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

[JeffSergeant]

So, I think I'm nearing a final design for my readout:  I've decided to mount the LEDs and the LED Display directly onto the PCB.  The PCB has to be slightly bigger, but once I realised I can mount things behind the LED Display, its' actually not such a big difference. It's still slightly bigger (and therefore more expensive) but the savings on connectors and cables pretty much evens it out.  The PCB will have the function of the LEDs printed next to them.  The major up-side is that the main board will just be able to be plugged directly into a USB socket and it will work.  Giving me options for a phased delivery approach if there are problems in the final assembly.   

 

Other major changes include putting all of the resistors on the board (As a result of having LEDs there) and adding an aux power connection for the servo.  And I've found a USB/TTL adapter, and designed in the connection for that too, it just plugs straight into the board, so I don't have to worry too much about mounting it

I've mocked up the final layout on a paper print-out with the pins sticking into some polystyrene,  showing both sides to confirm that the mirroring has worked as planned.  Next step is a final breadboard prototype based solely on the PCB schematic, (hard-wiring the LED Display means I HAVE to get the pins right, one benefit of using a ribbon cable was that I could work out which way up it went when It was delivered)  and I can finally order the PCB.  The only one change (there's always one more) I intend to make, is to connect a few spare IO ports from the processor to pads for future proofing.

 

Edited October 19, 2016 by JeffSergeant
image formatting

[richfiles]

I had an idea... Now that my mill is usable, It occurred to me I could still use those incredible masses of yellow annunciator LEDs that I salvaged, after all! If I put a 3 mm end mill into the thing, and clamp one of the LEDs into my milling vise, I ought to be able to mill out the existing yellow LED, and then glue in it's place, a 3 mm LED of any color I like. I can get on ebay, for under $10, an LED assortment that contains 10 different colors of LEDs, including pink, blue, and purple... That would allow me to make the vector indicators on my DSKY color coordinated with Pro/retrograde, Normal, Radial, Target, and Maneuver node colors.

Even if the LEDs in the assortment don't "feel" like the right color, I could always get a few RGB LEDs and fine tune the color to my personal liking. Catch is, I need to have 8 LEDs per annunciator to get good spread of the light. There's a few other tricks I might be able to do, I might be able to do multicolor annunciators, but they will have bleed through of the colors. Could be interesting to have pro vs retro/anti LEDs have a green or red dot (respectively), as an added visual cue. If I mill deep enough, and insert the LED with a barrel to mask it... that might just work! All the annunciators are a milky white when unlit.

I found green ones at Digikey, and can get them for a very decent price, better than ebay. I'll also get a couple red ones too. Ebay has some available for a good price. I'll only need a couple (for things like Temp, Master Alarm, etc). It's not worth modding annunciators for red and green, but all the other colors, sure. They don't make this style of bar LED annunciators in any color other than red, green, and yellow.

By the time I'm done... I'll have red, green, yellow, cyan, blue, pink, and purple! 

Don't worry, i'll post pics when I get the time to experiment with the idea. Hopefully I can mill out the existing yellow LEDs cleanly.

Edited October 19, 2016 by richfiles

[Ruedii]

If you are looking for a place that manufactures custom keycaps, WASD Keyboards does the job.  They have a variety of colors and some really nice keycaps. 

You can either order their keyboard, or use any ANSI/104 or ISO/105 keyboard with standard Cherry-MX caps (pretty much all your good industrial grade keyboards.)

[richfiles]

Man! That pair of International Instruments 1251 Dual Edgewise analog meters showed up int he mail only 2 days after I ordered them! Replaced the incandescent bulbs with "aqua" blue-green LEDs to mimic that lovely glow of EL illumination. I just formed the leads into a spiral that would screw into the lamp sockets to take the photo. Eventually, I'll have a small segment of proto board with the aqua LEDs, but also some dim red and yellow LEDs as well. I want to edge the color a little tiny bit closer to white, while also leaving just enough red and yellow wavelength light in the mix to let the red and a yellow bar on the scales light up correctly. I'm going to attach the Nekoosa synthetic paper scales a little differently. I may also find myself having to remove the raised center scale's elevated "rail". I think I can do that with a sharp side cutter and some sandpaper to buff out the edge left behind.

This means I now have 2 factory backlit meters, and now only have one meter left to mod into a backlit meter. Also saw how they diffuse the light inside. Real simple.

Edited October 21, 2016 by richfiles
On my computer monitor, it looks bluer. On the TV screen it looks greener. In reality, it also looks greener, when it's not bluer. "Blue-Green" LED... Living' up to it's name!

[ryan00793]

I got most of my parts finally and should probably start really looking at my design again since it's starting to look like it's getting close to time to figure out how I'm really gonna pull it off. I've decided that I'm going to work with the current screens I've got and figure out what I want to do about two joysticks (pitch roll and yaw VS forward backward side to side [RCS]) but I've also got to work through issues with my mega (goto the serial io thread).

 

@richfilesHave you thought about using tlc5940NT (pwm multiplexer (kinda)) for your leds? (also how are you controlling the brightness if not hardware pwm).

[richfiles]

7 hours ago, ryan00793 said:

Have you thought about using tlc5940NT (pwm multiplexer (kinda)) for your leds? (also how are you controlling the brightness if not hardware pwm).

As a hardware guy... I plan on fine tuning the LED brightness with a current limiting resistor in series with each LED. The main power for that will come from a 555 based PWM circuit tied to a slider style potentiometer. A couple other slider pots will be arranged in parallel to control desk lighting, and even the display shelves around my room!

[richfiles]

I made an interesting discovery about my new 1251 dual edgewise meters... They are 4-20 mA current loop meters. And they are not wound as such. They appear to be voltmeters wired across an internal shunt resistor... To convert them to read volt, i only need to remove the shunt resistor and then install a resistor in series to scale the input so 5 volts = full scale. These meters just went from needing $16 in additional drivers, to being able to run straight off the Arduino! Sweet! I still need one current transmitter to run my single edgewise meter. Sadly, that meter is wound for 4-20 mA measuring. If I replace the single meter with my broken dual meter (which is essentially a single meter), then I could eliminate ANY need for the 24 volt supply or ANY of the voltage to 4-20 mA current loop transmitters.

It's tempting... 

Edited October 23, 2016 by richfiles

[richfiles]

Also, I did another test fit, now with he new LED color! I learned the Nekoosa paper is more opaque than the integrated diffuser. To get consistent brightness, I can either look for a more translucent diffuser (to match the modded meters to the factory backlit brightness), or I can fit all the meters with he nekoosa paper, and add more LEDs to bump the brightness up to overcome the dimmer material. As it stands, I'd like to find lighter material for the diffuser, cause I want as much brightness to pass through as possible.

This is still a paper scale test. It's dimmer than the stock backlight as a result, but it definitely looks good! The dimmer illumination left the picture a bit grainy. Can't be helped, till i make the LED pc board and figure out the ideal diffuser, and upgrade to the nekoosa paper. I'm gonna finish making the other labels (super easy, as I can copy paste the scales, and just change the text.

Lookin' good!  

**EDIT** Eew! This looks so bad compared to the new pics where I actually use the Nekoosa synthetic "paper"! 
I printed my first test run on the actual Nekoosa paper... It looks nice, but I have to get up for work in like 2 hours... Gonna have to wait!  Well, I waited!

Edited October 24, 2016 by richfiles

[Ruedii]

On 10/21/2016 at 0:12 AM, richfiles said:

Man! That pair of International Instruments 1251 Dual Edgewise analog meters showed up int he mail only 2 days after I ordered them! Replaced the incandescent bulbs with "aqua" blue-green LEDs to mimic that lovely glow of EL illumination. I just formed the leads into a spiral that would screw into the lamp sockets to take the photo. Eventually, I'll have a small segment of proto board with the aqua LEDs, but also some dim red and yellow LEDs as well. I want to edge the color a little tiny bit closer to white, while also leaving just enough red and yellow wavelength light in the mix to let the red and a yellow bar on the scales light up correctly. I'm going to attach the Nekoosa synthetic paper scales a little differently. I may also find myself having to remove the raised center scale's elevated "rail". I think I can do that with a sharp side cutter and some sandpaper to buff out the edge left behind.

This means I now have 2 factory backlit meters, and now only have one meter left to mod into a backlit meter. Also saw how they diffuse the light inside. Real simple.

Wow, fully analog solution.  Pretty cool.

As a note, another color LED to consider is amber.   I recommend using LEDs simply because they don't require replacement.

[richfiles]

@Ruedii My keyboard actually does use amber LEDs, but this instrument panel is meant to be loosely modeled after the Apollo capsules. They used white electroluminecent backlighting for the instrument panels. I'm going with a blue green color, cause it still looks like EL light, but I want something greener, cause it feels more Kerbalish. You might have missed the detail earlier where I states I'm already using blue-green LEDs for this. The incandescent bulbs are just what originally comes in the meters. I remove those.


Shone my flashlight through the back of the case to get the white light to light the colors up. I'll probably actually aim some colored LEDs at those spots, and paint masks on the lens, to keep the light directed primarily to the colored region. This is actually print don the Nekoosa synthetic "paper". I just need more LEDs, and to put in internal shields to mask some of the side spill light. Looks like I need to make the black area a tiny bit wider, and cut the white area a little narrower. Other than that, the labels are all final, except my Air Density / Intake Air meter. Those two readouts are going to share a horizontally oriented dual meter, and I want a graphic representation of Air Density, just like the meter on screen in KSP. All the other meters were copy & paste, but AD will require new art.

Edited October 24, 2016 by richfiles

[Ruedii]

7 hours ago, richfiles said:

@Ruedii My keyboard actually does use amber LEDs, but this instrument panel is meant to be loosely modeled after the Apollo capsules. They used white electroluminecent backlighting for the instrument panels. I'm going with a blue green color, cause it still looks like EL light, but I want something greener, cause it feels more Kerbalish. You might have missed the detail earlier where I states I'm already using blue-green LEDs for this. The incandescent bulbs are just what originally comes in the meters. I remove those.


Shone my flashlight through the back of the case to get the white light to light the colors up. I'll probably actually aim some colored LEDs at those spots, and paint masks on the lens, to keep the light directed primarily to the colored region. This is actually print don the Nekoosa synthetic "paper". I just need more LEDs, and to put in internal shields to mask some of the side spill light. Looks like I need to make the black area a tiny bit wider, and cut the white area a little narrower. Other than that, the labels are all final, except my Air Density / Intake Air meter. Those two readouts are going to share a horizontally oriented dual meter, and I want a graphic representation of Air Density, just like the meter on screen in KSP. All the other meters were copy & paste, but AD will require new art.

I was saying replacing them with LEDs was a good idea, sorry for the misunderstanding.

You could go and add a third white LED to the middle  to get a bit more white-tone in the light.    That should probably work.

I'm really geeking out on these neat builds here.  I wish I had the money to make one.

[JeffSergeant]

Special Delivery!

2 Mistakes spotted already, but neither are insurmountable:

1. the holes for the 5v barrel jack aren't big enough, so either the board needs drilling out or the jack needs modifying

2. I accidentally inverted the spline reticulator, I think I can work around this by inverting the splines prior to reticulation.

I'm rather excited.

Edit: IT WORKS! 

 

 .... Yes.. I know... it's PERFECT....

More slight issues:

1. The usb power isn't actually connected to anything as I got two pins the wrong way around on the PCB for the USB/TTL's pinout, luckily fixable with some space wire, space solder, and space cutting-things-off-things-that-aren't-supposed-to-be-cut-off...

2. The patent-pending blindingly bright indicator LEDs. fixable by swapping out the resistors

3. somehow managed to get the Digit pins the wrong way around on my prototype.. very lucky that the biggest mistake I made on the prototype is 100% fixable in code.

 

Edited November 4, 2016 by JeffSergeant

[richfiles]

@JeffSergeant That' is the most Kerbalishly beautiful thing I have seen all day! 
Even better... Have a small accelerometer on it... program it to flicker backwards at random, till you hit it. Then it's fine for a few hours! 

Then it'd be a feature! Now THAT would be 2Kerbal4U! 

Edited November 9, 2016 by richfiles

[Sputnix]

11 hours ago, richfiles said:

@JeffSergeant That' is the most Kerbalishly beautiful thing I have seen all day! 
Even better... Have a small accelerometer on it... program it to flicker backwards at random, till you hit it. Then it's fine for a few hours! 

Then it'd be a feature! Now THAT would be 2Kerbal4U! 

I honestly want to incorporate that sort of thing into my next build!  xD 

For something simpler than an accelerometer, you could use a vibration-sensor: 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10PCS-SW-18015P-Electronic-Vibration-Sensor-Switch-Brand-New-/221933322066?hash=item33ac41bf52:g:E-AAAOSwo6lWPCdQ

Edited November 10, 2016 by Sputnix
Edit: Apparently I can't spell...

[c4ooo]

Great that i found this topic, all these projects are awesome and inspiring to me

I was wondering, what would be needed on a custom control panel to be able to dock two ships? (Assuming the rendezvous maneuvers are made in map mode). Joysticks for rotation and translation are an obvious must. But the problem is, how will you know where to translate too? (Ime really a newb at docking so i don't know :/ )

[JTpopcorn]

1 minute ago, c4ooo said:

Great that i found this topic, all these projects are awesome and inspiring to me

I was wondering, what would be needed on a custom control panel to be able to dock two ships? (Assuming the rendezvous maneuvers are made in map mode). Joysticks for rotation and translation are an obvious must. But the problem is, how will you know where to translate too? (Ime really a newb at docking so i don't know :/ )

There is a pretty good docking camera mod that allows you to see the view from the dockingport "camera" and if you set the other port as your target, there are lines that show your relative position.

Docking Port Alignment Indicator

[c4ooo]

8 minutes ago, JTpopcorn said:

There is a pretty good docking camera mod that allows you to see the view from the dockingport "camera" and if you set the other port as your target, there are lines that show your relative position.

Docking Port Alignment Indicator

Well, that mod would definitely help me dock xD

It would seem kinda hard to recreate that alignment indicator on a physical panel though  Plus, the mod i am using doesn't send this sort of information. 

 

[richfiles]

Does Telemachus have the ability to send docking alignments?

Yeah, docking is one of the last areas where KSP serial IO has not yet covered. Minimally, we need to know target closest approach, relative velocity to target, and for proper docking, we'd need target attitude. That's still a lot of values to deal with

[c4ooo]

1 hour ago, richfiles said:

Does Telemachus have the ability to send docking alignments?

Yeah, docking is one of the last areas where KSP serial IO has not yet covered. Minimally, we need to know target closest approach, relative velocity to target, and for proper docking, we'd need target attitude. That's still a lot of values to deal with

Can KSPSirialIO at least switch between surface, orbital and target speed mode?

[stibbons]

Just now, c4ooo said:

Can KSPSirialIO at least switch between surface, orbital and target speed mode?

It reports surface and orbital speed, but not target speed. It makes no attempt to try to alter the in-game navball mode.

[c4ooo]

3 minutes ago, stibbons said:

It makes no attempt to try to alter the in-game navball mode.

Is this too hard to do, or did the developer just not get to it yet? And BTW, can the plugin set the SAS to prograde / retrograde etc?

[richfiles]

I don't think we have access to command the SAS vector controls yet. It'd be very nice to have a send byte that switches them though. If you want that, I'd suggest finding the KSP Serial IO thread. Not sure how accessible those controls are to mods.

[stibbons]

I haven't looked at how hard it is to get the target velocity out of the game. It's possibly a combination of lack of time/motivation, and the restraints on the large outbound data packet that mod uses.

KSPSerialIO has been around for a fair while longer than the different SAS modes, and doesn't support them. Again, probably just a matter of not getting around to it yet.

But I'm really not the best person to be answering questions about the mod: 

 

[c4ooo]

8 minutes ago, stibbons said:

I haven't looked at how hard it is to get the target velocity out of the game. It's possibly a combination of lack of time/motivation, and the restraints on the large outbound data packet that mod uses.

KSPSerialIO has been around for a fair while longer than the different SAS modes, and doesn't support them. Again, probably just a matter of not getting around to it yet.

 

Not trying to be rude to the creater of the plugin, but to me adding more data to send seems trivial (while writing the code to send data between the arduino and the game hard). If I figure out how to comile c# code I may give it a shot. (The plugin is open source after all )

Edited November 13, 2016 by c4ooo

[ryan00793]

3 minutes ago, c4ooo said:

Not trying to be rude to the creater of the plugin, but to me adding more data to send seems trivial (while writing the code to send data between the arduino and the game hard). If I figure out how to comile c# code I may give it a shot. (The plugin is open source after all )

It's not hard to compile c# if you have visual studio installed.