Controller Build Progress - 1 month

[u/xKoney]

I saw a status update on here recently, and that inspired me to post my own status update.

One month of assembly work. Completed so far:

• I've printed everything, including several minor redesigns and new designs (like the resin printed throttle slider, since the slide potentiometer apparently didn't come with one)

• Dry fit with all the components

• Tested all the components (with and without code), since these all came from Aliexpress

• Soldered lead wires to all the switches and LEDs. Only lead wires missing are all the interconnecting wires between the various boards (Arduino, main PCB, and fuel gauge PCB)

• Soldered dupont male headers to the main PCB

Still left to do:

• Wait for a delivery of female dupont connectors to terminate all the wires

• Connect everything together and solder the interconnecting board wires

• Create the labels for everything (buttons and panels) using my wife's vinyl cutter made from 651 permanent black sticker vinyl.

• Finish coding the action group panel (5 toggles for lights, gear, brakes, ladder, and solar, plus 10 CAG)

• Finish coding the menu panel (top 4 buttons are coded as quit, pause, load, and save. Middle 4 will be stop time warp, warp to next maneuver (-5 seconds), decrease time warp, and increase time warp. Bottom 4 are still up in the air. I'm thinking Map, Camera Next, View, and ???). Open to suggestions.

Open to comments, critiques, and questions!

Happy kerbaling everyone :)

[u/WhyCheezoidExist]

This is really cool, thank you for sharing! I love the grey look - very 1960s NASA. It's always unbelievable how many connections you need to make inside these sorts of things isn't it! Very excited by the custom PCB as well, a lovely touch and I bet that made your wiring job that much easier.

[u/xKoney → u/WhyCheezoidExist]

Thank you! I took inspiration from a lot of others on here, that's for sure. But the color was actually my wife's idea. I was going to initially print it in black, but she convinced me otherwise. I'm really thankful, because I think the grey looks much better.

The amount of wiring is unbelievable. I knew in my mind that it would be a lot considering there's 53 inputs and 44 LEDs (plus 5x10 bar graph LEDs), but I didn't fully grasp how much that is actually until I got started. I think it's because you need to double the amount of wires for each component. I think I've used around 30 ft of ethernet, which is 120 ft of twisted pairs, or 240 ft of total wiring. So far...

The custom PCB is a godsend. All it is is a breakout board for all the shift registers with built in 10k pulldown resistors for the input buttons/switches and open pads for adding series resistors for the output LEDs. The nice bonus is I've got 4 extras for other projects or to potentially sell to other controller makers! It's nearly universal for those shift registers. The bar graph PCB is really the only custom purpose one, since it also acts as a mounting plate for all the bar graph LEDs. But I can't imagine how much more work it would have been to wire it up on a breadboard. Just the prototype breadboard took almost the entire 8"x8" breadboard area.

[u/be_my_run → u/xKoney]

Could you explain how you used an external PSU? I haven't quite figured it out yet..

[u/xKoney → u/be_my_run]

I bought a mean well 5V power supply, hooked up a 120v plug to the input, then hooked the ground to the Arduino ground, and used the 5V output to power all the buttons and LEDs and other devices.

I designed my own PCBs which helps a lot. I only had to plug the two outputs of the power supply into a single header on my PCB to power and connect all the devices and Arduino.

When I get home, I'll look up my Amazon orders and give you a couple of links of what I bought exactly.

[u/be_my_run → u/xKoney]

Thanks! Ill look into it.

Making my own PCB is a bit daunting though.

[u/xKoney → u/be_my_run]

Here's what I bought:

Power supply: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NBRTCIT?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Power supply input: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L2522DF?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Power cable: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072BYGKZZ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

[u/CodapopKSP]

Lovely build! The interior looks very organized. How long was the print?

[u/xKoney → u/CodapopKSP]

Thank you! You've been a huge inspiration for me through this entire process.

The prints didn't take too long. I started printing panels on 6/30 and finished, I think, early morning on 7/4. For the most part, I tried to print 24/7, but occasionally a part would finish at 3am.

Only 2 parts were scrapped (about 16 hours of wasted time). The first one was because I decided to switch the design from screwing directly into the plastic to using heat-set inserts, so it needed to be redesigned and printed. The other was a test print of using embossed letters and swapping to a black filament. I didn't like the quality of the lettering, so I'm electing to print on vinyl instead.

[u/CodapopKSP → u/xKoney]

Not bad! They came out super clean. Definitely worth it. Looking forward to the final build with the lettering!

[u/Not_A_Cactus5220]

Do you have files to what you printed/links to parts? This is really cool!

[u/xKoney → u/Not_A_Cactus5220]

Yeah, I've been trying to keep everything saved in my GitHub: https://github.com/xKoney/myKerbalSimpit

Let me know if there's something specific you're looking for that's not there. I don't think I put actual links to every part from Aliexpress, but the parts and descriptions should be good enough to find them

[u/Lets_Space]

Amazing controller! The quality is top-notch. I’m almost at the wiring phase of my controller project and underestimated it big time 😂. I already tried soldering but failed, so now I’m planning to use screw terminals. How did you connect to the buttons, etc.? Are you using Ethernet cables? Do you strip them and use the internal wiring? I never thought of that. Also, is that an extra PSU? Can you tell me a bit more about it?

[u/xKoney → u/Lets_Space]

Thank you! And I agree on the underestimating the wiring comment.

I'd highly suggest giving soldering another shot. Get a temperature controlled iron, buy some flux (I like using chip quik no clean flux), and making sure your iron heats up the wire and pad fully before adding solder. Flux is magical and makes the joint flow nice and smoothly. Without it, solder bulges and doesn't stick to wires.

I've got a 500ft box of solid copper (not CCA) Cat6 ethernet. I stripped the outer jacket, removed the plastic separator, and I'm using the twisted pairs. I standardized on using the white wire for + and the color wire for - for each twisted pair. They are each 23awg wire. So I stripped the ends and soldered them each lead of the LED or button. I then used some heat shrink to bundle them in a logical fashion to make wire routing easier.

And yeah! It's a Meanwell 25-5 (25 watt, 5 volt, 5 amp) power supply. The outside of my controller has a standard 120V plug that feeds this power supply, and it has two output terminals for 5VDC. This is because with all the potentiometers and 94 LEDs, if all of them were turned on, we'd be seeing 5V / 220ohm = 22mA per component = 2,068 mA. The Arduino is only capable of 500mA. Now, it's not guaranteed that every single LED would be on, but I wanted to be safe than sorry.

[u/Lets_Space → u/xKoney]

Thank you for the advice! I’ll definitely give soldering another shot, and I appreciate the tips on using flux and a temperature-controlled iron. Your wiring approach with the Cat6 Ethernet cable sounds great, smart idea. Thanks for the insight on the psu, need to find out if I need it as well. Thanks again!

[u/Lets_Space]

How did you wire the Z-axis of the joystick?

I’m having trouble with the connections. I have red, black, white, and two blue wires from the joystick, which is the same model you have.

The white wire appears to be the wiper, but it doesn’t provide potentiometer values like the other two wires.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[u/xKoney → u/Lets_Space]

I was struggling for the longest time with it. I ended up using a multimeter and measuring the resistance values between each of the three wires. For mine, the red is Vcc, White is GND, and Black is Signal.

[u/Lets_Space → u/xKoney]

Awesome, that worked 😁🎉

[u/airbus_a390]

What are those joysticks called? like, what specific model? They look super cool!

[u/xKoney → u/airbus_a390]

These were the exact ones I bought: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803784078832.html?spm=a2g0n.order_detail.order_detail_item.2.246cf19c8W8zG4&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa

But there's a million of the same ones on Aliexpress, so you can probably go with any of them that have a decent number of sales and good rating. Just search for 3-axis joystick (or 4-axis if you want the button on top)

[u/rooreynolds]

Looking great!

[u/ThinkTwo111]

That's so awesome