Building Your Radio Management Panel (RMP)
Here are the primary components that we will be working with. These parts were drawn in 3D from the original files we are using for accuracy. Clockwise starting top left: Laminate RMP, Wood RMP, Laminate templates and the lettering graphic. Lettering is static so EPIC or "Snoop" getting LEDs to work on that! "Exploded View" after you have all the parts prepped, this includes lightly sanding and painting all the wood edges (we went to Home Depot to have paint mixed to match the laminate and they got it perfect). Two parts added here: you can see behind the laminate RMP piece a thin sheet of clear plastic sheet. This is to keep the lettering from getting worn out. Also, in behind the wood RMP panel piece is the momentary micro switch assembly. This will end up pressed up against the lettering and the clear plastic sheet. Prior to the switches being attached you would
1. Glue the template piece to the RMP laminate part.
2. Glue the clear plastic sheet and the lettering sheet to the back of the RMP laminate piece.
3. The RMP wood piece would be placed behind all of the above. Likely we would use the actual RMP screws to hold all of this together. The switches we are using in this area are tiny microswitches that we use on our Car Audio Radios. I work for Pioneer (Plug!) and we utilize very small micro switches for things like Radio Station Preset buttons. These parts are very reliable and low cost. Perfect! you may not need as many as we are showing here. It would all depend on functionality targets you have.
If you follow all the steps then you should end up with this! Bad news is that you need two! Actually, three if you build a backup in the overhead panel. As far as the rotary (Not shown) control for setting frequencies we are testing one this week. Fingers are crossed as it is very inexpensive and would be perfect for the job. We will update you on that as we progress. (Scott Napier has rotaries working with his KE72 keyboard encoder).
Functionality: The RMP is secondary to the MCDU in actual useage (Joe can correct me here!). The approach we will take is as follows:
VHF1: VOR1 Adjustments
VHF2: VOR2 Adjustments
VHF3: NDB Adjustments
Pressing the VHF1 button once would activate the VOR1 setting in FS and you would dial in the primary frequency (108 for example) , pressing the VHF1 buttom twice would allow you to select the fractional frequency (.70 for example)
VHF3: NDB adjustments would be made by using this button in conjunction with the rotary (As above). Pressing once allows you to select the first number, twice the second and three times the third.