richfiles

My Big Red Button™ and Big Green Button™ light up, click, and are totally awesome! If interested in this style they are similar to arcade machine buttons. The one Stibbons uses is an e-stop type button (Emergency Stop), commonly used in industrial settings. Be aware that some e-stop switches are locking (you must twist them to release them. These are not very suitable for abort or staging buttons. You need to find a proper "momentary" style e-stop switch. **EDIT** Oh wow... I just realized I did not have the Futura font on my system when I created these button's nomenclature inserts... That's an absolute necessity for my build (Futura is the primary font NASA used in the Apollo program and the shuttle program's instrument panels). I'm gonna need to re-print these inserts using Futura.

I know this feel man... I know this pain... Look at page 10 of this thread... I know your pain... OVER 50% failure rate on the LED modules I got, and they kept on failing after using them for a while. If I recall, it's using the SPI serial protocol to send data to the chips, but it's on arbitrarily defined pins that the library initializes. One issue with this, is if you have a lot of long runs of wire, you can introduce noise or timing glitches that cause the signals to fail. One method people have found to help with this is to twist your wires. I've heard some people twist CLK with GND and the Data line with VCC. There is a problem with this that could be troublesome, which I'll explain below. The best bet is to minimize cable run. Consider the total length of wire that needs to run for the Clock and Data lines... You need to include the PC board of the LED drivers, the wires between them, and the wires to your controller. Smart layout will help you a LOT! You'll have a lower overall data transmission length by connecting the LEDs vertically, going down one column, up the next, and down the last column. That's the least amount of criss-crossing of wire runs to connect modules. So, I mentioned a potential problem involving VCC before. I noticed with the particular boards I bought, that if you connect power serially (VCC and GND Out from one board to VCC and GND In of the next), they were passing the output through the reverse voltage protection diode (my boards had it)... The problem is this introduces a voltage drop of about 0.6 volts with each additional board. By the end of the chain, the boards barely have sufficient power to even turn on, if at all! The solution is to connect all the VCC and GND directly to your power. I'm not saying your boards are like that, but check your voltages, cause mine were, and they look VERY similar to yours. The way to test this is to use a multimeter with a diode check and a continuity check. Test continuity between he two VCC pins. If you don't get continuity, then switch to diode check, and test if you get OverFlow in one direction and 0.4-0.7 in the other direction. That means your reverse voltage protection diode is wired inline, and you can not daisy chain power! Notice how all my power connections are all connected directly between the power source (on the Arduino) and the input power connectors. I never pull power from the VCC output, cause on my boards, the design is actually wrong. I ONLY take the three signal wires from the output end of one module and bring it to input end of the next module. If you measure a diode between VCC In and VCC Out, this will be necessary. ***I have NO IDEA why I marked option 2 with an X. Option 2 is fine. Option one is the one with extra long wire runs to avoid.*** The second one is actually okay, if you really wanna keep consistent order... I mean, it adds a little extra wire length, but unless you actually have problems, probably not the end of the world... Jut too lazy to change the red X to a... green check. First one has long wire runs that some people have had problems with noise or timing issues. I think most people would be fine, but hey, just minimizing extra bus length. The first three all have one basic fault... Max number of devices per bus is exceeded. No problem though, as you can assign additional pins as a second bus. The example below explains it... /* If you need to control more than 8 MAX72XX, you can always create another LedControl-variable that uses 3 different pins on your Arduino board. The only thing you have to do is to initialize another LedControl */ /* we have to include the library */ #include "LedControl.h" // Create a LedControl for 8 devices... LedControl lc1=LedControl(12,11,10,8); // ... and another control for ANOTHER 8 devices. Now we control 1024 LEDs from an Arduino, not bad! // Note : the second one must use different pins! LedControl lc2=LedControl(9,8,7,8); With that, you can define two separate SPI busses and each bus can control up to 8 different MAX7219 modules. You ought to even be able to control your annunciator grid with a MAX7219, if you wire it in the correct matrix.

I recall the LED library for those Max7219 boards supports 8 devices per SPI bus. You can set up multiple SPI busses though, so your configuration would require 2 SPI busses to be set up. Is there any reason you're not just making the panel a little bit taller to giving yourself a little more space vertically? Remember, if you make your enclosure to mount your panel at an angle, then you can stretch the height a little, and not have it go passed the edge of the monitors.

So very much jealous of you and your space... for spaaaaaace! This is way beyond cool! not duplicating the epic awesome pics, to keep this thread clean I have had a crazy thought though, and it's all your fault! I envision a rebuild of my desk on wheels arranged in a "C" shape that would let it rotate 90°. Rotate one way fro relaxing and watching TV, and rotate the other way to clear out several feet of open space... Good for VR, guests, etc... Adopting the idea of a large center screen (doubles as a TV) and a cockpit layout would be a very fitting layout for such a "convertible" entertainment space. Who knows... Maybe someday! Right now, It's only an idea, and nothing more. My current desk is big, boxy, and not very well mannered in the mobility department.

I just had a minor shoulder strain... I feel for you man... but like, I don't feel THAT much! Mine's minor! Yikes, that sounds painful! Hopefully that tear mends well enough. Shoulders are a real pain in the a... back... Yeah. That part. I noticed your fuzzy co-pilot! Glad to see a bright future as a test pilot! His primary function will be to keep the co-pilot's seat warm for the lady of the house, if she ever sits in on a Munar mission! Your pics are a joy to look at, not just for the incredible progress, but for all the fun stuff™ on the walls! From flags to Axeman, to the numerous references to recreational imbibement... Both liquid and vaporeous... Good times... good times...

OPM and that Valentine planet mod are honestly the only ones that have ever really caught my interest... I guess that speaks to the quality of those mods! I would imagine that it might be worth it to have the tech tree offer upgrades to what must be supplied vs what can be generated/maintained via habitat recycling/growth and ISRU. Low entry tech would require stations to supply large amounts of resources with restock missions. Upgraded tech would permit more and more to be recycled or grown or processed on the habitat, and the top level tech tree would unlock full ISRU based upkeep. I guess that's how I'd think to handle it if I were doing it. I absolutely love that Civilians are now full-fledged Kerbals. I've not run anything of this new version at all. Truth is, I haven't actively played KSP since 1.0.4, and that was only light play (Mun, Minmus, and probes to Eve and Duna), since 0.90... I've been spending the past year and half working on physical projects (A custom mechanical keyboard, and a KSP instrument panel/controller that I'm building into my desk). The wait for 1.1 and the hardware projects pretty much put me into 100% wait mode. (Also Fallout 4, LOL ) This is high on my list of desired mods, for the simple fact, that I miss my old "Silent Running" station! I like green in space! I also miss the old school 8m biodome, and 25m stanford torus... That pack broke in the transition to 1.0... I think attachment nodes and thermal stuff is what broke. Sad to see that one go.

Although, with large pics, it'd be nice if replies clipped them or spoiler them, so we don't have a mile long page of repeating pics!

Give us all the details! Big pics are best pics! Hmm... My computer desk IS pretty huge... And there is no wife in the picture... I wonder...

My day... You have made it! Thanks!

My coworkers saw me laugh at this, on my break, without reference.

I'm certain KSP has a future... Moders will make certain of that. KSP isn't dying... I just question whether it still has the capacity for core growth. Bugs like the wheels and landing gear problems... Who even knows if those will ever get fixed... I have faith in the modding community. Just having a hard time scraping the bottom of the barrel for any faith in Squad right now...

Tried to get aboard the hype train. Found out i was sold fake tickets... This day has just been... Dang... I just have this vision of mission control, the lights are on at only a few stations. A few heads are there still... But most of the seats are empty, the consoles shut down. The screen on the wall showing a flat noise floor on the radio telemetry spectrograph... End of transmission... No hype...

This is it... This is the end... Expect Jeb, Bill, Bob, Val and Seth Rog... Kerman and crew to all be fed to the Kraken, If they're lucky, they'll be raptured to the great space center in the sky, and maybe sever one of the Kraken's tentacles in the process...

@Claw You still gonna be doing this on the forums, or are you done with running Elcano too? We're all sad to see you leaving the dev team... Still, I wish you well in whatever non green dude related endeavors you pursue...

So... I discovered that Gilly Vanilli is... broken in at least 1.1.3 and is still broken in the 1.2 experimentals... Long story short, the flexible docking port based suspension... is rigid as a rock in newer versions of KSP. Apparently, it has to do with the way the game auto-struts wheels to compensate for some nasty wheel behavior. Seems wheels auto-strut to the part with the largest mass, and not based on proximity, thus the wheels are being auto-strutted across the docking ports, rendering their flexibility useless. That flexibility is what saved all those Kerbal lives when I decided to test Gilly Vanilli's lithobraking capabilities at speed. I REALLY wanna use a variant of Gilly Vanilli, or my revised version. (wheels not installed in this screenshot) Pretend these wheels are on the vessel above... Sadly, as I was saying, the vessel is kinda... Not going anywhere with the issues in the current versions of KSP. I'm hoping that wheel auto strutting can be limited to fan out to only a limited number of parts worth of separation, as well as to be able to form isolated auto-strutted networks. that do not cross coupling devices. Till this is a feature (if ever)... Docking port based suspension is dead. So then... If I want to use a vessel I know works, are there any restrictions regarding, say playing an older version of KSP, such as 1.0.4? I think that one still worked with my Gilly Vanilli style rovers... I think. I have a feeling it's the only way I'm going to be able to try this, at least with the vehicle I WANTED to take out for a really, REALLY long roll around the block (ALL the blocks).

If you had HDMI signal switches to swap your signals from monitor to monitor, could you build using the small monitors in front of you, and fly with window monitors? With a wide format window, can you just set up mod cameras with windows where the side windows are (boxes hide by the trim). It's extra work to set up EVERY time... but if you switch to IVA mode, then maybe that will work? Since the window is wide, all the mod camera views will stay within the confines of the KSP screen, and won't require any fancy programming. Right? As for my setup... I will end up finishing all the construction, and having absolutely zilch for code to show for it... I'm using this to force myself to learn coding, but I find coding to be the homework of tinkering. I expect foot dragging of all kinds.

My controller is not quite so huge, but it will be rather elaborate, and will mount centrally into my desk. I have physical edgewise meters for resources, a physical vertical velocity meter, an analog tape meter (for radar altimeter), a physical navball, and LED readouts arranged as a "mock" Apollo style DSKY arranged on a vertically oriented panel as my instrument panel, and a whole lotta toggles and such, and some joysticks, etc mounted on my horizontally oriented control panel. The entire thing is just over 30 inches wide (a bit less than a meter). It's certainly not a full simpit like you are building, but it DOES do one thing not space related. I'm going to incorporate some sliders to control the LED lighting in my room and on my desk... And that is where your red LED suggestion comes into play... I am SO gonna copy you! I already have hardware in place to drive a large number of LED strips, and my desk is already arranged to allow LED strips to light the desk from above, so why not incorporate this feature into my own build! It's absolutely simple, and absolutely genius. So what are you using as criteria? I figure that temperature actually might have less a factor compared to velocity vs atmospheric density. Temp could come to play when max temp is close to popping the ship, but in general, I think it'd mostly be atmospheric effects. Another thought... Since it's possible to also know sphere of influence, you could also upgrade to an RGB LED strip as well. Program the RGB values for each atmosphere, and figure out if you are in the sunlight or not, and have the RGB LEDs dimly glow with the appropriate atmospheric color when in any bodies atmosphere. This would be affected by the atmospheric density, and probably whether you are in the path of the sun... That one might actually be hard to figure out. Even if you don't figure out that specific detail, you could still have a dimly lit glow matching the atmospheric color. Alternately, if you want a toggleable light switch, the toggle could toggle "near white", with a slight tint to match the local atmosphere's color, for on, and a dim atmospheric color to represent off. The reentry heating effect would simply spam the red part of the RGB strip. For me, I'm going to mount all my LED strips under the edge of the top shelf of my desk.

GAH! Looking for a Mega 2560 that has the CH340G chip is excruciatingly annoying! All the listings on eBay seem to include BOTH 16U2 and CH340G, just to snag extra hits... Makes searching a pain! Anyway, I need to give up my search and get some sleep... Getting up for work is rapidly approaching... and my being asleep is not... I'm running on Mac OS, but I'd rather have a unit that CAN run on Windows 10. I'd like that incase I ever need to test with my Win 10 (dual boot), or if I travel to some event (like a maker faire, etc) with my controller and tablet... It's a dual core i5, and I can still launch small craft just fine)

Consider getting an Arduino clone that uses the CH340 chip for communication. Since they are invariably cheap Chinese clones, they tend to be dirt cheap. Even if it ends up being little more than a hub to distribute packet data between other Arduinos and the PC, or if you actually use it as your primary controller, that's probably all you really need. It uses a different driver than the native Atmel 16U2 or FTDI based communications. I remember ages ago, someone on the Arduino hardware thread had mentioned KSP Serial IO was working for him in Windows 10. That was suspected as the reason, but just the other day, @Mattew has actually successfully run KSP Serial I/O on Windows 10 and transmitted data, both ways, for long durations of time. So, it is confirmed that using CH340 based Arduino clones solves the communication issues immediately, and it narrows the Windows 10 issue specifically to the driver that the Atmel 16U2 relies on for communication. Hopefully, this will lead to a solution for all Arduinos soon, regardless of whether they have a 16U2 or a CH340 equipped. To summarize: Windows 10 appears to WORK with CH340 equipped Arduino clones!

Is this 1.1.3 compatible? Would love to see an update. ' Likewise, with 1.2 coming out soon, and the work on fuel flow being shown off by the devs and experimental testers, I certainly hope this mod gets updated!

You could experiment. Get some structural plates and install a probe core, a battery and a grid of lights. Set your action groups and see what works and what doesn't Keep adding lights till you get glitches. Then your lights are in neat rows and columns. You can see exactly which lights (by order of installation and by order of action group setting) fail, and count out the amount that work. Maybe there's a bug? Who knows. Also take symmetry into consideration, if it's applicable.

Is this one kaput? It sounds like it would have been a great, very useful mod!

It wouldn't need to be very intrusive either. Just a row of collapsible indicators extending from the time/coms box to the altimeter/rate box could do it. Honestly, I'm sure a mod could add such a feature, but stock would be nice too. Maybe an alarm at 10% resources.

I am curious, with the discussion on new fonts/font rendering in the upcoming KSP v1.2, is it possible to drop in an alternate font into the game? The reason I ask, is I happen to have the font "Futura" on my system. Thanks to the research I've done for my custom Kerbal game controller, I've learned that NASA used the Futura typeface on their instrument panels in the Apollo program (and I believe on the Shuttle also). Anyway, I got the font, knowing I'll need it for my controller build. It'll be a desk mounted instrument panel, with real meters, indicators, joysticks, toggle switches, and even a real navball! I wanted it to feel as authentically "spacey" as possible, hence the reason I'm using the font NASA themselves used. Now, I know the font used in most of KSP's text is a san-serif font, much like Futura. What I'd like to know, is whether or not there's a way to get KSP to display it's text using a different font. Whether this can be done by replacing a font file somewhere into the KSP files, altering some file to reference a different system font, or whether a mod can be used to alter the default font, I'd love to know. I just REALLY wanna see what KSP looks like with it's primary font rendered in Futura (and matching my "cockpit" styled controller!

RIP @Madrias's Valentina... My Valentina, on the other green hand, is such a freakin' BadS that she jumped from a capsule 8 km in the sky, and landed her free falling leap flawlessly... Walked away like a baws! How... We may never know. I just know that she really used her head to get out of that sticky situation! I also agree that a hearse would be a very awesome vehicle to add. As a side note, the addition of a few lights and such might make the model suitable for a Ghostbusters re-skin, depending on if you go with an old school or a modern styled hearse. Krakenbusters?