“A simple panel to add some commands and status LEDs for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 on a PC
If you are a Flight Simulator enthusiast and would try to build your first external panel to send some commands and read some status from FS, probably you will be interested in this project because it’s simple, flexible and cheap.
This project will let you play with some Arduino programming code but don’t need any development effort on the PC side. On the other end you will play also with some very simple hardware stuff other then an Arduino board of any type (i used a Nano). The most important thing, however, is that with a very little effort, thepanel can be highly customized to your needs by changing the function of each button/switch/LED or adding new ones.
What it does
The panel manages and shows the state of:
- flaps incrementing/decrementing them to max 4 positions
- navigation lights (grouped in STROBE, NAV, BEACON, WING, LOGO, CABIN and PANEL)
- landing lights (grouped in LANDING and TAXI)
- pitot heat
- rudder trim
- engine(s) startup and shutdown with AUTO_START and AUTO_SHUTDOWN functions of simulator
- in addition I have also a RESET button that is useful when starting the flight to be sure about the state of all the lights of the plane”