PMDG 737 rebuild series, week 6: Electrical, APU, wiper panels; preview releases

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In week 6 of our PMDG 737 rebuild series, we will cover the Electrical, APU, and wipers panels. We also introduced preview builds of TFM, so keep reading to find out more. Unfortunately, I lost my laptop to a Windows crash and am still putting it back together. Now, on with the panels.

 

Electrical

The electrical panel is much like the rest of the panels we covered so far. The methods of access are present: tabbing through the controls and using keyboard shortcuts. We will go over the keyboard shortcuts below.

 

  • ALT+B – battery selector. Use arrows to change.
  • ALT+R – Ground power switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
  • ALT+C – Cabin utility switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
  • ALT+F – Passenger seats (IFE) switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
  • ALT+D – DC power group. Has 3 controls.
    • DC power selector. Use arrows to change.
    • DC volts – Indicator.
    • DC amps – Indicator.
  • ALT+A – AC power group. Has 3 controls.
    • AC power selector. Use arrows to change.
    • AC amps – Indicator.
    • AC volts – Indicator.
  • ALT+S – Standby power selector. Use arrows to change.
  • ALT+I – IDG disconnect group. Has 2 controls.
    • IDG #1 disconnect switch – Toggle with spacebar or enter.
    • IDG #2 disconnect switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
  • ALT+G – Generators group. Has 5 controls.
    • Generator #1 switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
    • Generator #2 switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
    • APU generator #1 switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
    • APU generator #2 switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
    • Bus transfer switch. Toggle with spacebar or enter.
  • ALT+N – Indicators group. Has 14 controls in this group.
    • Battery discharge
    • TR unit
    • Elec
    • Drive #1
    • Drive #2
    • Standby power
    • Ground power available
    • Transfer bus #1
    • Transfer bus #2
    • DC source
    • AC source
    • Generator #1 bus
    • Generator #2 bus
    • APU generator bus

 

APU

The APU panel is self explanatory. It only has 6 indicators listed below.

 

  • ALT+T – EGT needle. Indicator only.
  • ALT+M – Maint. Indicator only.
  • ALT+O – Low oil pressure. indicator only.
  • ALT+F – Fault. indicator only.
  • ALT+S – Overspeed. indicator only.

 

Wipers

Wipers is a simple panel that has 2 controls listed below.

 

  • ALT+L – Left wipers. Use arrows to change.
  • Alt+R – Right wipers. Use arrows to change.

Restart TFM!

 

We added a new keyboard shortcut to restart TFM. You can use it by pressing right bracket (]) then Ctrl+Shift+X.

Preview versions of TFM

 

We started releasing preview versions of TFM last Monday. This gives users the ability to get hands-on experience with the new features before they appear in the normal release. Since we started offering preview versions of TFM, people have been asking some questions about the process. We will answer the most common questions in this section.

TFM is open source. This means that anyone who has an interest in new features can get the source, build it, play around with the new features, then report back in the GitHub issue queue. Some users aren’t interested in the source or don’t have the technical skills needed to run TFM from source. So, we offer preview versions that are installable and ready to use. The preview versions can be installed side by side with the official release.

You can access the preview versions from the preview releases section of the website. When a preview version is out, it will have a higher version number in the release notes than the official release. When the preview build becomes the official release, the preview releases page will offer the official version. There isn’t a schedule for the preview releases, so we will make announcements when they are released to the public. As a friendly reminder, preview builds have no support attached to them. Use at your own risk. On the other hand, the official release does come with support.

If you need to contact us, feel free to do so on the contact page. If you need to report a bug or new feature, press right bracket (]) then Ctrl+Shift+I while TFM is running. We hope to see you during week 7 of the PMDG 737 rebuild series.