Autopilot for Flight Simulators

thingiverse

This is an Autopilot panel for Flight Simulators that works seamlessly with FSX, Xplane, or any sim. I opted out of using rotary knobs to simplify the design, instead replacing them with buttons. The inspiration behind this project was the FSX 737 autopilot panel. Having a physical autopilot makes a significant difference when doing simulations. To achieve the desired text on the panel, I utilized SPST toggle switches and tactical buttons mounted underneath the printed buttons. To get the text just right, I inserted a GCODE pause at the layer where text printing started and changed the PLA color. Here is the pause GCODE: ; Begin Pause Code G28 X0 Y0 ; Home X and Y M300 ; Ring Buzzer M400 ; Wait for command buffer to clear M25 ; Pause Print ; Execute following lines after resuming G28 X0 Y0 ; Home X and Y G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder Origin ; End Pause Code The different color is a nice touch, with Hatchbox gold looking really sharp. I also didn't print the full thickness of the text in the file, instead stopping the print a bit early while leaving the letters slightly taller. This way, you can decide how deep you want the letters to be. Just stop the print when you're happy.