L-1011 Trainer Installation: EVAC Signal, FE Station Indicator Test

L1011 Trainer - FE Station Indicator Lights

Wow, today was a very productive day working on the Lockheed L-1011 trainer at the Museum. Today we completed the following work items:

1. Power up the indicator lights for the Fuel Jettison Panel 
2. Power up the indicator lights for the Engine Fuel Panel 
3. Powered the Brake Temperature gauge
4. Build and connected the Indicator Test Relay circuit for the FE Station
5. Installed and connected the L-1011 Evacuation Signal Panel
6. Jim installed some additional DIN rains into the overhead panel that will hold the future Interbus components

So lets start with the EVACUATION SIGNAL panel. The panel is used to initiate ground evacuation of the aircraft. The EVAC signal can be triggered from either the flight station (this is the panel we installed today) or from a Flight Attendant station (this will not be implemented in the simulator). The EVAC signal is pretty loud and would sounds from multiple stations throughout the aircraft.

L-1011 Trainer: Overhead Panel - Evacuation Signal

Below is a short video that shows the operation of the EVAC signal ad the "Horn Silence" momentary switch. You might want to turn your volume down a little on your computer before you play the video because the EVAC signal is pretty loud. By the way ... the signal is a 

Here is the schematic and pinout for the L-1011 Evacuation Signal panel:

L-1011 EVAC Panel Schematic from Delta L-1011 Training Manual

Besides the installation and power-up of the EVAC panel we also continued the indicator light buildout of the FE Station. Today we powered the Fuel Jettison panel indicators as well as the Engine Fuel panel indicators (see the two images below).

L-1011 Trainer: Fuel Jettison Indicator Lights

L-1011 Trainer: Engine Fuel Indicator Lights

The 5VDC instrument lighting buildout is also moving forward, while a bit slower due to the fact that we are waiting on additional 5VDC 20A as well as two 5VDC 40A power units to arrive. Below is the Brake Temperature indicator that we powered today. The indicator is a vertical tape instrument that shows two (left and right) selected brake assemblies at a time.

L-1011 Trainer: FE Station - Break Temperature Indicator

Lastly I build the indicator test circuit for the FE station. The test circuit turns on all indicator lights with a "TEST" switch on the FE Light Panel. The indicator test is implemented using a 24VDC relay.

L-1011 Trainer: FE Lights Indicator TEST Switch

The short video below show the operation of the FE Indicator Test circuit.

Avionics Bending: Engine Oil Quantity Indicator

L-1011 Engine Oil Quantity

The Engine Oil Quantity used on the Lockheed L-1011 is a General Electric 8DJ173 LWD1 and is a relatively simple instrument. It takes 115V 400Hz power. The instrument has a BITE test button on the lower left front. The test switch drives the indicator needle to 10.5 Quart. You can see operation of the instrument in the short demonstration video below.

On the real aircraft the instrument acts as the power source for the oil quantity probe. The instrument outputs 6.5VDC which can then be run through a digital 10K potentiometer to simulate the oil level probe. 

Below is the schematic and pinout for the Instrument from the L-1011 Training manual:

Engine Oil Quantity - Pinout and Schematic

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Indicator Lighting Buildout

L-1011 Trainer Buildout: Indicator Lighting

Making small incremental steps with the buildout of the Indicator Lighting systems. The indicators (switchlights and annunciators) use circuitry and power sources independent from the cockpit instrument lights or the panel light plates. As we work through the indicator lighting build out we are also re-tooling the indicator lights from 28VDC incandescent lights to 24VDC LEDs. It's amazing how much that cuts down on heat produced in the sim, especially considering the fact that the L-1011 cockpit has hundreds of lights.

Once the progressive power-up of the indicator lights has completed we will start switching to connecting the switchlight and annunciators to the Digital I/O subsystems.

L-1011 Trainer Buildout: Fuel System Indicator Lights

L-1011 Trainer: Digital and Analog Bus Integration

Digital and Analog Integration Planning

L-1011 Digital I/O Bus

To make the simulator work there are a number of hardware integration methods that we need to put in place to allow the actual flight hardware to interact with the simulator software and vice versa. We need to be able to do the following:

Digital Input and Output (I/O)

Digital I/O is used to read switch states (on/off) as well as setting of annunciator lights. A large amount of digital I/O channels are needed to drive the L-1011 cockpit. All in all, there will be a need for 530 Output Channels as well as 582 Input Channels. The digital I/O bus also needs to be highly distributed across the sim (FE Station, MIP, Overhead, etc) and it needs to be resistant to electrical noise and power transients. Since everything in the simulator operates on either 24VDC or 115V AC ... the Digital I/O system needs to be able to directly interface with 24VDC without much need to do signal conditioning prior to entering the I/O interface (e.g. TTL level conversion). Digital Output will also need to be done mostly on 24VDC and will need to be able to be sourced as well as sunk.

Analog Input and Output (AIO)

The simulator instruments will required a number of analog signals to be generated. These generated analog signals will simulate the aircraft sensors. For example, engine tachometer signals need to be generated the same way they would be sent from the engine transducers to the instruments. Also, many of the flight controls will, of course, produce analog input signals to the simulator software which need to be digitized. For example, movement of the yoke or the flight control trim. So there is a need for a great amount of Digital to Analog (DAC) as well as Analog to Digital (ADC) conversion.

ARINC 429 Protocol 

Some of the primary navigation as well as attitude control instruments use the ARINC 429 bus protocol. The correct protocol needs to be generated and sent to the simulator hardware to display the right navigation and attitude data.

Overall

Since the simulator will be used in a museum and public setting where safety and reliability is of most  importance, it is critical that we use industrial strength, serviceable and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. While building a lot of custom hardware might be more fun and perhaps a lot less expensive, it also makes it hard to maintain the sim in the future. When custom built components break down ... they can be very difficult or impossible to replace. So, at the current we are looking at using the following COTS technologies:

• Digital I/O -- Phoenix Contact Interbus (old, but very very reliable and trusted)
• Analog I/O -- National Instruments DAQ Equipment and Phoenix Contact Interbus 
• ARINC 429 -- V1 Avionics Simulator Interface 

Again, the key is to use as much off-the-self and easy to replace hardware as possible. 

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Instrument Lighting Buildout (Flight Station and MIP)

L-1011 Trainer: Flight Station Cabling and Instrument Light Power Units

As I mentioned in some of my earlier posts, the Lockheed L-1011 cockpit has quite a large number of instrument, indicator and light plate power buses. For the last few work sessions I have been focusing on the instrument and indicator light buses. Instrument lights and the panel light plates are powered by 5VDC sources. Indicators, on the other hand, are powered by 24VDC. The image above shows the two 5VDC power supplies (each is rated at 20A) that drive the instrument lighting. The one on the right is of the lower Flight Station and the one on the left is for the upper Flight Station instruments. Power Supplies are Lambda-Nimic and the distribution blocks are Phoenix Contact. Each of the 5VDC source is further split into sub-buses. The different buses for the Flight Station are:

1. Flight Station Lower Left
2. Flight Station Lower Right 
3. Flight Station Upper Left
4. Flight Station Upper Right

The left and right does not always indicate "left" and "right" on the station as viewed from a geometric point of view, but it is more a left and a right power bus. Here is an example on the Hydraulic System panel instruments that I powered up today:

L-1011 Trainer: Hydraulic System Instrument Lights

The top row of instruments (see image below); four Hydraulic Level indicators, are powered by instrument light bus "FE Upper Left" while the instruments for the Air Turbine Motor (ATM) RPM as well as the four Hydraulic Pressure indicators on the bottom of the panel are powered by "FE Upper Right".

L-1011 Trainer: Hydraulic System Instrument Lights

Here is what this looks like in the WDM with line "A" being "FE Upper Left" and "B" represents "FE Upper Right"

WDM for L-1011 Hydraulic Panel Instrument Lighting

A few weeks ago, Jim mounted four 5VDC power supplies in the forward Main Instrument Panel and today I finished cabling the power supplies into the the Circuit Breaker system of the L10 Trainer. There is a breaker for the 115V side of each of those supplies as well as a break for a "Left and Right" side on the 5VDC output side. The power supplies (top to bottom are):

• Top: First Officer Instrument Lighting
• Center Top and Center Bottom: Center Instrument Panel Instrument Lighting 
• Bottom: Captain's Instrument Lighting 

L-1011 Trainer: MIP Instrument Power Supplies

Time goes so fast during sim building and after working on the cabling for the power supplies I only had time left to connect a few instruments that are part of the "Center Instrument Right" light bus. The instrument lighting powered are the N1 (Eng1-3), Rated EPR, Standby Horizon and Standby Airspeed Instruments.

L-1011 Trainer: Initial Buildout of the Center Left Instrument Lighting Bus

Here is what this looks like in the WDM:

L-1011 Center Instrument Lighting Schematic

L-1011 Trainer: Center Instrument Lighting Bus Buildout

L-1011 Trainer: Houston ... We Have Seats!

L-1011 Trainer: First Officer Seat

Houston ... we have seats! Thanks to a very very generous contribution by Capt. Chuck Maire we now have the Captain's Seat, the  First Officer's Seat and one of the two Observer seats. Thank You Chuck! Also, the seats are awesome! They are ex British Airways and will fit the L-1011 Trainer perfectly.

The seats are rather large devices and consist of a pedestal, motors, the actual seats, armrests and lots of other good things. They came packaged to the museum in a pretty large shipping crate.

L-1011 Cockpit Seats - Delivery

Doug Sroggings did a great job packing the seats up and we also got some of the additional cockpit wall and ceiling panels that we are missing to enclose the Trainer.

L-1011 Cockpit Seats - together with Ceiling Panels

The aircraft sat in the desert for quite a long time before being scrapped just recently, so, the seats are pretty dirty. After we unpacked them we started cleaning them and over the next few days we will slowly start cleaning the seat cover fabric.

L-1011 Trainer - Captain's Seat

L-1011 Trainer - First Officer's Seat

L-1011 Trainer - Cockpit Seats

Now they need to be cleaned!

I think that as a sim builder you can probably appreciate just how difficult it can be to the get the right seats for your cockpit project, so, we are very thankful for having found this pair. Also, of course now the hunt has started for the Flight Station (FE) seat and the rails that go with it. 

Below are some shots that show the details of the motors that allow motorized adjustment of the seat position. All positions can also be adjusted manually.

L-1011 Cockpit Seat - Horizontal Motor  Drives

L-1011 Cockpit Seat - Vertical Motor Drive

Just to get a better idea of the installation effort we placed one of the seats into the trainer to get a better feeling for the opening we need to cut into the simulator floor for the vertical adjustment post that extends beyond the pedestal base.

L-1011 First Officer Seat - Test Placement

L-1011 First Officer Seat - Test Placement

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Center Console Flood Light

L-1011 Trainer - Center Console Flood Flight

A lot of the work over the last few days has gone into building cable harnesses for the main instrument panel and the individual instrument runs from the breaker panels. So, all in all not so much to show, however, yesterday we did install two things into the trainer: a) we installed the Aural Warning system and connected it to the test panel on the Flight Station and b) re-lamped and powered up the center console flood light that is located on the Pilot's Overhead panel. The image below shows the coverage area of the center console flood light. The food light brightness in controlled with the potentiometer located right on the panel.

L-1011 Trainer: Center Console Flood Light

Here is the pinout and schematic for the Center Console Flood Light Panel:

L-1011 Center Console Flood Light - Pinout

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Overhead and FE Station Indicator Lights Build-Out

L-1011 Trainer Installation - Indicator Buildout

L-1011 Trainer Installation - Indicator Buildout

Continued with the indicator build out today. The Indicator light as well as the Indicator Test circuits are now connected to the FCES panel as well as portions of the Hydraulic and Engine Bleed Control panel The two images above illustrate which panels got connected during the most recent installation effort.

L-1011 Trainer Installation - Indicator Buildout

Below is a detail of the FCES and the PFCS panels. The FCES panel indicates status of the various Flight Control computer systems. Each switchlight has either an "OFF" or "FAIL" legend.

L-1011 Trainer Installation - Indicator Buildout

L-1011 Trainer Installation - Indicator Buildout (FCES and PFCS)

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Overhead Indicator Lights

L-1011 Trainer: Indicator Illumination - Overhead

Continued with the buildout of the overhead illumination today. Getting the PFCS Panel to work was a little bit of a head scratch. As part of the installation of the sim we are re-tooling all indicators from incandescent to LED lighting. LED's are, well just like the name indicates, diodes ... hence, they are directional. We initially replace all incandescent with standard midget-flanged LEDs ... however, it turns out that this is a problem. And here is why:

Since the L-1011 used 28V DC incandescent lighting it didn't matter if the "common" between the light bulbs inside a switchlight was connected to the 24VDC source or the DC Return ... the bulb would simply glow either way. But, with the LED this makes a big difference ... reverse the flow direction on the LED and it will not work at all .... because it's a diode.

Here is an example from the L-1011 WDM:

Here the common goes to the DC Return:

Here the common goes to 24V DC:

So here, Lockheed tripped me a little ... because I had not anticipated the switchlight light bulb polarity to be inverted between different panels or even within the same panel. Having learned this, we are going to have to get some LEDs with reversed polarity. That's not a problem, just something I had not anticipated. So, in the image above and below you can clearly see the difference in the LED lighting which is a clean white on the switch legend and the incandescent which has a much more yellow/red tone. 

L-1011 Trainer - Overheard Indicator Illumination (June 8th 2013)

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Indicator Light Test Circuit

The L-1011 has a "TEST" switch on both the Pilot's Light Panel as well as the Flight Engineer's Light Panel. The "TEST" switch is used to turn on all indicators and annunciators in the respective panels for testing. The circuit has a 5 minute timer that disables the test relay after 5 minutes.

The video above shows the current build-out state of the overhead panel. The TEST circuit at the moment only activates the switch state indicators and not the fault indicators. The fault indicators need to be triggered by the computer as part of the TEST feature. 

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Indicator Lighting (Overhead Wiring Tests)

L-1011 CPT Installation: Indicator Power

Now with the AC and DC systems finished we can start powering system panels.  The first set of panels are the two eye-brow panels below the overhead panel and two panels on the right hand side column of the overhead panel. Below is an image that shows the location of the 4 panels that are now connected to the PILOT INDICATOR LIGHT bus.

L-1011 CPT Installation: Indicator Power

The contrast on the switchlights is a bit high and are hard to photograph. Eventually the indicator brightness will be selectable between BRT and DIM. However, this feature has not been implemented yet. Over the next few sessions we will power up all of the elements on the Lockheed L-1011 overhead panel.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Overhead Panel Indicator Lighting

L-1011 Trainer Installation: AC/DC Power System Complete

L-1011 Trainer - AC/DC Power Control Relays

The AC/DC Power System buildout is finally finished!! A short moment to celebrate :) Getting the power systems right certainly took a lot more than I personally had anticipated. In order to make the power distribution look and feel as close as possible to the real thing we, in essence, built a miniature version of the actual power distribution system with all the AC and DC busses present in the L-1011. This made this a lot more complicated, but also a lot more rewarding. All in all, a good 60 hours went into building the power system.

The two images below show the finished DC and AC systems prior to us dressing up the cables and making it all look a lot cleaner.

L-1011 Trainer - DC System (Pre-Cleanup)

L-1011 Trainer - AC System (Pre-Cleanup)

All this crazy cabling stuff in the two images above is controlled by the neat and easy to read "Electric System" panel on the lower F/E station (image below). However, all the magic behind the panel is implemented with 72 control and sense relays.

L-1011 Finished Electrical System Panel

The image above shows the L-1011 as would be typical at the gate powered by External Power. The three engine generators are off and the FIELD and GENERATOR breakers show "OPEN". The External Power is switched onto the AC Tie Bus and the Tie Bus Breakers (white flow bars) are closed to power the AC Bus 1, 2 and 3.