totm june 2019 Custom hardware / simpit repository. For people who take KSP a little too far.

[Sputnix]

There's some neat tools out there for generating gears / cogs for 3D printing; some over on tinkercad (Web-based 3D modelling), also a few SCAD stuff flying around.

[Pvt. KASA]

@Sputnix Do you have some links?

I only found JsCAD and there are too less parameters... So I have to try the scale 10 times to geht it perfect 

@Freshmeat I May try this, thank you!

@richfiles I thought America was Full of makerspaces and Germany was the only Country with none... Is there no makerspace nearby?

today I have no or almost no time and tommorow i'm away for one week 

Bye,

KASA

Edited August 3, 2016 by Pvt. KASA

[richfiles]

2 hours ago, Pvt. KASA said:

@richfiles I thought America was Full of makerspaces and Germany was the only Country with none... Is there no makerspace nearby?
today I have no or almost no time and tommorow i'm away for one week 

The problem with a large portion of America, is the country is just "so gosh golly big, shucks!". I live in a rural area. There is a "near by" maker space... about 2 hours away. 
A smaller town just doesn't have the population diversity to drive the operation of a makerspace. Too much corn. Out here, most tinkerers are tinkering on tractors, not hobby gadgets.

[Pvt. KASA]

@richfiles Oh... But that prevents you from messing around with calibration problems   But its working fine now...   NOW... but I KNOW in a few days I will have problems again

Today I had no time because I made a trip with my father and bought some plastic glass bowls for a artificial horizon (I dont know if i am able to build this ), some sheets of plastic glass and some white plastic sheets for the indicator lights.

And I got some drawer cabinets for my little "Workshop" (basically just a desk with the drawers, a soldering iron, a box with devices to salvage, the printer and my Laptop. (And a lot of crap I have to clean up ).

I dont know how to make the indicator light glass milky (is this correct englisch?)

Maybe just a sheet of paper from behind? I think then youll see the little paper fibres... idk...

I will try some ideas.

Bye

I´ll be back in 11 days

KASA

Edited August 3, 2016 by Pvt. KASA

[richfiles]

You can try some fine grit sand paper on the back of some of the clear plastic, if you feel like experimenting.
Paper will work too, but you may need a bright LED to get it to light up brightly.
And yes, "milky" is a proper English way to describe what you were trying to say.

Nice to see you getting into this hobby! 

I tell ya... You got it GOOOOD... When I was young, I took apart busted blenders. I OCCASIONALLY got an old radio to tear apart. Parts were more discrete back then, so it meant I could genuinely salvage parts. There was no such thing as ordering parts for a kid back then. UPS and the postal service both took 4-6 weeks for deliveries back in those days. There was no PayPal, and kids didn't have credit cards. If we DID buy something, it came from either a brick and mortar store or a paper catalog, and we got our parents to write a check to physically mail out if it was the latter. Radio Shack was the ONLY  local source of new electronic parts, for a kid back then... Garage sales were the grand gold mine of salvageable affordable electronics! 

These days... I ordered a custom aluminum plate, paid for by PayPal, laser cut, and anodized blue, for my custom keyboard. It cost me $50. I ordered a ready made miniature microcontroller for $20. Didn't even need to make a circuit board. Still got my wire form Radio Shack though! LOL!  It's insane what resources are available, to young and old alike! The double edged sword, is that electronics is becoming more like Legos, where you attach a few pieces and get a project. There's less fundamental understanding of how circuits work. There are more custom, specialized part that can do one, and only one thing, and simply have no reuse value. The most dangerous part of that, Is where we cease to service below the module level (or even at all!). That's asking for literal tons of e-waste, when all that might have been needed was a tiny bit of knowledge, and a part that cost a few cents.

If you get into the electronics hobby, definitely keep at it. Get good! There's a special kind of satisfaction in completing a project, even the individual successes that string together to make a project feel mighty nice! 

As for me and 3D printers... If I REALLY set myself to it, I could probably save up for a decent 3D printer, but it's such a mental struggle... I really don't wanna waste money on a cheap tiny one that'll be nothing but trouble, and not be big enough for my needs, but that I could afford now. Problem is, I can't afford a bigger, more reliable one either. I also have a mill, but It's not set up, as I've been stuck in an apartment for the past 4 years. I'd just as soon mill parts myself, If I were set up for it.

 What the! Did I just do a "Back in my day" post!
Dear God, I AM getting old! 

Edited August 3, 2016 by richfiles

[Freshmeat]

Given that this is the more hardware-oriented thread, I'll pop my question here. My next project, probably in spring, could very well be a new panel controlling via keyboard emulation instead of serial. The idea is to use pushbuttons with build in light, like these. However, an Arduino Leonardo runs at 3.3 V, and the light runs at 12 V. My initial suggestion was messing around with a level shifter to MAX7219 and 75HC595 IC's, and then using transistors to amplify the output of the MAX to drive the light, but I have never messed with amplification or transistors before. Is there a smarter way around things? Is there some basics I should know you can point me to?

Thanks in advance.

[Mad_Scientist]

5 minutes ago, Freshmeat said:

Given that this is the more hardware-oriented thread, I'll pop my question here. My next project, probably in spring, could very well be a new panel controlling via keyboard emulation instead of serial. The idea is to use pushbuttons with build in light, like these. However, an Arduino Leonardo runs at 3.3 V, and the light runs at 12 V. My initial suggestion was messing around with a level shifter to MAX7219 and 75HC595 IC's, and then using transistors to amplify the output of the MAX to drive the light, but I have never messed with amplification or transistors before. Is there a smarter way around things? Is there some basics I should know you can point me to?

Thanks in advance.

I also not a specialist, but as I see it you can use external battery for the powering up the lights. There will be extra step of setting how to control turning light up, but my first guess is to use AND gates (no sure what device does it, cause I am more about programming, rather then engineering). Maybe there is a way to light it up by just having a controllable ground, to which you connect light when needed.

[Freshmeat]

I have 12 V on a wire already from the old PSU I use to supply my controller, the problem is the hardware to activate it without frying my components. And as I write I just come to think of an additional problem in the fact that the MAX controls both cathode and anode of a light.

[stibbons]

I'm not a huge fan of using this thread for anything other than showcasing people's projects. But:

The MAX7219 is a constant-current driver that's really only designed for powering LEDs. They're overpriced and unsuitable for this stuff. One or more daisy-chained 74HC595 shift registers will be fine for expanding the outputs.

Then, for each switch, a common transistor should be fine. I highly recommend reading SparkFun's transistor tutorial to get a handle on using them as switches. Each light will need a separate one, and you should have no trouble feeding the output from the shift register in to an NPN transistor acting as a low-side switch for the light.

Edited August 4, 2016 by stibbons

[richfiles]

You generally wouldn't drive the lights directly from the Arduino anyway. You'd need a driver. A driver is typically a transistor or more often, specifically a MOSFET driving each light individually. You can also do a grid of drivers (you'll need to be able to both sink and source current, depending on whether the driver is in the rows or columns of your grid. You probably could use a MAX7219 to drive something like that.

It will take more searching, but it's also possible to get switches that don't have their illumination wired for 12 volts. Those switches are generally meant for automotive installations, and are pre-wired for 12 volt supplies as a result. Better switch options exist though.

The switches I'm using for my DSKY have a replaceable socketed LED inside. The LEDs I have installed only take 2.1 volts to light. I have PLENTY of extra switches. I'd probably even consider letting some of the smaller style ones go, since I have so many. I've only used 13 out of a total of 127 of those smaller switches. I'll repost the pic of a small keypad made from the smaller and my DSKY keypad, made from the bigger switches below. You can print out whatever you want and cut it out and insert it into the switch housing, under the clear plastic part. The small switches are 10mm square. They currently light up amber/yellow, but you can change the LED to any type you like. Then it's just a matter of driving the LEDs with a MAX7219, and using a level shifter to interface that to your Leonardo. **EDIT... Or just driving them with a shift register and transistors, like @stibbons said.


I know the pic is a repost from earlier, but it's simpler to show than to tell.

Edited August 4, 2016 by richfiles

[Pvt. KASA]

@Freshmeat I also got an Arduino Mini (which can emulate a keyboard) but I think it would be better to get a Mega Because it has more Pins (But even with more pins I think I'll need multiplexing) and there is no need for not using serial...

if the serial plugin for KSP doesn't work any more, you don't need only the switches

Since I'm not at home I can't try multiplexing but I'll figure it out when I'm home again.

Bye

KASA

Edited August 4, 2016 by Pvt. KASA

[Antipaten]

On 8/3/2016 at 9:23 PM, richfiles said:

 What the! Did I just do a "Back in my day" post!
Dear God, I AM getting old! 

You´re not alone. I was amazed how things had changed when I took up digital electronics last summer after a 25 year hiatus. Everything can be purchased for peanuts from China and is delivered as fast as national mail order "in the days". LED's are ten times as bright or can be driven by one tenth the current of what they used to be. Almost anything can be done with $2 micro controllers that are almost as powerful as the $300 VIC-20 computer I learned to program in the mid 80's. Now I can risk letting the magic blue smoke out of every component I use. If it burns, there's plenty more to buy cheap where it came from.

By the way. I just finished the communication code for my new take at the K-42 console. I've decided to do an almost complete remake of my modules after the initial learning experience. The first part is a clean 3 stick joystick controller for rotation and translation. After that I'll probably start on the instrumentation. When I've all that upp and running, I'll start planning a basic flight computer that can be used for automated launches, node burns and maybe soft touchdowns.

Edited August 4, 2016 by Antipaten

[Freshmeat]

@Antipaten Long time. Did you ever solve your problems with kRPC lagging?

[PeteWasEre]

On 04/08/2016 at 6:37 PM, Freshmeat said:

Given that this is the more hardware-oriented thread, I'll pop my question here. My next project, probably in spring, could very well be a new panel controlling via keyboard emulation instead of serial. The idea is to use pushbuttons with build in light, like these. However, an Arduino Leonardo runs at 3.3 V, and the light runs at 12 V. My initial suggestion was messing around with a level shifter to MAX7219 and 75HC595 IC's, and then using transistors to amplify the output of the MAX to drive the light, but I have never messed with amplification or transistors before. Is there a smarter way around things? Is there some basics I should know you can point me to?

Thanks in advance.

Have a look at ULN2803 Darlington arrays. They worked a treat for me to run 12v lights from a 5v signal, and they are designed for either 3.3v or 5v. Simply connect your output (straight from the arduino or a shift register) to the 'base' input. On the other side your 12v goes to your lights then to the 'collector' input of the array and you have instant switches.

It also has a common which is meant for flyback diodes if you are powering motors, but put it through a switch to ground and you have an instant light test button.

Also if you want to dim the lights you can add another NPN between the ULN2803 and ground and run a PWM signal to it. However beware that this will then require diodes between your signal and your darlington array, otherwise it will power back through your arduino!

I have a schematic here if it helps: Docs Repo

[Antipaten]

6 hours ago, Freshmeat said:

@Antipaten Long time. Did you ever solve your problems with kRPC lagging?

Not in 1.0.x. I'll return to it in 1.1.x when I get to the instrumentation part of the rebuild. Hopefully it will run smoother now that it uses those other three cores of my CPU. There's some lagging sometimes in the current version (1.1.3) sometimes even without kRPC but it usually stops if I just switch between vessel and map views a few times. The current code cleaning for 1.2 should make everything run even better and give me some margins for RPC calls that wasn't there before.

The current part of the project don't require any output from the game as it is just a joystick with some extra bells and whistles.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Antipaten

[Freshmeat]

5 hours ago, PeteWasEre said:

Have a look at ULN2803 Darlington arrays. They worked a treat for me to run 12v lights from a 5v signal, and they are designed for either 3.3v or 5v. Simply connect your output (straight from the arduino or a shift register) to the 'base' input. On the other side your 12v goes to your lights then to the 'collector' input of the array and you have instant switches.

It also has a common which is meant for flyback diodes if you are powering motors, but put it through a switch to ground and you have an instant light test button.

Also if you want to dim the lights you can add another NPN between the ULN2803 and ground and run a PWM signal to it. However beware that this will then require diodes between your signal and your darlington array, otherwise it will power back through your arduino!

I have a schematic here if it helps: Docs Repo

I think that is exactly what I will need. Thanks a bunch.

@Antipaten I will follow your (and Petes) development with interest. It seems like there are possibilities in kRPC KSPSerialIO does not offer, if one is willing to put a lot more time into coding.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Freshmeat

[Sputnix]

Man... you zone out for a couple days and this place blows up! 

Exciting to see!

@stibbons -- I got myself a couple of these a few months back for controller V2 (Which I'll reveal shortly); people should check them out. Not necessary by any means, but quite a neat way to daisy-chain Shift Registers:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/pcb-quad-shift-register-breakout-board-74hc595-microcontollers-etc/261669708081?hash=item3cecbae131

@richfiles & @Antipaten -- I think the 'back in my day' stories are great anecdotes; and it definitely shows in the information and knowledge you have to share with this small but bustling community - don't ever stop or feel bad about those moments

@Pvt. KASA -- I've sent you a PM! 

[Pvt. KASA]

I'm Back!

(Not at home but only in the Forum)

I just wanted to know if anyone knows the rpm of a 28BYJ-48 at around 5V.

I found this:

http://42bots.com/tutorials/28byj-48-stepper-motor-with-uln2003-driver-and-arduino-uno/

There it says it runs at 15 rpm.

Can you confirm this?

I can't search for or in big data sheets because I'm only on my Mobile...

Thanks!

KASA

Edited August 9, 2016 by Pvt. KASA

[richfiles]

I got these boards ages ago, and they've been in storage till today.
I finally found my old top loader NES, my Dreamcast, and these annunciator boards from some early 1990s medical devices.
Every LED you see below is socketed! That said...

There's not ONE green annunciator LED in the entire lot! They're all yellow! Grrr! 
I tried a green filter, but that just gives the LED all the lovely color quality of green mud, with just a tinge of "not really brown and not really yellow, but it's yellow". 
So close, yet so far away! Y U no green annunciators! 



I wonder when my fingers will stop feeling this way*... 

*The way fingers feel when yanking, prying, levering, and otherwise removing 120 SIP LEDs and 40 DIP LEDs from their sockets.

*EDIT*
Did some research, and the PC boards came from a Possis Medical AngioJet 3000A Rheolytic Thrombectomy machine, used for restoring blood flow to thrombosed (clotted) arteries and veins. Nifty. I had guts from five different machines, apparently. They date from around 1992. Also, my picture is upside down. Interestingly, I've also got one of the blood pumps from one of these too! Once I saw the photo of the machine, I was all like, I know that lower part It's sitting inside my 19 inch rack in my storage unit!  Ironically, these DO have a green LED... the one above the dial... The one LED that was already stripped from every single one of my boards... 

Edited August 12, 2016 by richfiles

[Sputnix]

I remember prying LEDs off boards from old TVs and VCRs as a kid...

Best way to master the 'iron! 

I'm actually jealous of your collection of bar LEDs
How did you find those parts? I often think it'd be awesome to strip down things like Medical equipment (cos they tend to have really ridiculously awesome stuff) -- but I don't have the faintest idea where to find these things. 

[T-Bouw]

On 10-8-2016 at 1:48 AM, richfiles said:

There's not ONE green annunciator LED in the entire lot! They're all yellow! Grrr! 
I tried a green filter, but that just gives the LED all the lovely color quality of green mud, with just a tinge of "not really brown and not really yellow, but it's yellow". 
So close, yet so far away! Y U no green annunciators! 

Perhaps you could try with a blue filter, if you have it.
Because yellow and blue should make green.

[Sputnix]

5 minutes ago, T-Bouw said:

Perhaps you could try with a blue filter, if you have it.
Because yellow and blue should make green.

Only if you're mixing paints; If I recall correctly, lights are a different beast

[richfiles]

2 hours ago, Sputnix said:

I remember prying LEDs off boards from old TVs and VCRs as a kid...

Best way to master the 'iron! 

I'm actually jealous of your collection of bar LEDs
How did you find those parts? I often think it'd be awesome to strip down things like Medical equipment (cos they tend to have really ridiculously awesome stuff) -- but I don't have the faintest idea where to find these things. 

You're so gonna hate me! 
I barely even remember... I'm 95% sure I got them for free from the swap table at the robotics group I barely get to visit these days. Theres a tiny chance they came from a surplus store called AxMan, in the "Twin Cities" (Minneapolis, St. Paul) region in Minnesota, but I doubt I'd have actually bought the blood pump, so it's almost certainly likely I got it off the free table at the robotics group. Probably brought by someone who bought it surplus, or who scavenged scrapped parts from an employer. Sadly, I rarely get to this meeting. It's nearly 2 hours away from where I live, and since losing my primary job in 2009 (company was bought out, simply to acquire one of our products, then our site closed) it's been hard to justify the trip. My employment since has never been as good, and I've had less reliable cars in that period of time. I did get back there once or twice last year though, which was very nice. They used to meet in the basement of the Science Museum of Minnesota, but now meet at a maker space called The Hack Factory.

2 hours ago, T-Bouw said:

Perhaps you could try with a blue filter, if you have it.
Because yellow and blue should make green.

Additive vs. Subtractive color mixing never seems to make things simple. The problem with LEDs is that they have a narrow peak bandwidth corresponding to their emitted color. It's hard to get green from a yellow LED, even though they are adjacent in terms of wavelength, because there's just next to no green light in the emitted light. A filter is removing wavelengths except for green, but if the green component is minimal to start with... Meh... Meh is the result you will see. It gets even more confusing if I try to illuminate pigments, as then we get to switch into the cyan, magenta and yellow mode of thinking.

[T-Bouw]

Hmm, that's a shame.
I thought I had an eureka moment here...
The way that you explain it makes sense.

About the pigment thing. Perhaps a color bar printed out could help in finding the correct color? Trial and error.
Although going that route is no better than simply using white LED's and illuminating stuff that way. After all, you've got those cool bars!

I'd stick with yellow then.
It could be pretty in it's own right!

[Antipaten]

On 8/12/2016 at 0:05 PM, T-Bouw said:

Perhaps you could try with a blue filter, if you have it.
Because yellow and blue should make green.

The problem with LED:s is that, unlike incandescent light sources that emits black body radiation over a broad spectrum of frequencies, LED:s are resonators that emits only a narrow spectrum. They are not as good resonators as quartz crystals though, so the signal spectrum is much wider.

This is a typical spectrum of a yellow LED:

Any green filter will let the green part of the light throug, but there is very little of it, hence the light will only contain dull drab dirty remains of the emitted spectrum that leaks through as yellowish green (the filter isn't ideal either and will let a broad spectrum centered at green through).

The light from a lightbulb (a flashlight in this case) is completely different from the LED:

The curve is almost the ideal gaussian distribution that we should expect from a heat source at around 2700 kelvin but the enclosure of the bulb does some filtering by absorbing some of the visible light which is converted into heat causing the peak of infrared at 800nm.

This light can be filtered without problem as there are plenty of light left when removing most of what lies outside of the 530-550nm that we sense as green.

Spectrums linked from http://www.kerrywong.com/2015/08/16/yet-another-scanning-monochromator-build/ where there's a lot more measurements to see if you're interested.

Edited August 13, 2016 by Antipaten