Kerbal Controller with No Name (with apologies to America)

[hakan]

So I fly over the desert with a Controller with No Name (oops, already slaughtered that beautiful song )

Having seen all those beautiful controllers here, and wanting to have something more immersive than a laptop keyboard in front of me, I read thread upon thread and learned stuff upon stuff about Arduinos, at long last, my custom controller reaches its "Hello World" stage:

My row of five switches will control RCS, SAS, gear, lights, brakes. The four 7-segment-display elements from Adafruit will be mostly for displaying Periapsis and Apoapsis since I tend to have always MechJeb orbital info window switched on for this purpose. And the Joystick for controlling of course

After experimenting with an Arduino UNO and much deliberation about extender boards, I decided to go with a Mega which should give me enough ("ENOUGH? WHAT IS THIS EVIL WORD YOU KEEP USING?") inputs and outputs for my controller.

For the KSP side of the code, I will use Zitronen's addon. The Arduino side will live in my github repo, which is also just at the hello world stage. As this project is as much about learning Arduino as it is about building a cool controller, I want to have the Arduino part buildable on travis-ci.org. Stay tuned for all my mishaps on the way

And now, for the image gallery which hopefully will grow on and on:

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Edited November 23, 2014 by hakan

[hakan]

A thread index as second post seems to be customary

[AmeliaEatyaheart]

Looks good!

...what is this 'enough' I/O you discuss? Sounds like dark magicks to me. If you decide to stop swearing that you need more inputs, Have a look at the mcp23017 I2C extender, that's how I got all the switches and LEDs on my panel working

[MrOnak]

Check 74HC165 chips if you need more digital inputs. HC or HCT there in the middle, doesn't matter.

If you need more output, the 74HC595 is your friend. Again, HC or HCT.

Enjoy

[hakan]

Thanks for all the tips, I guess I will need a few extenders after all

[LordFerret]

Nice job! You're hired! lol

[sal_vager]

These things are brilliant, great work so far Hakan, I'm looking forwards to seeing how it turns out

[montyben101]

Weird... Do all space nerds like that song?

[Tw1]

Weird... Do all space nerds like that song?

♫ In deep space, you don't remember your name.....♪

[hakan]

♫ In deep space, you don't remember your name.....♪

♫ 'cause there ain't no kraken to give you no pain ♫

[hakan]

Now this is what I'm shooting for with my controller... Except no "verb" + "noun" entry, AND NO PENCILS IN MY CRAFTS

[stibbons]

No pencils? How do you write things down?!

[MrOnak]

Bahahaha

Let us know when you've got the rope memory done

[hakan]

Bahahaha

Let us know when you've got the rope memory done

I'm still wiring up the first five miles of copper wire for my first memory module WITH 500 PIECES OF INFORMATION

[Freshmeat]

I wondered, what is the joystick you are using? I used a couple of thumb-sticks from a game controller, and their short sticks make fine movement difficult.

[hakan]

This is a generic Arcade joystick. I don't know anymore where I got mine from but you can order them very cheaply from china ( aliexpress.com )

[Simes]

Oh wow, now I want to do this but with a four- or six-line LCD panel for diagnostics.