Playing simulation games can be very frustrating, a lot of functions are distributed somewhere on a keyboard, hitting the wrong key could cause a disaster. Building a cockpit with dedicated switches and buttons may avoid a virtual catastrophe.
But controlling a truck by an airplane cockpit, or do a successfull moon landing with a truck dashboard could interfere the experience. So kind of an universal HID should be the solution. I bought some time ago for another project some “Smart Switches” from NKK, they got some “rust” with the time, so time to use them now. Like most of the other projects you (will) find on my page this one has had a lot of progress and no blogs about it.
[DONE]
- Electronics design
- PCB design
- Case design
- Working prototype
[WIP]
- Programming
- 3D-Printing of case
- Game profiles
I’m using a Teensy 3.5 which has a powerful 32bit MCU, 8 NKK smart switches, a rotary encoder with RGB backlighting, a 128x128pixel TFT display, a mini joystick and 2 push buttons (outside picture on the right).
The features :
- 8(16) buttons with graphical LCD
- 16(32) external input interface
- Secondary function for LCD-buttons and ext. inputs
- LCD-buttons and ext. inputs can control keyboard presses, mouse actions or joystick inputs.
- 6 analog inputs usable as additional joystick axes
- uSD card slot
- Onboard UI for programming/editing game scheme and system settings
- Play animations on the LCD-buttons, display different function states
geniusss rustronics 