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.

Lots of progress tonight!

First off, my MFDs came today!

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.

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.

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.

An Overview; or, What is this thing there, and what does it do?

What follows will be an overview of my setup and my cockpit.
My cockpit is about five feet tall and about six feet long.  It's frame is made of PVC pipe, it's desk, floor and roof are made of plywood.  The walls are made from a different sort of plywood called luan.  It's what they use to make the doors for the rooms of your house.  It's painted black with silver accents on the inside, the desk is braced with 2x4s and it's carpeted.  Inside it sits my captain's chair, made out of an old desk chair, some scrap plywood and some more PVC pipes.  It, too, is black.