arduino flight sim tft display pricelist

Inspired by Spad.Next Serial Interface v1 Simple Autopilot by Les O"Reilly. Using Adafruit Feather with 3.5" Touch Wing. Display is "passive" with exception of touch to change radio and course. Button inputs are separate using a Leo Bodnar BBI-32.

Current version is using the SPAD.next Serial V2 pattern, using the INPUT and OUTPUT types instead of DATA and SUBSCRIBE. Mapping between displayed values and the variables are done in SPAD.next.

Inspired by some hardware of a popular flight simulator vendor i decided to built up something similar on my own. The first version was implemented using simple rotary encoders, a LCD display, an Arduino Leonardo and a case. The result was not bad, but in aviation double stacked rotary encoders are quite common.

After using the first version for some time i stumbled upon the project MobiFlight. A software which supports some Arduino hardware with a special firmware and a bridge software connecting the Arduino to a flight simulator.

First of all: Even though the Arduino has a number of standard plugs you"ll have to solder some parts for this project. Nothing complicated, just some pin rows have to be soldered to PCBs (printed circuit boards). If you does not own a soldering iron have a look if there is a maker space nearby. They might have something for you.

The single rotary encoders are quite common. Have a look to find a variant soldered to a PCB ready for use with an Arduino and a knob. They can be easily connected to the Arduion with a jumper cable.

The stacked rotary encoders are industrial grade and a litte expensive. Some dealers provide a PCB for connection with an Arduino, but you have to solder the encoder and a row of PIN headers to the PCB on your own. If you think these are to expensive you can of course replace one double encoder by two cheaper single rotary encoders.

To connect the 20x4 character LCD display to the Arduino take care to buy one with an I²C interface. Other displays are not supported by MobiFlight. The I²C interface is a standard to easily control the display from an Arduino. This interface is supported for a number of different display sizes by the MobiFlight software. In most cases you have to solder the I²C interface to the display on your own.

The direction of the type A/B USB-adapter is changebale. It"s great for a self-made casing. You can simply unplug your self made panel from you computer.

Nevertheless, the people behind this software are having cost. Mostly for webservers. With this step i want to encourage you to make donations to these Open Source software projects. I don"t want to urge you to spend a big amount of money. Instead think about a cup of coffee. In Germany a simple coffee is available for about 1.50 €. If you spend this amount on a monthly base this probably won"t ruin you. But if 20 people are donating 1.50 € a month, the maker of an Open Source software are getting 30 € to host a webpage.

If i was able to convince you: Great and thank you. If not: never mind, just continue reading and build up your own multi panel for your flight simulator.

The PCBs for the single rotary encoders typically include a so called "pull up" resistors. In case they don"t: the Arduino (in detail: the used ATmega chips) can optionally provide such a resistor. And finally: The MobiFlight software automatically configures all input PINs to use this pull up logic.

The PCB for the double rotary encoders does not provide a pull up resistor. But as mentioned, the MobiFlight software will configure the Arduino accordingly.

The display uses a so called I²C interface. This interface needs to be connected to power, ground and two dedicated pins by the Arduino. For the Arduino Mega 2560 R3 these are the pins D21/SCL and D20/SDA. These pins are labled accordingly. On most I²C interfaces, these pins are labled too.

Now it"s time to take something to make the necessary holes into the housing. You have to measure the diameter of the axis of the different rotary encoders. Take a drill and a saw to make the rectangular hole for the display ... And so on.

Download the MobiFlight software MobiFlight-Installer.exe. Move the software to a separate folder. This is important because the installer will download the real software to the same folder as the Installer.

Connect the device to your PC. Afterwards start the just downloaded MFConnector.exe. When starting the software will scan for compatible Arduino devices. When asked if you want to install the special software accept it. This will change the default Arudino firmware by the special MobiFlight firmware. This step can be reversed with the connector software.

Next i added the Display as LcdDisplay. The I²C devices all have an assigned address. Refer to the documentation of your display which address is preselected. In many cases this is the address 0x27. The number of columns is 20, the number of rows 4.

Next we want to be able to change this variable using the single encoder. Change to the Input tab of the main window and add a new item. After giving a name like menu or menu input open the configuration of this new item. Choose the correct Arduino (here Multipanel (COM5)) and the device Encoder-Menu.

Now we want to tell MobiFlight what to do when the encoder is used. We will begin with the On Right event because this is a little bit easyer to understand.

Choose the Action Type value MobiFlight - Variable. In the next line you have to select the variable menu which was created on the input tab. In the line Value we tell what to do. The formula is ($+1)%7. The $ will contain the value of the variable menu. We add 1 to this value. Next we do a modulo operation. This will give the remainder of a whole number division. Samples:Value was 0 -> (0 + 1) is 1, dividing 1 by 7 is zero with a remainder of 1. 1 is assigned to menu.

Now we want to display this menu value to the attached display. Add a new line by double clicking and assigning a name like display. Open the settings for this new line. Select the menu variable in the Sim Variable settings. Change to the Display tab and enter data like in the screenshot above. Again the $ sign is a placeholder for the value of the variable menu.

The screenshots are showing samples for Output and Input. In both cases you see, that only some are used to be displayed or used to change values. By using the Precondition we are able to control what happens in which menu. The standard case is that you have quite a lot of red exclamation marks that indicate that the Output/Input is inactive for the moment. When changing the menu with the topmost rotary, the exlamation marks should move.

As a sample I took the setting of the heading bug. Select the normal event on the typical way: Microsoft/Generic/Flight Instrument and select HEADING_BUG_DEC. When done you tick the box in front of the Show Preset Code. You see code like (>K:HEADING_BUG_DEC). By copying and pasting this more than once into the text box, the event will be executed more than once when the encoder is in fast mode. This way the heading bug will change more quickly when used rapidly. The same setting can be made for the other direction.

Using the Show Preset Code can be used to map multiple input on the same rotary. For zooming the GNS530 as well as zooming the MFD map of the G1000 you can add the events (>H:AS530_RNG_Zoom) and (>H:AS1000_MFD_RANGE_DEC,number). When turning the rotary, both events will be sent to the simulator. No matter if your"e sitting in a GNS530 equipped aircraft or inside a glass cockpit with a G1000, the map will zoom for both of them.

First we add a new MobiFlight Variable on the Output tab as shown in the first image. Its named adf1Digit. This provides a new variable which we will control on the Inputs tab.

Now we want to give a hint on the display, which digit we are setting when using the other rotary switch. We introduce one more internal variable I called adf1DigitDisplay. Important is to add a Config Reference to the above mentioined variable adf1Digit. Remeber the sign this variable is assinged to, in the screenshot it is the # sign. We will need this for the next tab.

We change over to the Compare tab of this new variable and use a special feature of MobiFlight. We will enter a condition which is always true. In this case we know, that the variable will always be greater or equal to 0. By doing so, the line set it to will always be executed.

This tests if the referenced variable adf1Digit is 0, and change the value of adf1DigitDisplay to the string ^^--. If the value is not 0, it will test the same variable for "1" and change the output to the string --^-, if not it changes the output to ---^. With that done we have a marker on this screen which will point to the digits that will be changed when using the rotary encododer.

Within the display for this menu we reference the variable adf1DigitDisplay (in the screenshot as @) and put this below the display of the ADF1 frequency. This will result in a display like in the last screenshot.

This panel manages and shows the following parameters:displayNAV1 & NAV2 ActivefrequenciesdisplayNAV1 & NAV2 Standbyfrequenciesedit and switchNAV1 & NAV2 Standby frequenciesdisplay and editradial settingof NAV1 & NAV2 (OBS)display and editADF frequency and its HDGwhen a NAVx starts to receive a valid signal, the program automatically displays itsCDIon 2 LED bars (with priority to NAV1).on a second LCD the program displaysIndicated Air Speed, Altitude (QNH), Height (QFE), HDG and Vertical Speed

In this tutorial we are going to learn how to make Arduino Calculator with TFT Display. Our calculator’s precision is up to two decimal points and you can add, subtract, multiply or divide up to 4 digit per number. Obviously you can add more number of digits if you want.

You have to just add number by touching on screen, maximum digits per number allowable is 4 and then select operator and add again second number, press on equal. Finally, you got the result on screen, Congratulation you have made your own Arduino Calculator with TFT Display.

As expected good quality i bought 80 number and all are working and not to mention all the led received has similar brightness which indicates the quality. Swift delivery Highly recommend this team. Thank you

Nice board awesome price. There was some problem with the delivery at the start but when it arrived it worked like a charm. I would recommend this board if you wanted something that looked like the original Arduino Uno:)