Translational Control

[texasflyboy]

Sounds like he's a NASA guy so this is as close as you're going to see to NASA hardware in KSP!

His Translational Hand Controller solution is brilliant. I wish I'd seen this a few months ago! 

[munlander1]

And to think I thought a keyboard and mouse were enough...

[richfiles]

I ended up using a Fairchild Channel F controller. If I can map it, I'm gonna try to get the knob rotation to correspond to the mouse wheel (so I can make Kerbals land on their heads). The stick supports in/out, left/right, up/down, and CW/CCW rotation. The Fairchild Channel F was te first game console to use ROMs in cartridges to store changeable game programs. It was released in 1976, and I happened to have one as a kid. Because I don't wanna damage the vintage controller, I'm going to make a slot in my controller for it to insert into. It'll plug into a 9 pin D-Sub socket inside the machine, and a padded clamp will secure the controller housing in place.

Edited March 8, 2017 by richfiles

[Sputnix]

10 hours ago, texasflyboy said:

I know it's been a long time but I may have found a solution. What's better is that it uses the joystick I ended up buying. I can't believe I didn't think of this!

 

http://www.sgtnoodle.com/projects/kerbal-control-panel/

 

Enjoy,

 

Jon 

I saw that a little while back too - also felt inspired to create something similar on simpit v2  

 

2 hours ago, richfiles said:

Because I don't wanna damage the vintage controller, I'm going to make a slot in my controller for it to insert into. It'll plug into a 9 pin D-Sub socket inside the machine, and a padded clamp will secure the controller housing in place.

 

But it's only a toy
Any schematics around for that bad-boy for inspiration? 

Edited March 8, 2017 by Sputnix

[richfiles]

It's a non-analog controller solution, similar the modded joystick. All it is is 8 switches and a common lead. 4 axes, two directions per axis. I have not even bothered to figure it out yet, but that's only cause it'll take me two minutes with a my multimeter on continuity test mode to measure it.

[texasflyboy]

Remember, the real THC in Space Shuttle and Apollo was on/off, not analog. The RCS thrusters are either on or off. 

[Nuke]

it makes sense as its the burn time that matters and not the intensity. the controller is essentially an oversized 3 axis hat switch. i find myself counting off burns and prefering the keyboard over the joystick for that kind of thing. i did sort of give my joystick a bang bang mode, where it would have a large dead zone and a rapid ramp up to the extremes. only problem is it lacked the tactile click of a limit switch. i suppose if you were using analog sticks you could fake it and just use a piezo buzzer to go click every time your stick left neutral and again when you returned. analog is still useful in atmospheric flight so if i were to go nuts with console building i think i would include an analog stick on the right side console (with a switch to toggle between bang bang and analog, and some trim controls as well) and a throttle and thc in the left side.

it kind of looks like if you wanted to you could twist the handle to trigger abort/manual. you would just need to attach a bar on that washer and have it contact 2 limit switches at 180 degrees. that is assuming it can be made to rotate.

Edited March 8, 2017 by Nuke