Elite Dangerous - Cockpit Console - HUGE build

[Agisis]

Hello everyone. I've been away for a while working with my brother on his latest project. He is building a cockpit from the cargo ship in the game Elite Dangerous. We have hooked into the log files of the game in order to know game events such as when we are hit, shields, location, etc. He asked me to recreate the cockpit model (with some artistic license) and print it. It's 33"x11" and 2" thick. This console will be filled with wiring for lighting that responds to game events. I After this is completed, I will be printing the lower hand console portions. My brother has put together several touchscreen TFTs with some pic programming and already coded out the touch displays that send keyboard commands to the game. So, instead of pressing a key to lower the landing gear, he uses the touchscreen which sends the command on his behalf. We will be replicating some of the graphics in the game. He bought several large screen plasmas and a cockpit chair with throttles and foot pedals. It's a massive project! He lives up in Flagstaff so I have to ship this to him, but here is the cockpit work in progress so far. I've already burned through 2 1/2 spools of ABS filament and another 1 to go.

I have started printing out the bottom. Each piece takes about 13 hours to print so it's been a long ride. I upgraded to the Prometheus and it has made a world of difference in my success rate and quality. That thing is a workhorse.

[Holy1]

WOW Cool, nuff said.

[drunkenmugsy]

YES! Pretty stinkin cool!

[barry99705]

That's pretty cool! Gene cheated, and just bought the front of an F-15! Imagine trying to print a full scale cockpit!!

[Eaglezsoar]

Very nice work Agisis!

[Agisis]

Hello everyone,
So, I finished the job and sent the console to my brother. It arrived last night and he was eager to get started with the electronics so he jumped right in. We are going to hook into the games sound system and log files to send the lighting commands to the various LEDs (he's using a PIC board he designed to control it). I had not had the chance to see it "lit up" in real life, but I saw in my head what it would look like with the LEDs. My brother did not disappoint me and I think it looks great. This is likely going to be the largest print I will ever do with the printer, requiring easily 200 hours of print time and countless hours modeling and researching the games layout of the console for this particular ship type.

[Windshadow]

amazing chunk of work what a cool gift for your brother.

[Eaglezsoar]

It really looks sharp all lit up like that. Superb job!

[Agisis]

All,
It's been a long road, but my brother has the electronics and logic now hooked up into the giant console I designed and printed him. Check this video out! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. This project has taken him about a year and we still have a long ways to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SSpsZs9rr0

Also, here are some pics of it.
http://www.ra-limited.com/File_Archive/ ... sole_2.jpg
http://www.ra-limited.com/File_Archive/ ... sole_4.jpg

[geneb]

Are you pulling data from E:D to interface the hardware?

g.

[Agisis]

yes. both audio and log files so we can react to damage and so forth. The side display TFT panels are all custom engineered and override the keyboard interface as well, so common tasks are now touchscreen

[Agisis]

also, it is sitting underneath an enormous curved display.

[Qdeathstar]

Dang bro. You must do this for a living. I really love this. tge console looks like something out of a video game

[geneb]

Log files? That doesn't make any sense. Are you literally reading data from a text file or are you leveraging some E:D supplied API?

g.

[Eaglezsoar]

Fantastic work Agisis !