richfiles

Ugh... Custom keyboards are expeeeeeensive... I'm too broke now to move forward with my FDAI driver redesign, nor have I replaced my bad LEDs yet... That, and Fallout 4 is also not going to be missed... I may not even have this thing RUNNING till sometime next year, not for lack of drive, but lack of parts funding! Also possibly copious amounts of Wasteland Wandering™ That being said... Yeah... fully custom keyboards are expensive. This is what I'll have, once all the parts arrive... By February... It's a custom 75% layout, with one additional column added to the right hand side. It uses the Danger Zone key cap set, with Gateron MX compatible Blue mechanical tactile clicky switches. The plate will be anodized blue aluminum, and will be mounted to a wood frame using brass screws. Bottom of the frame will probably be either a steel or brass plate for both weight and strength. Don't need the keyboard sliding around. I haven't decided if the ☮ key will be a mute button (PEACE and quiet), or if I'll use it as a dead key or modifier key for entering non standard characters. UP and DOWN are volume. The ⦿ key will be my screen grab key. D★Z will probably be a generic function key unless I can come up with another use. On Macs, that EJECT key will actually eject media. I've been talking with a guys who is working on a keyboard that magnetically splits. They have an interesting locking mechanism, and I am going to try to either buy one, or machine it at the shop I work at, with the goal of making a magnetically detachable number pad for this thing. I've been trying to work out the geometry and mechanics for a magnetically flipped side cap to cover the pogo pin contacts and the magnets and hardened steel pin inset holes. On the number pad, I want to see if I can mount the hardened steel pins on VERY light springs that will retract the pins when not magnetically engaged, but will allow them to extend and engage into the main keyboard when they are magnetically drawn. If my mechanism works, It'll make a VERY satisfying snap whenever the keyboard sections lock together! Or, I might get lazy and just have the number pad on a cable? Who knows. I could get lazy. As to the price... I WAY over spent on add-on packs to this key set to get nearly every unique key the set offered. I took a $65 key cap set and made it... more... MUCH more. Lets just stop at saying I spent more on keys that are NOT part of the base set! The custom aluminum keyswitch plate was $50, and the actual switches were about $30. Controller will either be salvaged from an actual keyboard, or it will be a Teensy, which I already have. So... now that we ALL know why I am BROKE, and stalled with funding my Kerbal controller, on to what I NEED to DO to actually proceed... My first issue was the garbage green LED seven-segment displays I got. Chinese TRASH! In the end, the failure rate passed 50%... I am serious... MORE than half of the units had defects! I see that the MAX7219 boards have a 10K resistor installed for the current set, which basically sets the current at maximum. I have NO idea if the high current damaged the green LEDs (as the failures happened over time), or if the LEDs were just poorly manufactured trash. The fact is, that the datasheet of the LEDs specifically state that when multiplexed, they should be able to handle almost double the current being driven to them! I'm tempted to just buy some quality green LED displays from Digikey, but I will l almost CERTAINLY have to manually wire them to the display boards, as the pinouts won't match the Chinese parts. 4 digit displays are not as common as they ought to be... Also, the Chinese displays are an odd size... 0.39 inches. Actually, i just suspect they are really 1 cm displays. The ones typically carried by Digikey are either smaller or larger than that, but I don't think the pinouts match either. Regardless of how much of a pain wiring them will be, they cost like 3-4x more than the Chinese ones, and after my little keyboard insanity... Nope! I will probably not have spare spending cash till next YEAR, unless I get some much needed unexpected income. I could consider giving the Chinese LEDs a shot again, but I've burned out my trust in that source... The fact that almost ALL of the MAX7219 display modules ship with red LEDs is also telling for me. Why are green LEDs so scarce on ebay right now? I can buy red without even trying, and there are even blue and white ones if you look, but green is next to non-existent. Green is one of the OLD LED colors. Green should be both cheap and easy to manufacture... So why the scarcity? Unless there is an actual ongoing supply/quality problem, I simply can not understand why greens would be so non-existent on the Hong Kong ebay train! This simply tells me... AVOID Chinese green LED displays like the plague! Their rarity tells me there is a problem. The second major issue... and it is major... Is that I keep having trouble with my current DAC design. It puts 100% of the workload on the Arduino to generate all 10 of the sine waves required, all at 400 Hz, with realtime waveform generation. Some basic math tells me this is a gargantuan task. I need 10 sine waves. I can do MOST of the work using lookup tables, but I still need to calculate the offsets of yaw, pitch, and roll (by adding 120° and 240° to each of the three values) and looking up the attenuation values for each of the 9 results from a lookup table, for each frame, assuming 20-60 frames/second. I need to then multiply the reference sine wave (which can also be generated by lookup table) with the attenuation values (9 multiplications), and send the reference and the 9 results of multiplications to the DACs, which requires 10 I2C transmits, with a digital out changed on each update. These multiplications happen at the sampling rate of the sine wave, not the frame updates. I only update the multiplication values with each frame update. If I need even 256 steps in my sine wave cycle (that's a low resolution, but It's my attenuation resolution that defines the angle of the navball, and temporal resolution would be somewhat smoothed out by filtering), then the math works out as follows: At 400 Hz, if I have only 256 "slices" of the sine wave over one cycle, and 10 sine waves to update, I have to write the I2C bus 1024000 times EVERY SECOND... I... Is that even possible? I am fairly certain this exceeds the maximum data rate for I2C. There appear to be 4 speed standards: 100 kbit/s, 400 kbit/s, 1 mbit/s, and 3.2 Mbit/s... Even the fastest speed wouldn't handle the bandwidth of just 8 bits sent at that rate. If I could get the resolution out of the PWM to do it, it might work, but the PWM resolution isn't even high enough for a whole degree of ball rotation per step! Ouch! That's one jittery navball there! I may reuse my DAC board for meter movement, if I can mod the amps to drive DC (they are audio amps, and can only drive AC, but I think that is only because they are AC coupled with a capacitor inline with the inputs and outputs). If I simply remove the amp boards, it will probably work fine. That could be a reasonable use for the I2C DACs. As it stands, the $40 or so dollars spent on my DAC board, and the time spent building it, are more or less wasted. The solution is VERY simple and elegant, but also MUCH more expensive that my original plan, and more complex, hardware wise. I need to use a totally different type of DAC. I need one with an adjustable voltage reference. All I need to do is generate a single sine wave with a hardware sine wave generator (can be done with either an analog circuit, or the $7-12 MAX038 chip). I just set it to produce a 400 Hz sine wave, and that's it. I need to feed that to a pair of op amps to create a differential pair (opposing cycle polarities), and use an analog switch to select either the un-inverted or the inverted sine wave to feed into the DAC's voltage reference. This is: 1 hardware 400 Hz sine wave generator. 2 op-amps to create inverted and non inverted outputs. 20 analog switches (usually 4-8 come on one chip) to select whether to flip or not flip the reference sine wave. 10 DACs with adjustable voltage references. ***(I'll explain why this feature is necessary in a moment) 10 power amplifiers driving into transformers that drive the actual FDAI at the desired high voltages. So, the adjustable voltage reference input is the real trick to making this work. If you have 0 attenuation, then the DAC is at maximum output, but the output will scale to the voltage reference, so as the sine wave rises and falls, the output matches. If the attenuation were at 100%, then the output would be at it's minimum, meaning no matter how hight he input sine wave rises and falls, it's scaled down to nothing. As the attenuation scales between 0-100%, it scales the actual sine wave that is being input on the voltage reference. The DAC basically becomes a hardware attenuator! These are actually sometimes referred to as multiplying DACs. The problem, if I want one that has decent resolution, I may be spending quite a bit. Some of these are over $7-10 per chip, and I need 9! Add to that I need 20 analog switch chips (or 10 that toggle between an A/B input), though they are fortunately not that expensive. I still need the output stages, which is basically just a simple amplifier. I MIGHT be able to reuse the amplifiers I installed not he DAC board by desoldering them. I may need to drive a power op amp though, to push enough current into the final stage, the transformers, in order to have enough power to actually drive the FDAI. I have around a dozen LM675 power op-amps that I hope can do the trick. Those were not cheap, but I already have them. I may end up needing to hand wind my own transformers, just to keep myself on budget. I have no idea what it'd cost me for 9 transformers to bump the voltages driven by the low voltage DAC circuit, to the 70-115 volts** wanted by the FDAI. I may also give up on a welded chassis... I just simply have not had TIME to get out to the farm to weld anything, nor do I currently have materials. Since my plan was to sandwich my printed consoles between plexiglass, to get the backlighting effect, most of my console will be plastic faced anyway. I can settle with painting wood grey, I guess. ** EDIT Only the reference is driven by 115 VAC. The synchros operate at 28 VAC, far easier to drive!

That virtual navball looks amazing! I'm still stuck at just simply not having the software experience to do mine yet, and still not really having viable hardware yet.

Bugger all if I know?

I'm gonna agree with the good Doc here... If I click Disable Crossfeed on a docking port, I would EXPECT that to be respected by the game. If it is not respected by the game, then the game is suffering from BAD DESIGN! With all the code rewrites happening for the transition to Unity 5, planned for 1.1, I HOPE that this issue gets resolved! Saying to disable crossfeed on your tanks is simply NOT a solution for highly specialized landing vessels that use numerous small tanks to keep a compact profile, or for landers inside fairings or cargo bays. where the act of re-enabling them for use/disabling them for stowing would be exceptionally tedious. Clicking a docking port and selecting disable crossfeed SHOULD be all we need to do. It takes a LOT of gall to say "this is not a bug"! This is simply coding that has not even addressed a major issue. It IS a bug, in so much as the programmers have yet to even address the fault! It's NOT a feature. My temporary solution has been to use the GPOSpeedFuelPump mod, the descendant of the good old classic Goodspeed Fuel Pump. It lets you set pumping levels and enable automatic pumping and balancing. This means, if i set my lander to level 0, my orbital platform to level 1, and my stages kept subsequently higher levels, then I can have the GPO maintain the levels of my lander's tanks, simply by being docked with the orbital platform or launcher.

18 minute burn.... there's your problem! You have to split the burn. NASA does this with their Dawn probe too. What's happening, is you are getting too far away from your Periapse and still burning. Eventually, you'll swing around the other side of the planet and be burning the other direction (on the wrong side of Kerbin, that maneuver node is making you lose velocity). You MUST split your ion drive burns. If it's an 18 minute burn, start burning 3 minutes befor periapse, and shut down 3 minutes after. Orbit once, with engines off, and repeat it a total of 3 times. The last time should have you close to your desired escape trajectory. You may find that the second orbit leaves you waiting days to come back around to periapse. You might even get close to escape trajectory. Try to save the actual escape for the last burn, and split it in half at periapse, half before, and half after. If you are taking more than 1/3 of an orbit for thrusting - - - Updated - - - Then you either need to split it more, or plan more thrusters.

The point of doing this is usually best aimed at getting jet engines completely spun up without burning flight fuel. That's burning total ∆v, don'tcha know! Spin up on launch clamp fuel, and when thrust is at full power, let 'er rip! Sitting on the pad to pump and run is just plain silly!

I spread it out. save for them. The 2 TB drives were purchased over many years, starting in 2009-2010. The 4 TB was last year, and the SSD was early this year. The 6 TB was this month, and is meant to replace 3 of the 2 TB drives, which are getting to be 5-6 years old. I used to have a GREAT job as a technician back in 2009, but now i work a lesser job at a lab (the place I used to work for closed doors after it was bought out). I got the 2 TB drives in a batch of 3 and then 5 back then, when I still had significant income coming in. The 3 TB drives were Walmart USB 3drives that I got between 2013 and 2014. I'll probably grab another 6 TB around tax refund time (if you don't know how taxes in the USA works... They take your taxes off of your income, then they say either they took too much and give you a refund, or ask you to pay more if they didn't take enough.) I ONLY buy Hitachi/HGST drives. They are by far the most reliable 3.5 inch mechanical hard drive I've seen.

I had been running Steam and KSP on an External USB 3 HDD for the passed year. Steam won't run on a Case Sensitive file system on Macs, and I have ALWAYS formatted my startup drive as case sensitive. Had to setup a symbolic link to make Steam even work. Now, i have a 1 TB SSD for OS and Steam. I caved and formatted it as case-insensitive... You know, cause it's easier to use a different format than convince lazy coders to add support to their software -Glares at Steam- Since I run a Hackintosh, upgrades are a little more complicated than a natural Mac OS X install, so I'm still working on it. Is till use HDDs though... LOTS of them. Just not for Steam and OS anymore. Right now, it's: 1x 1TB SSD (OS, Steam, and KSP) 1x 6TB HDD 1x 4TB HDD 8x 2TB HDD 2x 3TB USB3 HDD Yes, that's 33 TB of storage... I do plan to retire all the 2 TB drives over the next year or two by replacing them with 6 TB drives, so I can run fewer drives for the same amount of space. And it's mostly for video.

i can only imagine what the tracking station list is like...

Skip to 3:55 for actual launch... Look Ma! No chutes, no thrusters! just explody crumple zones, a torque wheel, and a lander can! Back when I recorded this, I had switched from playing the sandbox mode of Kerbal Space Program, to Career mode. I also came to the bright conclusion that it was about time to build a Mun lander. One that can do SCIENCE! Behold my lander, "Mun Luna". I totally meant to forget to stow the landing gear. I did an earlier (not recorded) launch pad landing test by going up to 500 meters and attempting to land... MechJeb decided on the ascent stage that it wanted to actually ORBIT the planet once before landing on the VAB pad... The craft angled away from the target and shot off at full throttle. Yeah... Not happening on 39 seconds of fuel... /)_- So, I tacked "Mun Luna" onto a thrust stage featuring both an abundance of fuel + a science lab craft that I intend to rendezvous with to collect science from the Mun. Not part of this test, is plans for either boosters or asparagus staging, whichever gets me into space. So anyway... Like I said, I've been experimenting with MechJeb, and had some bad numbers left over from those lander tests... lander numbers left in place when I did a full scale launcher test... This video covers the ensuing hijinks of that launch "attempt". Said Jebadiah, after successfully landing a Lander Can at 94 m/sec, "I AM INVINCIBLE!" No vats of liquid nitrogen were near by, and the VAB tanks were no where near him, so he felt safe proclaiming this fact. Jeb did step a few steps away from the monopropellant tanks though... I also apologize for the audio quality... This was honestly, genuinely just a test, but the resulting video was ridiculous, so you get what you get. I literally had the TV on in the background, and inadvertently allowed audio passthrough, hence the echoes.

They use an in house font called "Gorton Modified"... I don't think they have a digital version available. I think it's strictly an in house tooling thing. It's based off of a plotter/engraver typeface that's been in use since around the 50s. I think it's a closer match to the typeface engraved on a lot of US military equipment (aviation and non aviation alike) or on some other types of vintage equipment. The A is pretty close, but the M is off, for example. It still has a great retro look that I am loving! Also, those are double shot key caps. No engraving or silk-screening, or dye-sublimation. The text and symbols are molded plastic, embedded in the key mold. **EDIT** I just realized the image above is a "render"... The person who made it made it after the item went up... This was what was there before. Alpha text style actually matches the rest of the keys in that image.

Oh man... I have my Apple //c keyboard I planned to integrate into my controller... but this... https://www.massdrop.com/buy/danger-zone-sa-keycap-set Is it POSSIBLE for me to say no to these keycaps?!?! They fit standard Cherry MX/MX clone mechanical switches. The text style is modeled after the engraved text style used on many aviation instrument panels. The coolness is OFF THE SCALES!

I can't help but wonder if it'd be far simpler to add artificial lagrange points into the game. Basically, something similar to an SOI, I guess. KSP already approximates a lot of the physics of space, so I'm fine if they apply an approximation mechanism for lagrange points. would add a wonderful new feature, and would not require n-body gravity... Since all celestial bodies are on rails... lagrange points could also be on rails. We just need a mechanism that makes it actually do something.

Hey Krew... Any progress on your GPU situation, or just in general?

I just found a working RCA 3.5 inch diagonal color CRT TV today, with the AC adapter, at a garage sale for $5... I grabbed that in a heartbeat! It's nice. CRT looks good, and it has video inputs on the side! Guy said it only got use in an RV while on trips. I will likely remove the CRT from the stock case and panel mount it into my controller. Curiously... The case has a tripod mount on the bottom! How interesting! The tuner is electronic, with an on screen bright green line that scrolls left or right based on the frequency, the VHF numbers are listed above the CRT, and UHF numbers below. It really is quite a small screen! Laid out in the same plane with the keyboard I'll be using on my own controller, you can see just how little space the CRT occupies. I think I'll mount the CRT by itself, to the forward facing upright panel, and have a small panel on the top covering the adjustments... maybe. I'll likely need to be creative with my board positioning to have access to all adjustments. The screen is basically just under 4 keyboard keys wide and just under 3 tall.

I have at least ten LM675 op-amps... They are a 5 pin power op-amp with inverting and non inverting inputs, a positive and negative rail, and an output (it's a 5 pin device). It's about the only differential input amplifier I have that likely can also power the final output stage as well. I don't exactly have a whole lot of budget left, thanks to a TRIPLE hard drive corruption I just dealt with... Bought a new 4 TB to do restoration to. Anyway... The DACs that I have are 12 bit, but they are powered by the reference, as in the reference is Vdd... The reference/Vdd can't go below 2.7v, or the DAC will power off. The range of operation is 2.7 - 5.5v. If I'm going to simply generate a single sine wave, and don't need to perform any calculations to the value of that sine wave inside the Arduino, I'd just as soon get a MAX038 waveform generator. Then the arduino ONLY needs to pull attenuation values from a lookup table and send them to the DACs. I've been dealing with computer issues too much though, and I can't think straight... How would I invert the reference sine wave (output low peak when the input peak is high)... I should know this... I actually had considered a setup similar to this earlier, but using digital pots, and the resolutions just weren't good at reasonable costs. I already planned to use my DACs in a 0-5 volt configuration, with that feeding into an amplifier, and the amp feeding signal to ground through a small set up transformer, with the other side of the windings wound in a Y. I still need to be able to invert the reference for select outputs though. It's not just making the reference attenuate between full and nothing, or shifting the sine between a 0 to positive reference range. I also need to make a peak of the reference output as a trough in the output for selected outputs, and vise versa. Like this: Example 1: Reference peak high R╭╯5v A╰╮* 0v B╭╯3.75v C╭╯3.75v Example 2: Reference peak low R╰╮0v A╭╯* 5v B╰╮1.25v C╰╮1.25v In the example 1, Output A not only is an attenuated value of the reference, but it is also inverted. The example here would be voltage values where reference is at peak, A would be 0 volts, and B and C would be each at 3.75 volts, half way between out neutral (2.5 volts) and 5 volts. Likewise, in example 2, if the reference happens to be at 0 (remember, this is representing the "negative" phase, A would have to be 5 volts, and B and C would both be at 1.25 volts, halfway between 2.5 volts and 0. Anyway, I think I'll come back to this later. i'm tired,a nd I could be all wrong. I don't know... I gotta sleep now, so I'll think about it later. I don't get another day off till the 19th, and I'm working 2 jobs, and my computer is being stupid and corrupting disks and not taking an OS install... And I just can't think right now... If you have any thoughts on this, please share. I seem to be lacking in brainpower today. I do thank you for all the ideas!

Regarding space planes and large payloads... anyone ever consider designing a split plane? Basically, have a nose and a tail that decouple from the payload, which wouldn't need to sit inside any fuselage, cause it'd BE the fuselage. The trick to the design, is that the nose and tail, and possibly wings would need to all feature probe cores, RCS, and docking ports, and be able to reassemble in space, and be balanced enough to make a landing. I don't know if I've ever seen that type of deign before. At worst, you maybe have a few separators or decouplers and fairing bases that get discarded in orbit. I'd trust a decoupler mated up against a docking port, with some struts for stability, more than loose docking ports. With less mass on the decent, hopefully just the docking ports hold up. Sadly, I can not try this, as my KSP is on an external drive, and my computer's USB 3 driver is derped at the moment...

YUno numerous colorful rainbow of lights!? Every amusement park ride needs flashy lights! Today, in KSP... I twiddled my thumbs, cause I broke my Hackintosh's boot loader and am booting off a USB boot loader. It doesn't have the required drivers to make my Mobo's USB 3 function, so I am missing all my external drives... including my Steam volume... So no KSP for me. So I am working on a restoration/update thumb drive to install the newest Mac OS version, and thus restore my computer to full functionality. It's weird working on a computer that's derped like this.

Oh hey look! You found a monolith! It's next to your Kerbal Kontroller! That thing is looking nice! just don't get upstaged by that really good looking K9 in the background!

I'll be VERY honest... I am VERY new to programming C. Mostly, I look at example code online, copy and paste it, figure out how it works, look up some details here and there, and modify it until the compile button throws no errors and the code actually does what I want it to do! You are more than welcome to help me out in any way you see fit. I won't turn down help from someone more skilled at this stuff than I am at this, although maybe take it to the repository thread (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66763-Custom-hardware-simpit-repository-For-people-who-take-KSP-a-little-too-far/page24), where everyone's stuff is, rather than take up stibbon's thread. I've only had a few comments on my own setup here, mostly either asking and comparing what he vs I plan for attitude display, and the use of multiple arduinos to split up tasks. I might start a thread of my own at some point though, but I have nothing actually really put together yet. maybe once things actually start coming together. I'd rather not hijack his personal project thread. My plan was to do the trig calculations in a spreadsheet, and do a lookup table, like you said. The hard part is getting that from an idea into working code! Man... it's like 4 AM for me... I'll get back to this... To tired.

moved here from stibbon's thread. Made a few passing comments there. Didn't wanna hijack his project thread. I might start a thread of my own at some point here though, but I have nothing actually really put together yet... Just bits and pieces. The only element involving phase is simply the phase angle of the rotor (reference), and how it places the rotor windings in relation to the stator (outputs). Synchros are not wound like a 3 phase motor... They use slip rings The output is not generally viewed as bing an actual phase difference applied to the 3 outputs, rather it's only attenuation and polarity of the reference. All synchro signals have peaks that are in phase with all other peaks (regardless of if they are positive or negative polarity peaks). If I'm not mistaken, it ought to be possible to also replicate synchros using a crankshaft, and three linear slider potentiometers attached to the crank in a mechanical "Y" configuration, if that helps you visualize what's being done inside. It's purely about attenuation and polarity. I think I could have used digital potentiometers, had i found ones with high enough resolution, but there were severe limitations because of the low resolution of every pot i'd come across. The benefit, would have been that I could have generated the reference from one of those MAX... whatever the number was signal generator chips, and not had the arduino do anything but adjust the pot levels... Save for resolution... Because each of the 9 synchro outputs would have to be on the wiper, tapped between the positive and negate of the sine wave, you only get half the resolution from peak to zero (the middle of the tap). That meant that an 8 bit pot only had 128 steps per side of the output polarity. Still 256 steps, cause positive and negative polarity is both used, but that doesn't even add up to 360° worth of rotation! 10 bits just gives you the resolution to split the degree ticks up into multiples at most points of the ball's rotation. You rely on the phases not at peak to give you fine detail, while peaks have poor per degree resolution. 12 bits is probably utter overkill, but that's what my DACs came in. If it's possible to use the resolution, then I may as well, as long as memory on a Mega can do it. I'll be VERY honest... I am VERY new to programming C. Mostly, I look at example code online, copy and paste it, figure out how it works, look up some details here and there, and modify it until the compile button throws no errors and the code actually does what I want it to do! You are more than welcome to help me out in any way you see fit. I won't turn down help from someone more skilled at this stuff than I am at this. My plan was to do the trig calculations in a spreadsheet, and do a lookup table, like you said. The hard part is getting that from and idea into working code! I've got to be able to read the three attitude values over serial, coming in from another arduino. that needs to convert to the 9 multiplier lookup table locations (3 per each of the three attitude values). The program needs to regularly look up the values for a sine wave from the reference table. The trig calculations (prepared, with the results in a lookup table) determine a multiplier (attenuation and polarity... basically a decimal value between -1 and 1, I think) that is multiplied with the reference. It's basically lookup a sine value, and multiply that by 9 different multiplier values, then send the original reference, plus nine results to the DACs over I2C. The reference is not generated by a synchro... It' a steady sine wave, and all the synchro's apply attenuation and polarity to that reference. it means that you have two sets of lookup values. The sine values are the actual sine wave. The multipliers are (as stated before) a decimal value between -1 and 1 (again... I think), that both attenuates the signal (reduces the output value) and leaves it either flipped or not flipped in polarity. I have wondered, given how buy this thing will be, if it's better to send 9 values over serial (calculating the differences in lookup table values not he first arduino), or if I'd have the leeway to simply calculate the values of the three attitude values into the three lookup table offsets. Man... it's like 4 AM for me... I'll get back to this... To tired.

I once hit a patch of ice (I was much younger and stupider) in Minnesota while I was doing 75 MPH (120 KPH). Spun a full 360°, got out of it, facing forward, and continued driving, with my speed coming out of the spin at 45 MPH (72 KPH). I was at least apart enough to know to kick it into neutral, so the wheels would not fight the momentum. I also once hit a patch of spilled gravel at the entrance of an interstate on ramp, and slid right over the edge, and rolled down the ditch, and just kept on driving through the grass and merged right into the highway.

I'd say it would be far more efficient to 3D print the negative, and then just mold the tabs to the switch levers. With a couple molds, and a 5 minute epoxy, you could mix a small amount of epoxy, do a couple switches at once, let it cure and pull the molds, then move to the next couple switches with a new quick mix. You'd need to bond a 3D printed part to the switch anyway (likely with epoxy anyway), so i'd say, skip the extra step, and time to print for every single switch. If you printed, say 5 negative molds, I bet you could just do one, then the next and so on, and repeat with the first mold done by the time you've gone through 5 or so. I also know that some epoxies are already metallic colored, which even saves you the effort of painting.

Back to my comments about tape meters... sewing tape measures. These are flexible rulers, usually marked between 0-150cm (or 0-60 inches, sometimes both, one scale on either side), used for making fabric and tailoring measurements. If you spool one of these things up on two motorized reels, and have an optical sensor to watch the ticks on the back side of the tape, you could index off of that, while moving the tape up and down for your readout. Just an option. Also, I've since built my DAC/Pre-Amp board for my synchro emulator! Crude wire wrapping, cheap Chinese made LM386 audio amps, and DACs marketed for Arduino usage, all cobbled together. I still need 10 transformers, and I need to build the power driver for the reference voltage output, which also functions as the FDAI's power supply... But I think I'm making progress! (This is old news from the hardware simpit megathread, but I figured since I started discussion here, I may as well follow up on it)