This is a basic radio panel that works with X-plane.

The hardware is an Arduino, connected to an LCD display and a matrix keypad. 11 keys are used to implement the six radio choices: com1, com2, nav1, nav2, adf1, adf2, to switch active and standby frequencies and to increment and decrement. I use two buttons for increment, two for decrement, as I don't yet have suitable rotary encoders.

The Arduino side is completely dumb. All interactions are sent to the X-plane plugin, which sends all D values back.

The plugin is written in Python and requires Sandy Barbour's python interface plugin for X-plane, and it requires the PySerial library to be installed.

This was written on a Mac. If you want to work on another machine, you'll need to edit the port name in line 125. Even on a mac, your com port will probably have a different name as it is set by your USB to serial driver.

Bob Gates 7 Jan 2011