The Dog Stars
DMX Cockpit gauges and displays for the 1956 Cessna 182 Skylane
Similar to the work on Masters of the Air, I designed and built over 100 DMX Controlled cockpit gauges and displays including all gauges and the LCD Attitude Indicator, Artificial Horizon and GPS displays, all of which interact live via TouchDesigner. I designed the electronics, the networking systems and implemented the communications protocols that bind everything together. On set it worked flawlessly.
Key points:
- DMX controlled needle position & movement
- Flicker-free DMX Controlled back-lights
- Each uniquely addressable
- Perfect works-first-time operation during filming.
- Artificial Horizon, Attitude Indictaor and GPS screens.
- DMX and UDP Outputs from TouchDesigner
- Live and Debug TouchDesigner projects
All the tiny stepper motors used in these gauges required manual modification to enable home position detection and continuous rotation.
Before modification they have a limited range of motion:
But after modification they have full continuous rotation and home-position detection:
All modifications were carried out by me!