Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Made some more progress recently.

I got around to drilling the holes for the seat support bar so now I can sit in my cockpit!



Tonight I mounted a 15" Dell monitor behind the center console!

Fist I "shelled" the monitor of it's plastic casing.



Then I bent out a few tabs on the metal carriage that were non-structural and drilled holes in them to use as mounting points.



I then traced the monitor on the center console piece and cut out the hole.


I then traced the monitor on a piece of 1/8" plywood and added a 1/2" margin around the edge.  The I placed my MFDs where they should go and traced and cut the inner hole.

I didn't take any pics until the thing had been fully mounted, being so caught up in the process.

Here's the modification of the desk portion that I made to accommodate the bulge of the monitor's back.



And here it is mounted, in all it's glory!



For the time being, I'll be mounting the MFDs using Velcro.  I haven't thought of a better mounting scheme yet that won't scratch or damage the monitor.

I suppose that it would also be possible to cut holes in the top portion of the facade for gauges and whatnot, but I don't yet have the ability to cut holes that large.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Little progress

I finished marking up the designs on one of the sheets of plywood and started on the second tonight.  I was hoping to get more done, but life cropped up on me and I had to put it on hold until tomorrow or the next day.

I did make some progress on my model tonight though.

Simpit Build Gallery

I've got a gallery up on Picassa with a few pics of the builds of all my pits.  Check it out.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Spear of Odin!

So I started my new pit tonight, codename: SPEAR OF ODIN.  The initial build is from the awesome Akers-Barnes Cockpit design, which I've seen some amazing things done with.  It's a great platform for modding and building on, and I plan on putting it on a mobile base and building an enclosure around it with a hinged or sliding canopy.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Progress Report

In the 10 or so months since I started this blog, lots has happened.  Yep, lots of stuff.  Not a whole lot on the cockpit/simpit front, but I lost my job and therefore lost funding for my project.

My old cockpit, Moya, sat there, in the exact state it was in my last post, for months, mostly unused.  I switched to using my 42" TV for daily computer use by shoving a desk up against the TV stand, since my cockpit was not as comfortable for long use as I had hoped.  I did an 18 hour shift in it the night that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm launched, and my butt and back ached for an entire week after.