Garmin G1000 Hardware

[ab-tools]

Hello everybody,

found this forum while searching for a good and effordable hardware solution to simulate a Garmin G1000 together with Prepar3d and saw this post about a year ago:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3994

They talk about the F1 Tech 1000 simulator from Flight1Tech which obviously is very good, but also quite expensive.

While searching on the web I found this very interesting alternative:
http://www.customsims.com/g1000-module
With "just" $1,850.00 that's a lot cheaper. I wrote them an e-mail and asked what software would be included and they replied it would be bundled with a license of Mindstar G1000 and would be fully compatible with FSX and P3D.

So basically that sounds very interesting to me. Therefore following question:
does anyone of you have some experience with this G1000 hardware device already?

Thanks in advance
Andreas

[tcarney]

Nice find. I know of three other ones, and this is by far the least expensive. The hardware I have is from Emuteq. "How much does it cost" is always the first question people ask when they see it, so it will be good to tell them about an alternative. That page doesn't give much info about which software it works with. Keep us posted if you end up picking it up.

Travis

[ab-tools]

Hello Travis,

first thanks for your quick reply!

I also asked regarding the software and they replied they would use Mindstar G1000 (license included in price):
http://www.mindstaraviation.com/Product_G1000.html
This G1000 simulation software is quite cheap for home use, but as it seems to be used also in some professional simulators (like RedBird) it should work well hopefully.

I'm really curious if someone here has already experience with this hardware solution from Custom Sims. It just seems to be too cheap in comparison to the other alternatives I also already know about.

Best regards
Andreas

[CustomSims]

Hello Everyone,

my name is lee and i am from Custom Sims

there is a quick video on our G1000 Version Cockpit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf0mBt7DU-I

the g1000 unit if fairly new in our product line and this is the reason why people do not have experience with this product but we do offer 14 days money back (14 days from delivery day)

most of the question we got is "why is it so cheap" well after researching , developing and testing we succeed to reduce the price but not giving up on technology and quality , the knobs installed are the same one from the real G1000 also the pan joystick also work and can be program

the way we built this unit let you integrate almost any G1000 software out there by extracting the MFD or the PFD to our G1000 monitors , the monitors works as 2 separated VGA monitors and the buttons, knobs and joystick are connected to our board and that give you the ability to reprogram the buttons in case you installing a different plane with G1000 (DA40, King Air etc...) except the Cessna

i know not all of you have 2 vga port avilabile that's why by request we sending 2 J5 Create that can convert VGA to USB 3.0

i am register in this forums for any question and also attach to this message several pictures from our latest cockpit being installed

Best Custom Sims

[ab-tools]

Hello Lee,

first thank you for your post here!

Let me say that I really appreciate you're not trying to fake a customer review here, but present yourself as "CustomSims" directly. Thanks for your honesty on that!

Indeed a bit more input especially on the way the configuration of your system (connection to Mindstar G1000, but also how to individually assign functions to the buttons) is done would be great. E. g. a user manual or similar would help here. I did not find any info on your website about that.

And something I found a bit strange on your website:

You may have noticed that we did not change the knobs but stayed with the exactly identical knobs as in the real G1000. However, we did update the mechanism for it to be much more responsive and reliable.

So you're stating that the knobs on your simulator device are more reliable than the knobs on Garmins I guess around $50,000 aviation certified product, really?

Best regards
Andreas

[wmburns]

Hello Everyone,

my name is lee and i am from Custom Sims

i am register in this forums for any question and also attach to this message several pictures from our latest cockpit being installed

Best Custom Sims

Hello Lee from Custom Sims,

To add to the comments by ab-tools. Thanks for being honest with your identity. From a possible future business prospective I would have to believe the PE community is ripe with potential interest in your products. In fact I spend quite of bit of time reviewing your web site and watching the videos.

If I might offer some suggestions? Many of us are "sophisticated" users. I for one would not invest in a product that wouldn't let me see some of the works behind the covers. For example:

• I could not find information regarding WHICH sims the various products could work with. FSX, P3D, or X-Plane
• I for one would like to see more information on your custom analog boards. Using a custom board does have it's advantages but I could also see issues with long term support. For the average home user, a custom sim represents a very large expense. Likely to get many years of use.
• I couldn't find information on the web site about the PC needed to run the various configuration. Again this is along the lines of giving us a "peek" of what included under the covers.
• Now that the PE community has seen your product, the next step is to demonstrate flying on PE.
• I personally would like to see some videos from actual customers using your product. Even better if they are using online ATC.

I personally have struggled with my home sim. A long term goal of mine is to elevate my home sim to a higher level. But being a home user on a limited budget I have to make any decisions very carefully.

Thank-you.

PS. would you mind taking the time to update/post the product pictures in the correct orientation? As a business poster your work should be held to a higher standard.

[RyanK]

Hi Lee, any chance you'll have a booth at Oshkosh this year?

[ab-tools]

Hello Lee,

did you forget about us here?

There are a lot potential customers here with some question!
It would be great if you could take the time to answer them.

Best regards and thanks a lot in advance
Andreas

[CustomSims]

Hello Everyone

So So So Sorry for the late response usually all the forums that i am register at send me an email when someone respond to my post
again sorry about that

this message will include all the replies question:

the way this unit communicated with the FSX is this:
the unit is basically separated to 2 section the video and the buttons, the video control thru 2 vga (1 for the PFD and 1 for the MFD) and what you will need to do is to undock the g1000 windows in FSX and place them in the G1000 unit monitors, there is a software (free) that i am suggesting and it’s called "panel position" (https://forum.flyawaysimulation.com/for ... positions/ ) what this software does is saving the undock windows information (size, width, height ...) and next time when you undock the windows you can replace them in a click of a button.

the buttons part:
i develop a board (in help from the net ) that can have 192 buttons or toggle switches and 32 encoders and it is working with the open source arduino board but i did design a PCB to work with it much better and easy to connect the wires (see attach image , it show the board in the middle of assembling ) all of the buttons , knobs and joystick will be connected to this board and the board require only 1 USB connection , i know the G1000 do not have 192 buttons so whatever button left you can use it to you own assigned (landing gear, flaps etc...) , also the mindstar aviation g1000 software have a INI file and inside that INI file there is the key assignment for the G1000 operation after you configure that there is 2 software that I recommended to use first is linda and the second is SVmapper the G1000 works the best with SVmapper and this is how you make the G1000 communicate with my board and FSX
I decide to keep it easy and not to force everyone to use my software or my setup I find that very annoying when you want to fly different airplane but not able to or need to pay more money to unlock it
Regarding the mechanism and the knobs:
The knobs are an exact replica from the real G1000 also the joystick rotary
When I say mechanism I mean the rotary encoders, when I first start to design a develop this unit the knobs was one of the most expensive part , after month of research I found a way to actually have better quality but not an astronomic price
There is NO WAY I can have a better quality the Garmin LOL

This product is open for any sim and for future sim also its been design and test with P3D and FSX and little on x-plane but if you have a G1000 software that will run on x-plane and you like it I don’t see any reason why it will not work
The board that I built is simple and easy to use, when you keep it simple it last longer , also the PCB for the input board is made by a professional company (see image attach)
Part of my testing is to try it on a different computers and I got it to run on a laptop I3 1.7 Ghz, HD4400 2gb ram with 500 GB
The next one I am building I will do a long video about it and also ask my customers to make a video
As we are a new company we planning to have a Oshkosh booth next year (2016)
Again sorry for the late response I will keep following this post
If somebody can tell me if it is legal to post my skype ID here I will for faster answer
Have a nice day everyone
Best
Custom Sims

[ab-tools]

Hello Lee,

first thanks a lot for taking the time to reply here again!

Could you please get us a little bit more details about the units:
- what is the size (inch) of the monitors used
- what is the (native) resolution of the monitors used (on your website you just write that you changed from low resolution to high resolution monitors, but you don't mention the new resolution itself)
- please share the dimensions of the units (MDF/PDF (which should be the same) as well as the audio unit)

Best regards and thanks again
Andreas