#homecockpit — Public Fediverse posts

the sim is coming along, next on the agenda is 3d printing the knee panel that controls brightness

i kinda wanna hook that into the actual room lighting too

#flightsim #homecockpit

3D printed a quick and dirty AFDS panel, as its really the last set of buttons i need in the sim never to have to use the mouse.

don’t have the patience or equipment to backlight the text properly on this one so i just used colored filament

the three buttons are functional

#homecockpit #flightsim

these are ready to go in now.

caution and fire recall buttons, they light up when the caution/fire condition is present and can be pushed to be reset

#homecockpit #avgeek #flightsim

getting in an early sunday flight from SJC to SEA, 3D printed and hastily assembled transponder doing well

#avgeek #flightsim #homecockpit

I repaired my old Thrustmaster rudder pedals. That’s the one I upgraded using an Arduino Pro Micro before (PeerTube, YouTube) to get rid of their old D-Sub connector so this device is really old and probably belongs into a museum. I doubt I’d get any replacement parts for this from the vendor nowadays.

Their sliding beds are made of some sort of plastic and this started to become brittle over the years. When I noticed that one side was coming apart I found several more hair fractures so I had to stop playing with the pedals for a while.

Yesterday I went with one of the sliding beds to the Swablab, our local maker space, and considered cutting and milling new parts of wood, when a fellow maker suggested to use some leftover HPL pieces for the job.

This was far less complicated compared to what I had in mind and I went for it. After a few minutes in the workshop I ended up with two new sliding beds that I mounted today. Worked like a charm.

I went with Liquid Moly LM47 for some lube, simply because I have a tube of that around from working on the car. That’s grease for stuff like bearings and probably overkill for the job.

Couldn’t be happier. The pedals are back into service and feel even better than before (probably thanks to the new grease) and I avoided once more going for expensive modern replacements. I’m also probably the only one with rudder pedals with wood aesthetic now 🤓

I repaired my old Thrustmaster rudder pedals. That’s the one I upgraded using an Arduino Pro Micro before (PeerTube, YouTube) to get rid of their old D-Sub connector so this device is really old and probably belongs into a museum. I doubt I’d get any replacement parts for this from the vendor nowadays.

Their sliding beds are made of some sort of plastic and this started to become brittle over the years. When I noticed that one side was coming apart I found several more hair fractures so I had to stop playing with the pedals for a while.

Yesterday I went with one of the sliding beds to the Swablab, our local maker space, and considered cutting and milling new parts of wood, when a fellow maker suggested to use some leftover HPL pieces for the job.

This was far less complicated compared to what I had in mind and I went for it. After a few minutes in the workshop I ended up with two new sliding beds that I mounted today. Worked like a charm.

I went with Liquid Moly LM47 for some lube, simply because I have a tube of that around from working on the car. That’s grease for stuff like bearings and probably overkill for the job.

Couldn’t be happier. The pedals are back into service and feel even better than before (probably thanks to the new grease) and I avoided once more going for expensive modern replacements. I’m also probably the only one with rudder pedals with wood aesthetic now 🤓

I repaired my old Thrustmaster rudder pedals. That’s the one I upgraded using an Arduino Pro Micro before (PeerTube, YouTube) to get rid of their old D-Sub connector so this device is really old and probably belongs into a museum. I doubt I’d get any replacement parts for this from the vendor nowadays.

Their sliding beds are made of some sort of plastic and this started to become brittle over the years. When I noticed that one side was coming apart I found several more hair fractures so I had to stop playing with the pedals for a while.

Yesterday I went with one of the sliding beds to the Swablab, our local maker space, and considered cutting and milling new parts of wood, when a fellow maker suggested to use some leftover HPL pieces for the job.

This was far less complicated compared to what I had in mind and I went for it. After a few minutes in the workshop I ended up with two new sliding beds that I mounted today. Worked like a charm.

I went with Liquid Moly LM47 for some lube, simply because I have a tube of that around from working on the car. That’s grease for stuff like bearings and probably overkill for the job.

Couldn’t be happier. The pedals are back into service and feel even better than before (probably thanks to the new grease) and I avoided once more going for expensive modern replacements. I’m also probably the only one with rudder pedals with wood aesthetic now 🤓

I repaired my old Thrustmaster rudder pedals. That’s the one I upgraded using an Arduino Pro Micro before (PeerTube, YouTube) to get rid of their old D-Sub connector so this device is really old and probably belongs into a museum. I doubt I’d get any replacement parts for this from the vendor nowadays.

Their sliding beds are made of some sort of plastic and this started to become brittle over the years. When I noticed that one side was coming apart I found several more hair fractures so I had to stop playing with the pedals for a while.

Yesterday I went with one of the sliding beds to the Swablab, our local maker space, and considered cutting and milling new parts of wood, when a fellow maker suggested to use some leftover HPL pieces for the job.

This was far less complicated compared to what I had in mind and I went for it. After a few minutes in the workshop I ended up with two new sliding beds that I mounted today. Worked like a charm.

I went with Liquid Moly LM47 for some lube, simply because I have a tube of that around from working on the car. That’s grease for stuff like bearings and probably overkill for the job.

Couldn’t be happier. The pedals are back into service and feel even better than before (probably thanks to the new grease) and I avoided once more going for expensive modern replacements. I’m also probably the only one with rudder pedals with wood aesthetic now 🤓

I repaired my old Thrustmaster rudder pedals. That’s the one I upgraded using an Arduino Pro Micro before (PeerTube, YouTube) to get rid of their old D-Sub connector so this device is really old and probably belongs into a museum. I doubt I’d get any replacement parts for this from the vendor nowadays.

Their sliding beds are made of some sort of plastic and this started to become brittle over the years. When I noticed that one side was coming apart I found several more hair fractures so I had to stop playing with the pedals for a while.

Yesterday I went with one of the sliding beds to the Swablab, our local maker space, and considered cutting and milling new parts of wood, when a fellow maker suggested to use some leftover HPL pieces for the job.

This was far less complicated compared to what I had in mind and I went for it. After a few minutes in the workshop I ended up with two new sliding beds that I mounted today. Worked like a charm.

I went with Liquid Moly LM47 for some lube, simply because I have a tube of that around from working on the car. That’s grease for stuff like bearings and probably overkill for the job.

Couldn’t be happier. The pedals are back into service and feel even better than before (probably thanks to the new grease) and I avoided once more going for expensive modern replacements. I’m also probably the only one with rudder pedals with wood aesthetic now 🤓

I'll miss my #HOTAS / #HOSAS / #SIMPIT / #DIY #Discord channels starting next month.

Anyone knows some alternative Spaces on #Matrix by chance?

I'm aware of https://matrix.to/#/#hotasdiy:matrix.org channel.

Edit: Getting somewhere: https://matrix.to/#/#aerospace-space:hacklab.fi

Moving my 🤓 Discord space here https://matrix.to/#/#bekomotion:matrix.org shutting down there.

Acronyms:
HOTAS = Hands on Throttle and Stick
HOSAS = Hands on Stick and Stick
SIMPIT = Simulation/Simulated Cockpit

#HomeCockpit #FlightSim #Joystick #Gamepad #Controller

♻️ 🙏

👀 https://github.com/AlmightyWatashi/Pioneer-Cool-Events-Log

What's that? The fist steps for some #homeCockpit features for #PioneerSpaceSim?

#space

Switching to a touch panel display in my VF-1 inspired home cockpit panel

Finally replaced the old display with a new touch display in my VF-1 inspired home cockpit panel.

The old display was salvaged from a laptop years ago and while it was working fine it also has a very bad viewing angle. I also got really tired of it’s glaring reflections so I experimented with an anti glare foil. This reduced the reflections a lot (worth every cent) but couldn’t help with the bad viewing angle, of course. I now had an idea how this could look though so I decided to buy into a replacement kit.

The new display is the N173HCE-E31, a 17.3" with a resolution of 1920x1080. The touch controller registeres as a USB HID pointer/mouse by ILITEK and is basically sitting on top of the display. The kit included a PCB, that was advertised as VS-RTD2556HC-V2 controller by VSDISPLAY but came without any data sheet and I have no idea who really made this.

Thing is this PCB runs very hot and the noted input voltage isn’t explicitly stated. An attached image suggested to use an USB PD power supply without 20V so I was looking for it’s datasheet to check if I was just holding it wrong. Picture me surprised but VSDISPLAY does not list this particular configuration in it’s datasheets. I contacted them via mail and they confirmed that this is not theirs. Theirs is apparently also strictly 5V/12V so that matches the picture I get.

Mine is equipped with the IC RTD2556VD that does not match the list of supported ICs. Theirs has 2556TE_R20.1 printed on the PCB. Mine has 2555TF_R30.1 printed on. It’s like 99% similar but differently routed. It also mentions E470791 JPX-D which seems to point to the PCB manufacturer Dongguan Jingweixin Circuit Co Ltd but that is where my GoogleFu left me. I did also find the very same pictures on other offers, each stating a completely different controller model 🤷

Anyway. I tried different configurations and while it works with 5V at ~2A I feel way more comfortable with 12V at ~0.8A on full brightness + blue color. I also attached a passive cooling block I had laying around and slapped a fan on top. Now it’s only “comfortable” warm to the touch after running for an hour.

Sadly I do not have any device with DP ALT providing more than 5V and the PCB will always switch down to 5V the moment the USB-C dedicated for the display signal is used as well, even when a proper USB PD power supply is attached on it’s dedicated power connector. I could only keep it at 12V with my VITURE USB-C XR charging adapter, which can indeed provide 12V and more via USB-C while still allowing DP-ALT + USB2. There went my plans to only have a single cable for all, DP, PD and the USB2 lanes for the ILITEK pointer, because I really do not want to block this adapter all the time.

So now I have a dedicaded USB PD power supply at 12V connected, a HDMI connection for the display and an additional USB2 for the touchpanel pointer – and on top of that the little fan, that I simply connected to the micro USB2 socket on the PCB to provide it with 5V.

This also means that my Linux PC can not know that both, touch panel pointer and display, belong together. As a result all touch panel inputs were all over the place and not limited to a single display. Apparently KDE has an option in it’s graphical settings where this can be easily configured. Gnome does not [yet?] have such an option in it’s graphical settings. There is however a way to enforce the mapping of the touch panel in Gnome too! And while the real manufacturer for the controller of the new display is still a mystery to me I found the following snippet in my monitor configuration $HOME/.config/monitors.xml after plugging the controller in:

<monitorspec>    <connector>HDMI-2</connector>    <vendor>RTK</vendor>    <product>0x2555</product>    <serial>0x20230705</serial></monitorspec>

The touch panel is, according to lsusb, connected as ID 222a:0001 ILI Technology Corp. Multi-Touch Screen. Armed with that knowledge I can limit it’s input with gsettings to this specific display:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchscreen:/org/gnome/desktop/peripherals/touchscreens/222a:0001/ output "['RTK', '0x2555', '0x20230705']"

Works like a charm but what a mess. I still wish I had a data sheet for this so if you know more kindly drop me a comment!

The last thing to fix was the already mentioned reflective glare. For this I went with a screen protector by BROTECT (that name still makes me laugh), that promises beside anti scratch also an anti glare effect without limiting the view angles (some foils do this to enhance privacy).

Attaching the foil was straight forward. The trick is to make sure that not a single dust particle is around during the process. To help with this I used an air humidifier to raise the humidity in the room before I even started. After that I removed the protective cover from the display and started slapping on the foil with the provided mounting card (yay, cardboard again). This was the very moment one of my curious cats decided to investigate my actions and jumped onto the table almost giving me a heart attack. The last thing I needed was cat hair all over the place and indeed after a lot of hissing I had to make good use of the also provided adhesive sticker to catch all dust particles in the last corner. Cats!

The end result is like night and day. I do no longer see any light sources or myself clearly reflected on the display. The touch panel is still accepting inputs just fine and the colours look very bright from any angle, especially with HDR enabled. This will also ease it’s cleaning because the cockpit panel is collecting dust like crazy due to the gradient of the panel. I usually use a vacuum cleaner for this and the foil will help a lot to avoid scratches.

Replacing the old display was also a task on it’s own. The old screws didn’t fit, of course, so I kinda had to build little adapters from leftover angle and wood pieces. Very ugly but good enough – this is just a toy after all 🤓

Ah yes and now that I have a touch panel I also have to rewrite my HUD app, of course 🙃

This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

https://beko.famkos.net/2026/01/14/switching-to-a-touch-panel-display-in-my-vf-1-inspired-home-cockpit-panel/

#flightsim #gamingonlinux #gnome #homeCockpit #linux #linuxgaming #simpit

Chirp chirp chirp little chicken – interfacing Ace Combat 7 for some sweet telemetry for my VF-1 inspired home cockpit

So what happens when sheer stubbornness, a glorified button box, Ace Combat and the Unreal Engine Scripting System meet? Pure magic. I got the game to spew out a constant stream of telemetry data and events in search for more immersion in my VF-1 inspired home cockpit. The approach is the very same that I used for X4 Foundations before: Side load lib Luasocket, get a network connection established and start dumping extracted game data to it. This is highly experimental and the result of hacking away for the last ~4 nights. This video demonstrates the results:

https://makertube.net/w/cbXJAveVgVTGVEi58akVTA / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50J-gjkgJxE

To be perfectly clear: I am aware that Ace Combat is not a “flight sim”, not really worth of an API, and I know that DCS or BMS does it better and in greater detail and even with realism. This is not the point. I started working on this just for fun and to satisfy my own curiosity to see *if I can make it*. This may be hard to believe but chipping rocks together until the computer does what I want is “quality time” for me 🤓

You may have noticed that I’m a Macross fan and that my SimPit is heavily inspired by a VF-1 Valkyrie and that I usually use a modded VF-1 plane in AC as well. This is my personal substitute for the lack of any decent Macross / Robotech game since Macross VOXP.

This said I usually fly Space Pew Pew games with this cockpit so everything you see going on is designed for _space_ and not for flight sim. This is also why I sometimes talk about “ships” or “docked”. This is wording found everywhere in my plumbing pipeline for telemetry. All games I play, that can use this, send their data over this. The idea is that I do not have to rewrite half of the connected systems for every game so I transform the data into a unified format before.

You can read more about this on the dedicated project website https://simpit.dev (and here, of course). I will soon update it with some more details for Ace Combat. If this looks like something you’d like to try let me know, I’d love to connect. I’m active on various social media. Please do let me know if you find this inspiring.

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/12/31/chirp-chirp-chirp-little-chicken-interfacing-ace-combat-7-for-some-sweet-telemetry-for-my-vf-1-inspired-home-cockpit/

#AceCombat #AceCombat7 #arwes #flightsim #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #linuxgaming #macross #Robotech #simpit #SpacePewPew #UE4SS #VF1

Yeah, it started talking to my cockpit panel 🤓

Still a little rough on the edges but it's getting there.

Getting target data, a shiton of plane telemetry aaaaand the radio chatter 🤓

And most important: Angry blinken lights are now blinking angrily.

Missile! Missile!

#AceCombat7 #HomeCockpit #ViperPit #SimPit

Wohoo. I'm getting cockpit telemetry of #AceCombat7 in LUA.

Starting poking around #UE4SS mod for #AceCombat and slammed rocks together for 2 hours and it started chirping altitude, speed and health 🤓

Just a proof of concept so far but this looks promising.

#HomeCockpit #ViperPit #SimPit

Playing some Ace Combat 7 - probably

Playing some Ace Combat 7 - probably

#LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #SimPit #Linux #EliteDangerous #EliteDangerousOdyssey #StarCitizen #PewPew #ViperPit #X4Foundations #Macross #VF1 #tech #videogames #XWing #TieFighter #Arduino #Mega #HomeCockpit

https://live.famkos.net

Playing some Ace Combat 7 - probably

Playing some Ace Combat 7 - probably

#LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #SimPit #Linux #EliteDangerous #EliteDangerousOdyssey #StarCitizen #PewPew #ViperPit #X4Foundations #Macross #VF1 #tech #videogames #XWing #TieFighter #Arduino #Mega #HomeCockpit

https://live.famkos.net

Short morning stream

Just testing codecs - not really streaming

#LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #SimPit #Linux #EliteDangerous #EliteDangerousOdyssey #StarCitizen #PewPew #ViperPit #X4Foundations #Macross #VF1 #tech #videogames #XWing #TieFighter #Arduino #Mega #HomeCockpit

https://live.famkos.net

Short morning stream

Just testing codecs - not really streaming

#LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #SimPit #Linux #EliteDangerous #EliteDangerousOdyssey #StarCitizen #PewPew #ViperPit #X4Foundations #Macross #VF1 #tech #videogames #XWing #TieFighter #Arduino #Mega #HomeCockpit

https://live.famkos.net

New monitor replacing my triple head setup. Banana for scale. The immersion is insane.

Brief demo in action: https://makertube.net/w/fb6fsA5PtJiFbBTxbMk67X

#Gaming #LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #EliteDangerous #SimPit #HomeCockpit

🤓 🚨

Finally updated #x4simpit with changes that were rotting on my disk for months now. The following new events for my #x4foundations ship telemetry mod are available:

* Docked
* Undocked
* UnderAttack
* ReceiveText
* Heatwarning

Plus a bunch of fixes: https://github.com/bekopharm/x4-simpit

#homeCockpit #SimPit #SpacePewPew

Mission 01: Black Flag – Trying Project Wingman with my ViperPit

This is Project Wingman mission 01 Black Flag played on a Linux PC with Proton Experimental, OpenTrack with the Neuralnet Tracker plugin and my DIY HOTAS / rudder system based on Arduino Pro Micros replacing the original electronics in my Thrustmaster FLCS/Cougar gear:

Pick your poison: https://makertube.net/w/8MyoVSzDfwMuQR6bCqtbie / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq0sihlgW_Y

I got Project Wingman on a sale months ago and I finally gave it a try. As an Ace Combat player I felt right at home. My initial experiment was with the XR glasses and woah that feels good in 3D and all but today I remembered that old Plasma TV in the basement. Got it second hand a year ago for dead cheap. Today I brought it upstairs to try it with the ViperPit and now I’m not sure what’s more awesome.

Well, that is if I feel like burning ~470W on top for that thing but hey this is for very specific gaming sessions only anyway 🤷

Guess I’ll spend more time in the ViperPit again 😀

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/08/30/mission-01-black-flag-trying-project-wingman-with-my-viperpit/

#gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #hotas #linuxgaming #opentrack #ProjectWingman #ViperPit

I was very busy yesterday night to get that #Macross #VF1 vibe going for my cockpit HUD 🤓

Even draw a (debug) border where the physical limits of my octagon display frame is in real-life 😁

Still slowly rewriting the code for the UI elements, finding bugs, optimizing, tweaking, getting there 👌

#EliteDangerous #SimPit #HomeCockpit

Short morning stream

[ENG/GER] SimPit Day for Space - Pew Pew - Trying XWVM Alpha to experience X-Wing again

#LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #SimPit #Linux #EliteDangerous #EliteDangerousOdyssey #StarCitizen #PewPew #ViperPit #X4Foundations #Macross #VF1 #tech #videogames #XWing #TieFighter #Arduino #Mega #HomeCockpit

https://live.famkos.net

VFD segment displays in HTML/CSS for my SimPit

So I dunno if you know what a #VFD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display) is but I’m a sucker for these – at least virtually.

Games like #RebelGalaxyOutlaw perfected the look and this is where I want to go with my #Arwes HUD app for my #EliteDangerous / #X4Foundations home cockpit too.

The segment displays are heavily inspired by #AugmentedUI project (https://augmented-ui.com/) where I’ll borrow some more elements. Learned the neat fake scan lines from there too. And yes the 8 segment display works by shifting bits under the hood 🤓 This isn’t really needed for an app but I have plans to add some real segment displays eventually (I do have a whole box full with these!) so I wanted to know how to implement this anyway.

Video from an earlier stage in the development demos the scan line effect.

The bars are configured with parameters in size, count, percent, colours and thresholds 😁 I also added a random chance of 5% to shift the hue a little bit because just as in real life nothing is perfect.

And yes they are fully themed so switching the colour theme also affects the virtual VFDs.

I’m also going to replace the older horizontal bars, that look way too boring in comparison.

It’s still very early but I hope to get some rad animations going too. See https://www.hudsandguis.com/home/2022/retro-digital-dashboards to get an idea in which direction this is going 🤓

See the dedicated project page https://SimPit.dev for more details on this #Macross #VF1 inspired #cockpit panel.

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/05/04/vfd-segment-displays-in-html-css-for-my-simpit/

#arwes #augmentedUi #cockpit #EliteDangerous #homeCockpit #macross #RebelGalaxyOutlaw #simpit #VF1 #VFD #x4foundations

VFD segment displays in HTML/CSS for my SimPit

So I dunno if you know what a #VFD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display) is but I’m a sucker for these – at least virtually.

Games like #RebelGalaxyOutlaw perfected the look and this is where I want to go with my #Arwes HUD app for my #EliteDangerous / #X4Foundations home cockpit too.

The segment displays are heavily inspired by #AugmentedUI project (https://augmented-ui.com/) where I’ll borrow some more elements. Learned the neat fake scan lines from there too. And yes the 8 segment display works by shifting bits under the hood 🤓 This isn’t really needed for an app but I have plans to add some real segment displays eventually (I do have a whole box full with these!) so I wanted to know how to implement this anyway.

Video from an earlier stage in the development demos the scan line effect.

The bars are configured with parameters in size, count, percent, colours and thresholds 😁 I also added a random chance of 5% to shift the hue a little bit because just as in real life nothing is perfect.

And yes they are fully themed so switching the colour theme also affects the virtual VFDs.

I’m also going to replace the older horizontal bars, that look way too boring in comparison.

It’s still very early but I hope to get some rad animations going too. See https://www.hudsandguis.com/home/2022/retro-digital-dashboards to get an idea in which direction this is going 🤓

See the dedicated project page https://SimPit.dev for more details on this #Macross #VF1 inspired #cockpit panel.

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/05/04/vfd-segment-displays-in-html-css-for-my-simpit/

#arwes #augmentedUi #cockpit #EliteDangerous #homeCockpit #macross #RebelGalaxyOutlaw #simpit #VF1 #VFD #x4foundations

VFD segment displays in HTML/CSS for my SimPit

So I dunno if you know what a #VFD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display) is but I’m a sucker for these – at least virtually.

Games like #RebelGalaxyOutlaw perfected the look and this is where I want to go with my #Arwes HUD app for my #EliteDangerous / #X4Foundations home cockpit too.

The segment displays are heavily inspired by #AugmentedUI project (https://augmented-ui.com/) where I’ll borrow some more elements. Learned the neat fake scan lines from there too. And yes the 8 segment display works by shifting bits under the hood 🤓 This isn’t really needed for an app but I have plans to add some real segment displays eventually (I do have a whole box full with these!) so I wanted to know how to implement this anyway.

Video from an earlier stage in the development demos the scan line effect.

The bars are configured with parameters in size, count, percent, colours and thresholds 😁 I also added a random chance of 5% to shift the hue a little bit because just as in real life nothing is perfect.

And yes they are fully themed so switching the colour theme also affects the virtual VFDs.

I’m also going to replace the older horizontal bars, that look way too boring in comparison.

It’s still very early but I hope to get some rad animations going too. See https://www.hudsandguis.com/home/2022/retro-digital-dashboards to get an idea in which direction this is going 🤓

See the dedicated project page https://SimPit.dev for more details on this #Macross #VF1 inspired #cockpit panel.

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/05/04/vfd-segment-displays-in-html-css-for-my-simpit/

#arwes #augmentedUi #cockpit #EliteDangerous #homeCockpit #macross #RebelGalaxyOutlaw #simpit #VF1 #VFD #x4foundations

VFD segment displays in HTML/CSS for my SimPit

So I dunno if you know what a #VFD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display) is but I’m a sucker for these – at least virtually.

Games like #RebelGalaxyOutlaw perfected the look and this is where I want to go with my #Arwes HUD app for my #EliteDangerous / #X4Foundations home cockpit too.

The segment displays are heavily inspired by #AugmentedUI project (https://augmented-ui.com/) where I’ll borrow some more elements. Learned the neat fake scan lines from there too. And yes the 8 segment display works by shifting bits under the hood 🤓 This isn’t really needed for an app but I have plans to add some real segment displays eventually (I do have a whole box full with these!) so I wanted to know how to implement this anyway.

Video from an earlier stage in the development demos the scan line effect.

The bars are configured with parameters in size, count, percent, colours and thresholds 😁 I also added a random chance of 5% to shift the hue a little bit because just as in real life nothing is perfect.

And yes they are fully themed so switching the colour theme also affects the virtual VFDs.

I’m also going to replace the older horizontal bars, that look way too boring in comparison.

It’s still very early but I hope to get some rad animations going too. See https://www.hudsandguis.com/home/2022/retro-digital-dashboards to get an idea in which direction this is going 🤓

See the dedicated project page https://SimPit.dev for more details on this #Macross #VF1 inspired #cockpit panel.

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/05/04/vfd-segment-displays-in-html-css-for-my-simpit/

#arwes #augmentedUi #cockpit #EliteDangerous #homeCockpit #macross #RebelGalaxyOutlaw #simpit #VF1 #VFD #x4foundations

Quick demo time: I got a touch display 17.3″ that will re…

Quick demo time: I got a touch display 17.3″ that will replace my rather old one in my VF-1 inspired cockpit panel.

Pick your poison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX4LsyqYPCA / https://makertube.net/w/nCopvNbkvkwR9XcG5QPQ3i

Mostly because of the bad viewing angle. I’m not a huge fan of touch but sometimes it is really useful and if I already spend money why not go the extra mile 🤓

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/05/01/15629759/

#Arduino #arwes #homeCockpit #HUD #macross #ReactJS #simpit #Valkyrie #VF1 #VF1 #ViperPit

Short morning stream

[ENG/GER] SimPit Day for Space Pew Pew - SimulIDE all the Mega

#LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #SimPit #Linux #EliteDangerous #EliteDangerousOdyssey #StarCitizen #PewPew #ViperPit #X4Foundations #Macross #VF1 #tech #videogames #XWing #TieFighter #Arduino #Mega #HomeCockpit

https://live.famkos.net

Short morning stream

[ENG/GER] SimPit Day for Space Pew Pew - SimulIDE all the Mega

#LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #SimPit #Linux #EliteDangerous #EliteDangerousOdyssey #StarCitizen #PewPew #ViperPit #X4Foundations #Macross #VF1 #tech #videogames #XWing #TieFighter #Arduino #Mega #HomeCockpit

https://live.famkos.net

Updated https://simpit.dev/ - home of the #Space #PewPew #SimPit inspired by a #VF1 Valkyrie cockpit (#Macross)

That's a glorified #DIY joystick controller with an LCD ('MFD') and plenty of #RGB for my #Linux PC

Newest additions are my #XR sheniagans (and some notes on #Breezy and the usage of #IMU data as #headtracker), the games #AceCombat and #XWVM (#XWing / #TIEFighter) and a bunch of videos were updated.

Best viewed WITH an ad-blocker and patience (slow af).

#Gaming #HomeCockpit

Livestream recording: Space – Pew Pew – Playing X-Wing with XWVM Alpha again in my Macross SimPit

Played #XWVM (closed) Alpha with my #Macross inspired #SimPit. I’m simply in awe that I can replay missions from #XWing (or #TIEFighter) with more modern graphics and modern interface devices again. I spent _so many_ hours playing these #StarWars games as a kid.

This is the heavily cut VOD of the live stream over at @[email protected] (pick your poison):

https://makertube.net/w/r1LRrqDWnhw4wRk92uNfzo /
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T2jxqT_5sU

This time I play with the native Linux version and my X52 Pro joystick (which means I actually have a chance of hitting stuff too). The following missions were played:

Historical Mission 2 / Wingmen Are Important
Historical Mission 3 / Sattelites Near Coruscant
Historical Mission 4 / Beating The Odds
OP 1: Destroy Imperial Convoy (Uncut)
OP 2: Reconnaissance Mission (Uncut)
OP 3: Fly Point During Evacuation (Uncut)
OP 4: Protect Medical Frigate (Uncut)

XWVM is not an official product from Lucasfilm Ltd. or Disney. It is not endorsed or authorized by either. It is a fan recreation of the game engine used to play X-Wing and TIE Fighter for the sake of accessibility and requires the original game assets to work.

Kudos to the XWVM team, they are doing a stellar job here.

The dedicated project website for the Macross inspired SimPit is https://simpit.dev

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/04/07/livestream-recording-space-pew-pew-playing-x-wing-with-xwvm-alpha-again-in-my-macross-simpit/

#gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #macross #Robotech #simpit #Space #SpaceSim #StarWars #TIEFighter #VF1 #VF1 #XWing #XWVM

How we enjoyed X-Wing today.

(XWVM is not an official product from Lucasfilm Ltd. or Disney. It is not endorsed or authorized by either. It is a fan recreation of the game engine used to play X-Wing and TIE Fighter for the sake of accessibility.)

#XWing #SimPit #HomeCockpit #Macross #VF1 #Space #PewPew #TIEFighter #StarWars #XWVM #LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #Gaming #Alpha

Parsing the Elite Dangerous Journal

I gave in and changed my event forwarding method in node-red for the Elite Dangerous Journal. This file is updated on various in-game events but in a way that makes it difficult to get new events only since last update. Another problem is that it’s not really a valid JSON file because it has one JSON per line but it’s not a valid JSON array. This is why it has to be parsed line by line and mashed together by event type (name) again to get the latest data for each event type per dump. Each event has it’s own timestamp by set by the game. The latest timestamp is now saved on the special flow const so node-red keeps the value in the “global” memory of the current flow:

msg.payload.event = "Journal";let newJournalTimestamp = flow.lastJournalTimestamp;Object.keys(msg.payload).forEach((key) => {  if (msg.payload[key].timestamp) {    const keyTimestamp = new Date(msg.payload[key].timestamp).getTime();    if (!flow.lastJournalTimestamp || flow.lastJournalTimestamp < keyTimestamp) {      // this entry is new - keep it. MULTIPLE events may have the      //  same timestamp so wait with reassigning so we don't skip      //  em or get the latest a 2nd time if nothing else changes.      // update the next latest timestamp if this is newer      if(!newJournalTimestamp || newJournalTimestamp < keyTimestamp) {        newJournalTimestamp = keyTimestamp;      }    } else {      // lastJournalTimestamp is newer, skip this      msg.payload[key] = null;    }  }});// make sure this is a valid date for the next timeflow.lastJournalTimestamp = newJournalTimestamp || new Date().getTime();// remove all nulled events from the payloadmsg.payload = Object.fromEntries(  Object.entries(msg.payload).filter(([_, p]) => p !== null));msg.payload.timestamp = new Date(flow.lastJournalTimestamp);return { payload: msg.payload };

So I do now keep track of the last read timestamp and reject every event that is older than the last read keeping the Journal dump smaller. This way I don’t have to try to keep track of the “latest” event to drag data from. Refuelling e.g. can happen from whopping 4 (or more) different events and it’s painful to compare all and check which one is the latest to keep track of the real current fuel levels for each tank.

Downside is I won’t get a full set of data for the current session any more if I have to reload my HUD app. This could be mitigated by using MQTT though where I could simply persist each event topic. That is already implemented and I can choose between SocketIO or MQTT in my app anyway.

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/03/29/parsing-the-elite-dangerous-journal/

#EliteDangerous #EliteDangerousOdyssey #homeCockpit #MQTT #NodeRed #simpit #SocketIO

Showing off new features for my home cockpit: Priority alerts, sounds and more status indicators

This uses my X4-SimPit extension for X4: Foundations, that sends ship telemetry via a socket to my node-red plumbing pipeline, which in turn forwards data to Websockets, SocketIO and MQTT. Various subscriber listen on the new messages to run blinken lights and my HUD app. I’m using the well known message format also used by Elite Dangerous so it’s compatible with that game as well.

Pick your poison: https://makertube.net/w/nUoG2ZPeAW1QhT3A2BXRrM / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp1PkVhH9cc

Oh yeah… and on Linux PC 🤓

Let me know what you think!

X4-SimPit code (pending changes) is here: https://github.com/bekopharm/x4-simpit
The cockpit panel has a dedicated project page here: https://simpit.dev/

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/03/12/showing-off-new-features-for-my-home-cockpit-priority-alerts-sounds-and-more-status-indicators/

#arwes #BattleStarGalactica #BSG #DIY #EliteDangerous #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #linux #linuxgaming #macross #PewPew #Robotech #simpit #Space #VF1 #VF1 #Viper #x4foundations

Ace Combat 7 with FULL SBS on PC? And head tracking? Hell yes :D

So bear with me if I mix something up, this is all news to me and I’m still flabbergasted. I got myself some XR glasses mostly for watching movies and perhaps some gaming on the Steam Deck a while ago.

Now I learned about “SBS” (Side-By-Side) mode like ~3 days ago, that the glasses support. I tried this with the game Elite Dangerous first, since this has an SBS mode built in too, and was mind blown. My current favourite time stink is Ace Combat though so I started digging.

Turns out there is this Reshade tool that would forcefully enable such a mode for basically any game with the right shader. Several exist but the first I found, “SuperDepth3D.fx”, seems to do the trick. Enabling it split the 1920×1024 in half with two slightly different view ports, one for each eye. There are many options to fine tune this and I’m still fiddling with this to find the perfect settings but results look great already.

My glasses do Full SBS though and have a resolution of 3840×1024. I read somewhere that wide-screen is possible with more DLL shenanigans with Ace Combat 7 too but I run the game on a Linux PC anyway, where we utilise a tool named “gamescope”. This allows basically to configure a virtual display for each game and override the game resolution in various ways. It also has a stretch option, which is exactly what I needed to get the “compressed” SBS view from 1920 to 3840, where the aspect ratio would fit again. BTW: This also has FSR built in so any upscaling looks good enough too. I’m not entirely sure but I think there’s a similar tool on Windows called “Virtual Deskop”?

Anyway, I already managed to get my head tracker working by mapping the output to a virtual gamepad on the look-around axes before. I also found a mod that enables a wider FOV. Imagine my stupid grinning when everything fell into place: Full SBS with head tracking, a more sane FOV and yes, I jumped all the hoops to get my HOTAS and rudder pedal of my old ViperPit working (which is a different story because my devices are so old that I had to upgrade em to USB before, which involved some Arduinos, programming and soldering). I guess that makes me a member of multiple niches at once 🤓

And since I’m aware that nobody can “see” what I’m talking about, without having XR glasses or a VR headset (or a DIY VR Box for smart phones) on their own, have also an Anaglyph 3D render. This requires just some old school two coloured (red and cyan) glasses often made of paper, that many people still have around somewhere, to get an idea.

The colour of the sky? It’s perfect. A deep dark blue.

Update: There is now video footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NckLvP1HBGw

This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

https://beko.famkos.net/2025/01/21/ace-combat-7-with-full-sbs-on-pc-and-head-tracking-hell-yes-d/

#AceCombat #AR #gamescope #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #hotas #linux #linuxgaming #Reshade #SBS #simpit #ViperPit #Viture #ViturePro #VR #XR

Got some help carrying the #ViperPit from the basement into my man cave today and since I got the peripherals operational again already, and got Ace Combat 7 on a sale, which seemed to be a good fit, I decided to play that first:
https://makertube.net/w/wiKFYNPaKhhCmrrz3aGLYb / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEPK0lHX_3s

Little did I know what a pain in the neck it would be to get this running. No, Linux wasn’t the problem. That was just Press Play, as usual.

There is however no settings menu for #HOTAS joysticks so any mapping has to be done by manually editing the `Input.ini` of the game in an text editor, which is a guessing game. Head tracking is also a no go. I pulled the old trick to map the head tracker to a virtual XBOX controller but the game comes with an annoying deadzone where the camera snaps to the center.

Ah well, got it all working okay-ish in the end and enjoyed some pew pew in the skies. There seem to be plenty of #Macross mods too so trying that will be next 🤘

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/12/26/playing-ace-combat-7-with-viture-pro-xr-glasses-in-my-viperpit/

#AceCombat #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #hotas #linuxgaming #macross #simpit #ViperPit #Viture #ViturePro

https://makertube.net/w/bufv9BJv2vcXDb3KUaksB7 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpP7KS1fbrY

`@ozoned` interviewed me on my home cockpit on a live stream via his #Owncast instance at https://stream.ozoned.net/. This is a more condensed version of the stream that is still just 1h shy. We’re going over almost every feature of my Primary Buffer Panel and I explain how everything works. I also decided to add various photos, slideshows or video snippets during the talk only sections so things don’t get too boring. Sometimes that even complements the talks 😄

Ever wondered how to start your own DIY #homeCockpit / #SimPit on? It’s easy. Just watch this stream 🤓

Dedicated project website: https://SimPit.dev

Check out the original recording if you want to see more or the full stream with more [dirty] details: https://video.thepolarbear.co.uk/w/9zNcweVw2fxxpSrmBnaQJa

#Gaming #LinuxGaming #GamingOnLinux #EliteDangerous #X4Foundations #StarCitizen #HOTAS #HOSAS

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/12/18/interview-in-depth-walkthrough-of-my-primary-buffer-panel/

#EliteDangerous #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #HOSAS #hotas #linuxgaming #Owncast #simpit #StarCitizen #x4foundations

So I started taking a closer look at the various panels I got with the old #ViperPit, which is a challenge in itself, since not everything has a handy badge telling me what it is. It’s also not like I’d have a clue in the first place. Figured out that this one apparently belonged into a #Panavia #Tornado but I don’t know the exact model yet. It was installed in the rear cockpit on the left side of the front panel and operated by the Weapon Systems Officer and is apparently no longer in use since ~1990. It’s safe to assume that this thing did see action and was closer to space than anything else I own.

Next was finding out how this thing is wired to see if I can convert it into a button box for PC gaming. The segment displays look pretty straight forward and I’ll definitely need some multiplexers to drive them but that has a low priority. The switches can easily be checked with a meter but thanks to @[email protected] I was able to track down some wiring diagrams as well. Turns out these are not also very old but apparently rather pricey too? Someone mentioned an eBay offer for whopping 300 USD for a single button – which is insane to me 🤯

Speaking of wiring: The backplate may be missing but some of the original cable management is still in place. This is where we can see the rather beautiful cable lacing, which is used in avionics for bundling together wires with waxed nylon or linen cord in an environment with lots of shaking and vibrations. No I didn’t know this before and would probably have ignored it but A Hornet’s Nest just released a video about Cockpit Cable Management where he talks in detail about this technique. Great channel!

Another question was for what voltage the lamps are designed for. Each button comes with at least one lamp. This is a rather old fashioned and not a LED yet (and in fact LED replacements are rather expensive even). This specific one is the model OL387 rated for 28V DC and 40mA. Apparently this all is up to military spec MIL-S-22885 and bright enough to still be readable in sunlight and comes with high duty cycles before it needs replacements – so it will probably last a lifetime in my man cave 🤓

This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/12/05/weapons-control-panel/

#homeCockpit #Panavia #simpit #Tornado #ViperPit

This video is how I gutted my already modified old Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS joystick of my ViperPit and made it work again with the help of an Arduino Pro Micro. This flight stick (and also the other peripherals) do belong in a museum but where’s the fun in that? I modified it and now it’s a generic USB joystick that works on any recent system. I focus mostly on the 5×5 button matrix since this is the hardest part to understand. In the end are a few minutes of playing X4 Foundations with it to give it a good test run. Now it just needs some oil for the creaking 😅

https://makertube.net/w/qrqqZLr2QvJFjCwyNzzAmp / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYiPFDpHwmc

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/11/05/reviving-an-old-f-16-flcs-joystick-for-my-viperpit/

#Arduino #DIY #F16 #FLCS #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #joystick #linuxgaming #simpit #Thrustmaster #ViperPit #x4foundations

This video is how I gutted my already modified old Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS joystick of my ViperPit and made it work again with the help of an Arduino Pro Micro. This flight stick (and also the other peripherals) do belong in a museum but where’s the fun in that? I modified it and now it’s a generic USB joystick that works on any recent system. In the end are a few minutes of playing X4 Foundations with it to give it a good test run. Now it just needs some oil for the creaking 😅

https://makertube.net/w/qrqqZLr2QvJFjCwyNzzAmp / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYiPFDpHwmc

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/11/05/reviving-an-old-f-16-flcs-joystick-for-my-viperpit/

#Arduino #DIY #F16 #FLCS #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #joystick #linuxgaming #simpit #Thrustmaster #ViperPit #x4foundations

This video is how I gutted my already modified old Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS joystick of my ViperPit and made it work again with the help of an Arduino Pro Micro. This flight stick (and also the other peripherals) do belong in a museum but where’s the fun in that? I modified it and now it’s a generic USB joystick that works on any recent system. I focus mostly on the 5×5 button matrix since this is the hardest part to understand. In the end are a few minutes of playing X4 Foundations with it to give it a good test run. Now it just needs some oil for the creaking 😅

https://makertube.net/w/qrqqZLr2QvJFjCwyNzzAmp / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYiPFDpHwmc

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/11/05/reviving-an-old-f-16-flcs-joystick-for-my-viperpit/

#Arduino #DIY #F16 #FLCS #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #joystick #linuxgaming #simpit #Thrustmaster #ViperPit #x4foundations

This video is how I gutted my already modified old Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS joystick of my ViperPit and made it work again with the help of an Arduino Pro Micro. This flight stick (and also the other peripherals) do belong in a museum but where’s the fun in that? I modified it and now it’s a generic USB joystick that works on any recent system. I focus mostly on the 5×5 button matrix since this is the hardest part to understand. In the end are a few minutes of playing X4 Foundations with it to give it a good test run. Now it just needs some oil for the creaking 😅

https://makertube.net/w/qrqqZLr2QvJFjCwyNzzAmp / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYiPFDpHwmc

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/11/05/reviving-an-old-f-16-flcs-joystick-for-my-viperpit/

#Arduino #DIY #F16 #FLCS #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #joystick #linuxgaming #simpit #Thrustmaster #ViperPit #x4foundations

This video is how I gutted my already modified old Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS joystick of my ViperPit and made it work again with the help of an Arduino Pro Micro. This flight stick (and also the other peripherals) do belong in a museum but where’s the fun in that? I modified it and now it’s a generic USB joystick that works on any recent system. In the end are a few minutes of playing X4 Foundations with it to give it a good test run. Now it just needs some oil for the creaking 😅

https://makertube.net/w/qrqqZLr2QvJFjCwyNzzAmp / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYiPFDpHwmc

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/11/05/reviving-an-old-f-16-flcs-joystick-for-my-viperpit/

#Arduino #DIY #F16 #FLCS #gaming #gamingonlinux #homeCockpit #joystick #linuxgaming #simpit #Thrustmaster #ViperPit #x4foundations

This works way better than I expected. This is a static image test for a HUD on my home cockpit using a dead cheap beamsplitter made of plexiglass and a smartphone o0

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/09/06/15629330/

#FUI #homeCockpit #HUD #simpit

Getting better in #FlightOfNova 💪 Delivery mission without breaking… much 🤡

Man… I need telemetry data for this game. That’d be so freakin awesome 🤓

#HomeCockpit #SimPit

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/08/13/15629308/

#FlightOfNova #homeCockpit #simpit

Updated https://simpit.dev/ - home of the Space Pew Pew #SimPit inspired by a VF-1 Valkyrie cockpit (#Macross)

That's a glorified #DIY joystick controller with an LCD ('MFD') and plenty of RGB for my #Linux PC

Newest additions are my videos for #X4Foundations, #EliteDangerous and #FlightOfNova (all also on https://makertube.net/a/bekopharm) and instructions how to compile #OpenTrack with the #neuralnet tracker using #ONNX runtime.

Best viewed WITH an ad-blocker and patience (slow).

#HomeCockpit

I had the chance to play Flight Of Nova (https://flight-of-nova.com/) for the first time today. This was on my wishlist for quite some time now. Dived in blind and had no idea what to expect. 3 tutorial missions later: Oh boy… this is hard. I can see myself sinking many hours in this.

Anyway, as usual, my focus is on interfacing with my home cockpit (or simpit) and while there is no ship telemetry [yet?] I was able to get it running just fine via Proton and with my DIY headtracker using OpenTrack. Hats off, seldom that I see a game that detects my joystick just fine, has great ingame calibration, offers me a windowed mode and a bunch of ultra width resolutions without having to resort to hacking config files or use gamescope to resize it ❤️

Head tracking is, as usually, TrackIR only so far (I guess the native Linux PC version does not have UDP in place here but I couldn’t check due Steam refusing to download another version today). Anyway, you can see me fooling around with the buttons and do an A+ crash landing in the end – sunny side up 😆 Not too shabby considering that this was my 3rd landing at all.

Pick your poison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2A_uVbUKWU / https://tube.tchncs.de/w/iV21V6EZxNCTsC8bvsCQDt

https://beko.famkos.net/2024/06/14/demo-flight-of-nova-with-headtracker-and-hotas-on-linux-pc-crash-landing-my-spaceship-again/

#FlightOfNova #gaming #gamingonlinux #headtracker #Headtracking #homeCockpit #linuxgaming #opentrack #simpit #SimulatedCockpit #Space #TrackIR