But an Arduino does not output an analogue voltage! And the PWM feature that allows you to dim a LED by sort of emulating an analogue voltage, does not work with these driver IC's. They work great! You can select dot mode or bar mode and it will display an analogue input voltage as a single LED (dot) or a range of LEDs (bar). I initially ordered driver IC's with them. If we can light one LED at a time, we can let it represent the fuel level on our spacecraft. The top LED is blue, then some green, then orange and finally red. I got these great LED bars I want to use as fuel gauges. Feel free to skip this on your first build, or improve it and let me know! This is the hardest part of the entire build. When the switch is toggled on, the LED lights up and the signal pin goes high. We will use the Arduino pin in INPUT mode. The LED will always only light up when the switch is toggled on. These are a bit different and do not allow control over the LED independent from the switch position. We will use the Arduino pin in normal OUTPUT mode. For the LED, you attach additional wires: When you push the button or toggle the switch, the circuit gets closed and the pin gets grounded. The NO connector on the switch or button is Normally Open, so the circuit is not connected. We will configure the digital pin as INPUT_PULLUP, which means the Arduino will keep the pin at 5V and detect when the pin gets grounded and treat that as an input. Arduino digital pin -> NO (normally open).Here's how to hook them up to the Arduino. Most switches and buttons have the connectors labeled C, NO, NC, +,. Expect to pay 40-50 euros in The Netherlands and get this beautiful result in the mail the next day! Note this is fixed in the attached designs.Īfter checking everything thoroughly, send it to the lasercutting shop. I failed to take into account the size required for mounting the joysticks and had to hack it. Note this is not fixed in the designs attached. That's why the logo in my faceplate design didn't get etched. They also almost always offer design help at an hourly rate. Every shop may have different requirements for the design, so check with your shop before submitting. They have since closed and activities have been taken over by Laserbeest, where I had the box laser cut. I had the faceplate lasercut in The Netherlands at Lichtzwaard. It allows for extreme precision, as long as your design is accurate.Īttached is my faceplate design, in formats appropriate for Affinity Designer and other vector drawing programs like the free InkScape. Luckily, laser cutting is not very expensive any more. The length of the wires is a balancing act between short enough to keep the enclosure free of excess tangles of wire (which might prevent you from being able to close the box) and long enough to be able to move parts out of the way to solder other parts in, tighten screws and poke around with your multimeter while debugging.Īchieving a clean, professional look is very hard when sawing and painting by hand. You can use these as a big connector, so you can still unplug your Arduino for testing. I recommend getting some strips of header pins and soldering the wires to those. Finally, you connect to the Arduino.Īfter creating loops for power and ground, all the connections to the Arduino pins remain. You don't connect all ground pins directly to the Arduino, but rather connect ground on one button to ground on the next button and loop all around. When connecting all electronics to the final faceplate, you can reduce clutter by creating loops for 5V and ground. I soldered some wires to the buttons and used a solderless breadboard to make the temporary connections to the Arduino. When creating a prototype, don't solder all your buttons in unless you want to de-solder them when you get to the final enclosure. digital design drawings ready for lasercutting.This guide will include everything you need to build an identical copy, or make adjustments and improvements along the way, as you see fit. This specific build includes inputs such as rotation and translation controls through joysticks, a throttle slider, loads of buttons with status lights, LED fuel gauges and a telemetry LCD display with multiple modes. we have liftoff! What is a KerbalController?Ī KerbalController, also referred to as a Control Panel, Simpit (simulated cockpit), DSKY (display keyboard) or custom joystick, is a customized input device for controlling the popular rocket-building-and-flying-and-hopefully-not-exploding game Kerbal Space Program combined with optional output from the game, such as status lights, telemetry displays and/or fuel gauges. Especially when it's a big red safety switch, where you have to open the cover first, flick the switch to arm your rocket, start the countdown and 3. Well, because pushing buttons and throwing physical switches feels so much more substantial than clicking your mouse.
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