Making a "simple" button box...

gmaksi83 · Feb 5, 2024

Diamondback said: ↑

Here's a bit of talk about my 2023 christmas holiday project, which is nearing completion now.

During the final days before the .31 release I noticed a distinct lack of input hardware on my side, testing all the new things of the T-Series was extremely tedious due to the lack of matching hardware. Buying something is not my style (and nothing like what I want really existed), so of course I had to design and build my own thing.

Thanks to some experience with USB HID stuff from my earlier CAN-Bus related work, I was pretty confident that the software side of things would go well and I could build a custom button box. The bigger issue is the actual inputs themselves, I wanted a large variety of different styles of input, buttons, switches, joysticks, encoders, etc etc. So after searching around, I acquired a bunch of different things.

The next challenge is building an enclosure for all of this, something that is not super tricky for me because I'm quite used to designing and 3D-printing housings like this. However, the focus this time around was on modularity since I didn't quite know yet which specific input hardware was going to fit the best and what sort of layout I wanted. I opted for a design where the bulk of the material is a sturdy frame that accepts modular panels, each panel can then house a few different input thingies and if I want to change it, i just need to reprint that panel rather than the entire box.

Overall, this approach worked wonderfully and allowed me to have my final box with minimal waste from testprints. The most tedious part is yet to come though, wiring.... I haven't counted, but just going by what I had to order in addition to the stuff I already had, I probably crimped about 500 crimps, and wired 50m or so of cable... Again everything is modular so it's a bit more than if you were to build one fixed thing that can't be changed.

The software side of things did indeed go pretty straight forward, easily taking the least amount of time. I'm using Adafruit boards for both the USB controller and the IO stuff and for usability went with their own flavor of micropython (called "circuit python"). This makes it very easy to use and again, very modular. It's perfectly possible use cheaper hardware, but for me personally this was the path of least resistance.

Here's some notable data points:

About 60 individual buttons and switches in various styles, some momentary, some latching

2 analog joysticks, one with 2 axes, one with 3 axes

One real ignition switch with 4 positions

A 10-position rotary selector

3 small rotary encoders

One big rotary encoder from a CNC handwheel

Another CNC handwheel encoder that is exposed as an axis for high precision inputs

One 4-way digital joystick that can multiplex between 9 different sets of inputs for a total of 36 individually usable buttons on one single stick

Some buttons are still missing, had to order more since I liked them so much, but they just need wiring and are plug-and-play otherwise

View attachment 1095624 View attachment 1095625 View attachment 1095626 View attachment 1095627 View attachment 1095628 View attachment 1095629 View attachment 1095630 View attachment 1095631 View attachment 1095632
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Hi, wouldn't be easier with this HID interface?
Martzis HID Interface USB Card USB Board PC Via BUS For Linux EMC / Mach 3
https://www.ebay.com/itm/121668391461
or
https://www.ultimarc.com/control-interfaces/u-hid-en/u-hid/

simsimw · Feb 28, 2024

I’ve started a similar project on my own, I ordered all my parts and will be mounting them to a wood box. 2 of the toggle switches will be used for diffs, the emergency stop for the fifth wheel stuff the rotary switch I’m not super sure, the key for the ignition, the big red one I’m not sure neither, and the other 3 switches will be other buttons for T series or off roading. Now we wait 2 months for everything to arrive.
--- Post updated ---
I was thinking of also ordering a joystick, but we’ll see by then if I really need it.
Also the parts I picked have no lights, because I don’t want to fiddle around with the 12v circuit and 5v esp or raspberry pi. My 150W 12V 600 LED setup for my bedroom took enough time already
--- Post updated ---
@Diamondback Are your Buttons controlled directly to the pc or do you have a single board computer like a arduino etc?

simsimw · Feb 29, 2024

i am thinking of ordering a cool joystick too, for like heavy equipement, but i don't own any games that have that yet...

Happyhusky · Mar 4, 2024

I wanna buy some working wiper/blinker levers for sim rigs, switches are also pretty good too, anybody got any links?

Musicman27 · Mar 5, 2024

Diamondback said: ↑

There's really nothing here worth making schematics for, it's just a whole bunch of buttons, switches and encoders wired to GPIO pins and some power...
The different boards are all connected with I²C using Qwiic cables, so nothing special there either. I only wrote down what connects where so that I knew which pins to use in the firmware.

It's just printed in a different color, in my case using a toolchanger, but this is perfectly possible with manual filament swapping as well.
Click to expand...

You can use a company called PCBway to have them 3D print things and make circuit boards with buttons and different input and output hardware.

simsimw · Mar 7, 2024

Musicman27 said: ↑

You can use a company called PCBway to have them 3D print things and make circuit boards with buttons and different input and output hardware.
Click to expand...

But money. Most of us like to just use a arduino or raspberry pi, cheaper, easier to buy, and quicker. If I was looking to make a whole panel with custom OutGauge software and weld a metal box with lit-up buttons yeah I’d buy something like that

Musicman27 · Mar 7, 2024

simsimw said: ↑

But money. Most of us like to just use a arduino or raspberry pi, cheaper, easier to buy, and quicker. If I was looking to make a whole panel with custom OutGauge software and weld a metal box with lit-up buttons yeah I’d buy something like that
Click to expand...

They do 3D printing, so if you and nobody around you have a 3D printer, you can still make 3D-printed things.

You can also buy some basic circuit boards in a pack of 10 different ones, for 5$

simsimw · Mar 7, 2024

Musicman27 said: ↑

They do 3D printing, so if you and nobody around you have a 3D printer, you can still make 3D-printed things.

You can also buy some basic circuit boards in a pack of 10 different ones, for 5$
Click to expand...

but it is much easier to just use a raspberry pi at least for me

hacker420 · Mar 8, 2024

simsimw said: ↑

but it is much easier to just use a raspberry pi at least for me
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granted a Pi is overkill for a button box.

simsimw · Mar 9, 2024

hacker420 said: ↑

granted a Pi is overkill for a button box.
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Well, not Necessarily. A esp32 is what I would usually use, but i need at least 12 gpio ports. I don’t have an arduino and I don’t need to buy one if I have a raspberry pi. Also I don’t mean the raspberry pi 5 or 4 I’m gonna use of our old raspberry pi 1s or 2s

hacker420 · Mar 10, 2024

simsimw said: ↑

Well, not Necessarily. A esp32 is what I would usually use, but i need at least 12 gpio ports. I don’t have an arduino and I don’t need to buy one if I have a raspberry pi. Also I don’t mean the raspberry pi 5 or 4 I’m gonna use of our old raspberry pi 1s or 2s
Click to expand...

If you already have one, sure. But not if you need to buy one.

simsimw · Mar 10, 2024

hacker420 said: ↑

If you already have one, sure. But not if you need to buy one.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah and specifically the old ones, they are from 2012 and 2014 respectively, originally they were Made for simple things like that. Back then they were 25$ not 100$ I got one in my Christmas sock a while back and it was something that was 30$

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