Boeing 767 Overhead Project

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Thank you Kieran & Joe!

[needles 1,013]

He He!

Glad to have you and Martin back in the driving seat Jack.

I love your project and I'm really pleased to see it moving again.

It's looking the biz' as they say.

I'll be watching.

[brett 2,315]

Wow, an amazing amount of work. It is addicting following along, glad you have picked it back up. 

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Cheers Brian and Brett! How's those signatures coming along .

[needles 1,013]

HI Jack,

Not had chance to start yet.

If you have the originals still, could you send them to me please.

Is it just the text you want altering, or the whole shebang?

No worries whichever it is.

Cheers

B

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Hi Brian,

 

Thanks very much for your excellent work, please see PM .

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

We'll hopefully get some pictures of the overhead running with FSX when we get it installed again. It's currently in the workshop (study) downstairs being worked upon, so no connection to FSX at the moment!

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Tuesday 27th August 2013

 

New Features:

 

Column 4 Hardware Additions:

 

- HF Radio (Real world unit; fully completed and interfaced)

- SELCAL (Selective Calling) Controls

- Passenger signs controls

- Landing Altitude display & controls

- Cabin pressurization controls

 

Upcoming Features:

 

Completion of Column 4, consisting of:

 

- Cabin Pressure Gauges

 

Description

 

Column 4 is really looking quite sweet now! It's about 80% complete, with the only major installation left being the cabin pressure gauges (which are already built, just not yet installed into the panel). The real-world HF radio is looking fantastic and will sit two columns across from it's brother unit on column 2. The climb/descent gauge visible in the cabin pressurization section of the panel was impossible to source from anywhere, and so we had to make it ourselves and fit a servo motor behind (which nicely accompanies my upcoming review of the Opencockpits 737 (767 after we were finished with it) overhead gauge set). Unfortunately no operational pictures yet since it's still in the workshop downstairs and has not been connected to the PC yet (although all the wiring and interfacing is complete).

 

 

 

 

SELCAL panel illuminated, I posted this last time but will post again to get the message across:

 

SELCAL panel now fitted:

 

Rear of the panel; climb/descent gauge servo, LDG ALT controls & display (7-segment), rotary switches and potentiometers for pressurization controls:

 

NOTE: That "burnt wood look" is actually black paint... It has become a mysterious tradition of ours to start spraying paint in random sections of the panel where nobody would ever look... Don't ask.

 

I love this HF Radio:

 

D-Socket connection system we use; keeps everything "neat" and tidy:

 

Rear of the HF Radio after modification for simulator use, still with original service stickers from when it was removed:

 

That's all folks! Until next time...

 

Jack

[needles 1,013]

Great stuff Jack n Martin.

There must be enough wiring in this project to go around the earth a few times.

Looking forward to what the next few months bring.

Cheers

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Saturday 31st August

 

New Features:

 

Column 4 COMPELTE!

 

- Cabin pressurization gauges added

 

Upcoming Features:

 

Development of Column 5, consisting of:

 

- Cargo Air Conditioning Controls

- Cabin Air Conditioning Controls

- Engine + APU Bleed Air Controls

 

Description

 

Column 4 has finally been completed and will be installed into the overhead panel in due course. The only ("only") things left to do now are develop column 5 and the sixth segment which fits underneath the whole panel, housing things like the landing light switches, etc.

 

The final bit of work we had to do on column 4 was install the cabin pressurization gauges, kindly supplied by Opencockpits as a part of an upcoming review I'm writing for them. Any sharp observer will notice a slight difference between our gauges and those fitted to most 767. Due to a lack of available 767 cabin pressurization gauges (none have ever turned up on Ebay), and since they would take too long to design and manufacture ourselves, we have used the 737 cabin pressurzation gauges and modified them to fit in a 767 overhead panel. You'll notice that they still serve the exact same function as the 767 gauges, they just look slightly different.

 

EDIT: On another note, it appears that some 767 overheads have been fitted with the 737 style gauges anyway. Like I say, they're exactly the same thing.

 

The cabin pressurization gauges consist of a differential pressure gauge, cabin altitude gauge and cabin rate of climb gauge. The differential pressure gauge and altitude gauge are both bound to the same needle axis and serve as two seperate needles rotating around two different scales, but over the same gauge (see below). The cabin rate of climb gauge has a gauge to itself.

 

Cabin Pressurization Gauges. As can be observed, the altitude/differential pressure needles share the same gauge:

 

Column 4 in its entirety:

 

 

 

The black paint visible around the edges of the korry switch here is applied to prevent light bleeding through and out of the korry switch. The paint itself is never usually visible unless subjected to strong light (ie a camera flash):

 

 

 

Wiring for servo motors and backlighting for the cabin pressurization gauges:

 

 

7-segment display unit for LDG ALT display:

 

Servo Motor for Open/Close VALVE gauge:

 

 

Column 4 wiring in its entirety:

 

 

Bring it on, column 5!!!

 

Jack

 

[needles 1,013]

Well done Jack and Martin.

Great progress.

[diverone 1]

great set up.   how long have you been working on this??? and how much $$$$$$$

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Hey Diverone,

 

We started building the overhead in April 2010 and have slowly been adding to it column-by-column every since. We're nearing completion now (I estimate around a year left).

 

Regarding cost... It's difficult to say since the vast majority of the overhead's components are home-built. The only pre-bought components are the interfacing cards (from Opencockpits), which we connect our switches/annunciators/gauges/displays to and then write the software coding to drive them.

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Hopefully there will be some updates in the foreseeable future.

 

We have had some significant problems with the cockpit regarding "flickering" inputs; there seems to be some sort of electrical interference causing SIOC to detect "ghost" inputs which have not actually been commanded. Until we can get this fixed there can be no further progress. Rest assured, we have been working on this problem since April!

 

I am also in the progress of transferring all of my images over to Flickr instead of Photobucket, and so images will be unavailable for a short time.

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Hmmm... Seems the images have come back to life without me having done anything!

[mutley 4,498]

Hey Jack, I had missed this post, congratulations on this milestone, I hope we get to see the complete panel one day.

[Aircraft Aviation 2]

Hi Joe,

 

We certainly will see it completed one day. We have actually done a huge amount of work on it, but with quite literally nothing to show! All of our work over the past few months has consisted of re-wiring everything to sort this flickering input problem out. As such, there has been no new progress on the panel itself.