T.A.P.O.R.

Progress has halted as my family demanded a sojourn to a cabin in the woods. My connection to the world has been limited by the ionosphere and my cellular provider. I think that I'll add provision for the encoder and tinker some with shift registers. my original plan was just the altimeter and a couple of switches. things kind of got it of hand.

Actual progress. After discovering the old Bakelite display was dead, I changed plans. Here's my "vision" for the project. As stated in the KSPIO thread, I don't know what to display with the two seven segs on the left and the LCD. Lots of parts are still in transit, including the two clock modules. One for time to Apoapsis and the other for time in the "real world". The real world clock wont be connected to the Arduino at all and will run on battery so I'll need to add clock controls on the front panel too. I did work on the control board yesterday and as you can see there are many switches and LED bezels. The LED bezel on the top left will be wired to the KSPIO handshake light. I've added in a rotary switch to control what is being displayed on the VU. This is for (as I see it) maximum flexibility, since it allows for chemical rockets, aeroplanes and ion propulsion. Also I just like the look of the chicken head knob next to the 1966 VU. The current switch is single pole, so I think I need to invest in a double pole switch to avoid suing up precious pins on my Mega for the LEDs. Then again... maybe they can refuse to light up when the tank is empty? Left to right I have Xenon, Mono, LFO, Jet, Air Intake. Electricity will have it's own read out via a Led Bar graph. I've left a fair amount of space down the bottom in case I decide to add in a key panel for QWEASDZX for those times when I want to fly entirely on the control board.

Thanks Freshmeat, I'll resurrect it someday. I have a new dilemma. Too many data displays and don't know what to display on them all My panel has 6 x 8 digit 7 segment leds and I can only think of what to do with four. Apoapsis Periapsis Sea Level Altitude Radar Altitude ??? ??? I've also added 2 x 4 digit 7 segment clock modules: Time to Apoapsis Real world time There is also a 20x4 LCD in transit, plus the teeny weeny oled. Any suggestions for what to display on the last two 7 segs and LCD would be most welcome.

Dear Mr Whackjob, That is somewhat fantastic! The MET has blown my mind and design is inspirational. Of course if I tried it, my space ship would fail and my compute would melt.

Still no success at counter orbit destruction, it'll wait. When I'm rolling in kerbucks I'll make another attempt at kinetic disassembly.

Dang it, the Bakelite VU is dead. I might be able to transfer the guts of anotheer workling unit to it, but am not sure its worth the hassle. I have a square one from 1966 that works. Almost as big, but not quite as pretty.

Yeah, I'm prepared for that. There are 3 terminals on the back, one is marked + one is 10 and the other is blank. I'm assuming that the blank is either 20v or GND. Which kind of leads into your point about common ground. In my experience and coming from an audio perspective, different grounds can cause problems with noise on the line. If you want to protect your Arduino, you might want to look into using a Zener diode (say 4.7v or 5.1v). Here's an example from MusicFromOuterSpace which is intended for an analogue synthesizer, but would work equally well here (I think) Replace ext CV with your positive supply and VC Summer OpAmp with your + rail on the Arduino.

Small update (if it can be called that). Not much time to do anything fun this week. I'm still waiting on a bunch of stuff to arrive, but the VU meter really threw me off balance. As much as I like missile switches, I'm leaning toward using mini toggles as they're a: cheaper b: smaller footprint c: I have heaps of them with wee hats. The panel is about 74 cm or 29 1/2 inches wide and yet seems to be easily filled up. Especially with that big old VU meter, which I simple must use (unless of course it doesn't work). This is the basic layout for the action groups and the corner of the square at the bottom is the centre point for the launch button. The silver thingies are my LED bezels.

Aww now you're both just making me want to spend more money! After a few glasses of fermented grape juice last week I bid on a bunch of old VU meters. It turns out that they're enormous! Marzubus style OlED for comparison on the bottom right.

Thanks for the advice on the keys. might give them a miss and stick with toggles. Mulbin's panel has a great solution to backlit labels. I tried finding long lengths of the stuff to no avail. Could be a cheap/easy solution to printing my own bezels

My old VU meters arrived. in contrast to the oled, they're much larger than anticipated! Pretty sure it's bakelite too. I don't think I'll do the unthinkable and try to change the decal behind the needle. Hopefully it actually works!

What is the benefit with the mechanical keys? I only came across them recently in an email from a computer shop about some horribly expensive keyboard. I was thinking about a set of these: They're not mechanical, but come with a mounting plate and are available separately. I've held off as shipping is a bit more expensive than I'd like at the moment. Here's a link to the seller store

Its almost like we're twins! My father-in-law worked in the paint industry for decades. I can't see any suppliers in Australia for Maston though I did use one fancy brand of spray-paint ($22 a can I think) on a pawn shop guitar that turned out pretty nice. Usually its just the cheap stuff. See the red/white case in my OP. Not the best pic but it looks pretty good. One drawback is you need to clear coat it afterward, otherwise the red rubs off on everything! Another draw back is the clear coat is no good to cover the wax letters as it makes them melt and do weird stuff.

ooh, their hammer finish range looks like fun.

I'll probably prime it with some house paint & then use a can of spray paint (do I go traditional neutral or a bright colour?). Spraying onto MDF without priming gives a weird finish. Decals will be a combo of stencils & press on letters. Rustic I know, but this is probably just going to be a prototype. I am going to re-do the support frame, as the 19mm pine I was using takes up too much internal space. Instead, the frame & support structures will be made from 6mm masonite (more leftovers). The launch button is a bit of an annoyance as I'd like the front of the panel to be quite low, but the switch mechanism is not accommodating to my desires. Hopefully the rest of my parts arrive this week. Then I can get on with making holes for the displays.

D0: ClK D1: MOSI data I've read that the CS pin should be available via some solder point on the back, but I have no idea which.

Got my panel working!

Yep, it is behaving better now.

Where is the best place to send output to an LCD panel? I can only get it to function in the main loop, but it seems to cause some stuttering issues on my 7 segs when burning to really high orbit. Placing the code in "void indicators ()" doesn't seem to do anything. lcd.setCursor(8,0); lcd.print(VData.G); lcd.setCursor(10,1); lcd.print(VData.TAp); Nevermind.... I needed to place brackets around the code

I selected all. For some of my craft, torque alone can't do the job efficiently. Also I am a bad pilot, so I need all of the help I can get.

I dunno why so many people complain about bugs in KSP, have any of you played Fallout New Vegas? Full release product and broken even after years of patching (for me at least). I've run into the memory ceiling on my windows machine, but then I realised I wasn't really using all the mods I had installed. Sure I get the odd crash, but its pretty stable for me What would make it perfect for me? I'd like a bit of a story mode intermixed with my contracts, and more sturdy joints.

Oh how I wish that I had a 3d printer or better yet, a cnc mill (budget = sad face). There is a 3d printing service available local to me, but its not very convenient to test out prototypes. The hard part will be deciding where to place things. I've got 2 monitors 4:3 & 16:10 as represented by the gray blocks in the background. The simpit itself is the blue section that wraps around the keyboard placeholder in the foreground. LED & VU displays will be in front and the switches off to the side. Though I have taken inspiration from your design and am considering backlighting the text for RCS, SAS, GEAR etc Much easier to be laser cut, but I'll probably go with a MDF & a sharp chisel (its what I have laying around). Lots of little bits of wood to be glued for the frame. Why so many? The thing is on a 5 degree slope. I don't have a table saw, so I make do with my drop saw.

This is turning out to be harder than I had anticipated. Very close orbit, but off by enough to miss by a few km. The smasher is out of fuel. So now I see this as turning into a nursery rhyme ala the lady who swallowed a spider to catch a fly.

I'd thought of this too, but I am in no way clever enough to work out how to do it! Consider me your local interested idiot. What I'd really like to do is replicate GHUD on a larger colour screen My G15 is starting to fail.. keys stick etc... and replacing it is kinda expensive these days! What kind of monochrome display do you have in mind?

Thanks for the complement KK4TEE But I'd have to say that your project exceeds mine in ambition, presentation & execution. Mine are green as displayed in the pic below (sorry I didn't have one from before I did my sloppy wiring). The pins are only at one end and don't offer a DOUT. They're totally different from the picture on the ebay seller though, which was more like the ones on your thread where you had overheating. The yellow wire that dominates the picture is soldered to the DOUT pin of my first module. It didn't look (or measure on the multi-meter) to be connected to anything at all. I'm not getting any errors at all with my two displays wired in series. Unfortunately I can't link to the seller as the auction I bought them on has been archived & don't recall who I bought from. I've bought 4 more from a different seller (I think) they are yet to arrive in the post. Pins from left to right are DIN CS CLK GND 5v I'm nowhere near finalising my design as I'm still waiting for parts to arrive, but will probably go for an L shaped arrangement with the bulk of the panel to the left and the displays under my monitor. Its probably going to be built from left over MDF from my pickle jar shelf and timber I've scavenged off hard rubbish. That said, AmeliaEatyaHeart put me on to a laser cutting company who had reasonable prices. Not sure I can commit to that just yet for I am a fickle beast who cant sleep for want of KSP.