Corrections to the first printing of Building Simulated Aircraft Instrumentation.

An author would wish for a book with no mistakes. Should there be any he would hope them to be small and unnoticed. Quite embarrassingly, that is not the case here. In true Lewis Carroll fashion, this book has three titles. It is CALLED Building Simulated Aircraft Instruments. It IS Making Simulated Aircraft Instruments. It is TITLED Building Simulated Aircraft Instrumentation. These labels are used variously on the cover, the title page, the page headers of the left hand pages, an d the order form. The "official" title is on the cover.

Page 185: Bill of materials incorrectly labeled "Turn Coordinator Bill of Materials". It should be labeled "Servo VOR/GS CDI Bill of Materials". (Thanks Brian for pointing this out.)

Page 157: In the paragraph immediately below section heading "Interrupt Service Code", "...every 2.5 msec" should be "...every 0.8 msec".

Page 57: Pin 16 of the L293D is shown connected to Movement power which is roughly 12 volts. Pin 16 supplies power to the logic portion of the chip. There are apparently some versions of the L293D chip that have a 7 volt maximum for the logic supply voltage . A more conservative approach is to connect pin 16 to +5 volts, regardless of the chip version.

Page 124: Figure 6 does not list the material thickness. It should be called out as 0.050" aluminum.

Page 133: Figure 21 is drawn with the left mounting hole slightly to the left of its correct position. This is a illustration issue only. The dimensions printed on the drawing are correct.

Page 137: Figure 27 incorrectly lists the thickness of the light diffuser as 7/32". It should be 1/4".

Page 122: Figure 4 does not have a length shown for the adjuster shaft. The length will depend on what knob you are using. Eight tens of an inch is a good start, however.

Page 138: The two 9/64" holes to either side of the center hole on the circuit deck should not be there. These two holes should be on the roll bushing deck in the same figure.

Firmware issue: This is not an error in the book, but you will now get an error (or several) when you assemble the firmware using the current version of Microchip MPLAB. The new versions from Microchip now have tighter control over memory allocation in the micro controller. This is implemented in a linker file that names memory regions and optionally restricts access to them. You will have to change the default settings in the linker file. You should be able to remove the PROTECT flag for the Vector Page definition and have the code assemble.

Page 175: About 16 lines done the page there is the line: "movlw  0x02A" It should be "movlw 0x029".

Page 199: The next to last sentence on the page should be: "The 1K resistors can be replaced with 10K units"

It's possible that I'm not as smart as I think I am. (Occasionally, I have moments when I know this to be true. Fortunately the feeling passes quickly.) Although I have tried to make this information as accurate as I can, it is not only possible, but also quite likely, that errors lurk within. I cannot and do not warrant these pages to be error free and correct. Further I accept no liability for the use of this information (or misinformation). If, after reading this, you are still interested, please be aware that the contents of this site are protected by copyright (copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 by John M. Powell). Nonetheless, you may copy this material subject to these three conditions: (1) the copyright notice is copied and presented along with the material, (2) the copy is used for non-commercial purposes, and (3) the source of the material is properly credited. And of course, you may link to this page.