Does anybody have any recommendations on getting started with building a minimalist ‘home cockpit’? When I say 'home cockpit" I actually just mean a few simple gauges or peripherals so that I don’t have to rely on instruments on screen.
Also, does FS2020 now support a forward facing non instrument view? My new PC arrives tomorrow so I can finally get started with this amazing sim!
The Logitech panels are pretty good, for entry level gear:
If you want something a little more specific, and closer to real life parts, you can look at these, for example:
Cool, thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for. Just trying to get an idea of all the possibilities right now. I’d ideally like something modular so I can add to it over time…
I think most of that kit would allow for you to build upon what you get initially. You could even mix, and match them.
You can also buy off the shelf panels to insert your instruments into:
Myself, I’ve been looking for a freestanding panel to mount my Logitech panels into. I don’t have the space to have a permanent mount like those above, and they get very unstable when they get taller, and for me two is the limit, or they fall over backwards. 
Cool! Yeah, until my wife approves a dedicated sim-rig I need to use my work-from-home office and it’s a tight room. Space is at a premium.
Also does anybody know if there are any decent ‘virtual’ gauges that you can use on an iPad / iPhone / Touch etc? Is that sort of tech being supported in FS2020 yet?
Hey, I just made one yesterday. It took me less than an hour.
What I wanted to do is mount a stack of 3 Saitek instruments above the throttle quadrant, which I have mounted on the front of the desktop. Problem is the top part of the quadrant bracket sits about 9mm high with a 9x9 cm footprint. - if I put a stack on that they would just topple off. What I needed was a base plate of some kind.
So I measured out an old piece of plasterboard/drywall cut it wide enough to mount a base panel on, plus about 3cm extra each side to take a mini g-clamp, and about twice the width of the throttle quadrant base bracket (so a total width of 18cm)
I then cut out a section in the middle to the size of the top part of the quadrant mounting bracket (9cm X 9cm)
I painted it black, screwed a module frame to the base, added some little felt pads on the underside to protect the glass of my desktop and then used two mini g-clamp s to hold it securely in place.
I had to order the mini clamps (£3 on Amazon), but everything else was just odds and ends I had in the house.
I can safely stack 3 panels and none of them are going anywhere and it all looks very neat.
Sounds well worth it! Do you have a pic and a list of some of the saitek components?
I’ll send a pic when I get back home.
I’m looking into doing something similar. Would be good to see a picture of your setup.
Yes there are a couple of apps that allow you to run panels on a tablet, can’t remember the names right off but they are here in this section of the forum. Be aware, popping out panels destroys FPS so you will probably need a 3K series GPU.
He there - you can see the baseplate I made below the stack - 2 mini g clamps hold it in place - there is a spare one so you can see.
I use this desk for work too, so I need all my set up to be easily removable.
A view of the cut-out in the base plate to accommodate the throttle quadrant.
I’m probably going to make another plate for the multi-switch panel and mount that on the low-left as the ergonomics will work a little better. With head tracking and a trackball mouse, I barely need to use the keyboad. The best thing is the auto-pilot panel - mucking around with those controls on the screen is really bad as it takes your view away for too long.
