled.  Anyway, the result is great.  All the green strips in the overhead and on the TQ are now clearly visible.

I have about 4 meters of LED strips left, so I am contemplating on backlighting the Circuit Breaker Panel.

 In addition I fitted all the appropriate switches with guards on both the forward and aft overhead panels. 

The liners arrived a few weeks ago from Vier Im Pott.  Since the sim room is limited in size I was unable to fit the side windows.  However, it looks nice with the front windows and the ceiling with dome lights.

I moved over from the Jeehell A320 package to ProSimA320.  This package is still in development, so I can help out finding problems.  I also helped Skalarki with their SDK to make it run with "non-P&P" hardware.  I have a DIY Skalarki overhead so I connected the 100+ switches and annunciators to inputs that I saw fit.  These need to be mapped to standardized SDK calls.  Since ProSimA320 also relies on the SDK when talking to Skalarki hardware, it was now possible for me to extend ProSimA320's functionality by writing a C# program that interfaces the dome lights, the refuel panel and the pushback panel.

The future project has been realized. I was able top sell my B738 cockpit in one piece and I started to build the Airbus A320. Because of the years of experience with this hobby, I decided to take a different approach. Rather than slowly gathering parts and building item by item, I decided to purchase the hardware from only two vendors.

The metal parts come from Vier Im Pott, a German company and the panels with all their electronics come from Skalarki Electronics in the UK. Both companies work together, so the Skalarki parts fit very well in the metal frames.

I have ordered almost everything possible, except the aft overhead panels. The software that I use is a freeware package called Jeehell FMGS. It does in fact all the things that ProSim737 does for the Boeing 737. It lacks, however, features like Instructor Station, failures and weather.

The AWACS seat that I use at the captain's side is now running on straight rails.  The chair can be moved enough backwards, so there is no need for J-rails.

I was able to get hold of an old 747-200 pilot chair, that I will use at the F/O side.

For a few more pictures see this and this.
 

Many personal things have happened since I last updated my site.  However, I did make a number of changes to the cockpit.

• A FlyEngravity a full metal MIP structure with integrated CDU bay was added.
• A wet compass and the F/O Clock was added.
• There is now backlighting in the AFT Overhead and I added the console flood light.
• Based on an idea of the Aviation Megastore I automated the release of the parking brake on the CockpitSonic Motorized TQ.
• Interfacing of the horn cutout and stab trim switches on the TQ.
• I moved from FSX to Lockheed Martin Prepar3d.
• Modified a FlyEngravity CDU with color display.

Because of problems with the supplier I never got the F/O stuff, like seat, yoke and pedals.

 Note: I cannot say enough how much Prosim737 has progressed over these years.  In my opinion it is the best avionics software that is available for us hobbyists

During the last 6 months I have changed the forward pedestal so it could support two CDU's.  First I was planning to add a dummy CDU at the F/O position but since Prosim supports color I changed my mind and purchased the CDU from Flightdeck Solutions.

During this period I also replaced the CPFlight MCP with their PRO version.

I have modified a real Korry annunciator by modifying the glass bulbs to hold 5 mm LED's. However, I am unable to get to the switch function because it's buried in a small PCB that I cannot get to.

As a current project I am designing an IRS display that will resemble as much as possible the real thing.  It will also support keyboard entries.  More on that later.

A number of people asked me for an update, so here is a list of changes that I made the last 6 months:

• The system is now fully driven by Prosim.  I am no longer using any of my panel(s) programs because Prosim737 fully supports my hardware.  Only for the FDS SYS1 board there is no native support, so that's handled via the FSUIPC interface.
• I got rid of the three monitors and purchased an HD Beamer.  Although the resolution is lower, the immersion factor is much higher.
• From FlyEngravity I purchased the lower sub panels which are backlit.  Prosim737 supports independent backlight control of all sections as powered by the various electrical busses.  Using low cost dimmers from Hong Kong I can now control the backlighting like the real plane.
• Also from FlyEngravity I purchased backlit panels for the forward overhead.  The result is spectacular.
• I added to the aft pedestal bay the new CPFlight modules.  Currently only the WXR panel has no Prosim support.
• I added two magnetic switches for the Yaw Damper and the Wing Anti Ice.  They are fully supported by Prosim737.

Quite a few changes happened during this year.

• During the FSWeekend show in November 2009 I got in touch with two fellow cockpit builders from Sweden, Björn Harlin and Lasse Lehman.  Lasse offered to build an aft pedestal for me which I gladly accepted.  I asked him to make a two-bay version because of space reasons. See here for the result.
• Since I could not get the FO side for the old FlyEngravity panels anymore, I decided to purchase their new desktop set and rebuild everything.
• I met another cockpit builder in The Netherlands, Martin van Liempt.  He has built a beautiful cockpit and is very good in creating mechanical parts.  I asked him to create two engine cutout. 
• Another person in The Netherlands, Marty Bochane, is writing a full 737-800 avionics suite.  His aim is to make it, within the limitations of Microsoft's FS9 and FSX, as realistic as the real plane.  I started to use his overhead software Prosim737 (which is free of charge) and I was immediately very impressed.  All the systems are modeled like the real deal.  For a while I used it instead of pmSystems but now I have moved over to the full suite. It is still work in progress but the results have been very satisfying.  If you are interested in Prosim take a look at the site.  Since Prosim allows to link all its inputs and outputs to FSUIPC offsets, it's very easy to change over.  In my system I use a FDS SYS-1 Card for which Prosim has currently no native support.  By mapping the Prosim actions into the pmSystems FSUIPC offsets, it was very easy to get the system working.  The Prosim maps are saved in an XML file.
• I combined panel.exe and panel_console.exe into one program and added support for Prosim. 

Because of the nice summer we had (and still have) in Holland, I haven't much done to the flight deck. I have added the lower DU and moved the radio's into a temporary pedestal bay.  I purchased the FlyEngravity MIP annunciator decals, warning switches and the new captain's six-pack.  Because I am using the old style MDF-based FlyEngravity MIP panels, it took a lot of cutting to integrate these.  The six-pack looks wonderful. 

I picked up the Aircraft Controls Engineering 737 Yoke, everything now looks better and better.  Because the yoke is a little bit farther positioned from the MIP, I tilted the pedals about 30° backwards.  This makes the toe braking also easier. 

FlyEngravity Warning switches and Captain's six pack

The beauty of PM is that all the hardware that I had acquired was supported.  I only had to specify the COM port number in the PM software and it worked.  During this phase I bought two new computers: a DELL XPS for running Flight Simulator and the CDU.  The other PC was a Dell Inspiron 530 for running the ND and PFD, the stand-by Instruments and the Weather Radar.  From the company I work for I got an old Dell Optiplex GXa desktop which is used solely to run the EICAS.

I kept the PMDG 737-800 but had to remove all the windows in the panel file.

Until now I had to sit behind my desk and "fly" with the aid of a joystick and number of hardware modules.   The next step was more dramatic - I moved away from the desk and built a stand-alone set-up.  I purchased from FlyEngravity the Captain and Center panels, a Matrox TripleHead2Go, and four 17" monitors.  In addition I built a stand from MDF to hold the panels and the CDU/Radio unit.  The gear lever, the autobrake switch and the various annunciators where wired to a CPFlight MIP Interface board.  By undocking the FPD and ND to a separate monitor and by going to the outside view (W), I had created a fixed-base simulator that I could "fly" without a keyboard or mouse.

As you can you see in the picture there where still may holes to fill, the most conspicuous being the EICAS screen and the stand-by instruments.  To fill the three big round holes was easy, I purchased the Flight Illusion standby instruments and I replaced the dummy flap indicator by a working one.

 At this point I had to make a major decision - can I stay with the PMDG solution or do I have to purchase software that is more amendable for cockpit builders.  Except for key clicks, PMDG never released information on how to interface to the 737NG.  Interfacing to the overhead functions and a number of MIP functions would be impossible.   I also tried for a while to add another video card to the PC in order to undock and show the EICAS.  Unfortunately, I was not able to make this a reliable solution.  At the end I decided to bite the bullet and purchase the Project Magenta software.  This software allows interfacing to any hardware you can think of, and very importantly, it can run distributed on different networked computers.  This allows for off-loading the main computer that runs Flight Simulator

At the end of 2006 I was able to enter partial retirement and with much more free time available I decided to enter the path of building a home cockpit.  One of my requirements was that during the building process I should be able to "fly" as much as possible.  After extensively researching what was available, I decided start by purchasing the CPFlight MCP and EFIS modules.  They looked nice and were able to work with the PMDG 737.  I built a small stand for them (it is scrapped now) so I could place it as a one unit under the PC monitor.  This was real fun, I could turn and press real knobs and buttons and the plane was turning, changing altitude and so on. The hardware was able to control all the MCP functions.

It didn't take long to take the next step - the purchase of a CDU and a number of radio modules.  The CDU is from FlyEngravity and could interface with the PMDG 737NG Series via a dedicated driver.  The CPFlight radio modules are connected to the MCP and required nothing special.

The beauty of this setup was that I was able to "fly" without the need to use either the mouse of keyboard.  Flaps, gear, brakes, rudder and throttle were handled from the joystick.  Only during startup I had to handle the overhead panel, and during start and landing some miscellaneous functions like Autobrake.

Like most other flight simulation enthusiasts I started of with only a PC, a flight simulator program and a joystick.  In fact, my first flight simulator was Fly! and I used it until it became apparent that it had no future.  During the Fly! years I had fun with the PMDG add-ons like the Boeing 757 and 777.  Another interesting add-on to Fly! was Terrascene that allowed you, by downloading USCG data, to generate very detailed scenery for US areas.  Since I had lived in Washington State, I recreated everything west of the Cascades.

On the simulator I did a lot of "flying" with the PMDG 737-800, the Flight1 Cessna 172 and later the PSS A320, both on- and off-line.