I have been working on a flight simulator as part of a national competition recently, the C++ has been going well and I think that it is time to start on the hardware side of things. I need anything to do with aircraft, most of all flight instruments.
What can I expect to find in the way of electromechanics inside of the flight instruments, eg. altimeter, airspeed indicators (or any rotary dial type display). I have little idea of what type of inputs will be required to drive these instruments, PWM?, serial?, Parallel?, Analogue?.
Does anybody have any second hand suppliers (reachable from the UK) That they may refer me to? We do not a have a large budget for this, we have secured £500 for the first prototype round, and more may be on the way from external funding. I would like to at least get an altimeter and airspeed indicator for < ~£150 total. Upon looking at factory new ones, they appear to be above this price. Can I expect to find any (Working or at least fixable!) instrument within this range?
Ultimately, if the fully working instruments could never reach this kind of price, I would find it plausible to fit the dials with steppers/servos, so supply of internal mechanisms are not required if infeasible. Of course, if this were the case I would expect to pay less for them.
I have a raspberry pi model 2 with which to control the drive circuitry, and a budget that should meet the needs of any amplification/wave modifying circuitry etc.
I am interested as to what somebody will come up with.
What can I expect to find in the way of electromechanics inside of the flight instruments, eg. altimeter, airspeed indicators (or any rotary dial type display). I have little idea of what type of inputs will be required to drive these instruments, PWM?, serial?, Parallel?, Analogue?.
Does anybody have any second hand suppliers (reachable from the UK) That they may refer me to? We do not a have a large budget for this, we have secured £500 for the first prototype round, and more may be on the way from external funding. I would like to at least get an altimeter and airspeed indicator for < ~£150 total. Upon looking at factory new ones, they appear to be above this price. Can I expect to find any (Working or at least fixable!) instrument within this range?
Ultimately, if the fully working instruments could never reach this kind of price, I would find it plausible to fit the dials with steppers/servos, so supply of internal mechanisms are not required if infeasible. Of course, if this were the case I would expect to pay less for them.
I have a raspberry pi model 2 with which to control the drive circuitry, and a budget that should meet the needs of any amplification/wave modifying circuitry etc.
I am interested as to what somebody will come up with.