DescentBB

While looking at joysticks for a young friend, I saw a flight stick-throttle combo that had amongst other things a 8-way pov switch under the thumb on the throttle. It occurred to me that that would be a great setup for slide controls!

I would like to try and create a throttle with the following:
microswitch contacts for forward/reverse (simulate keyboard keys)
pov to emulate 4 keyboard keys
4 fingertip microswitches to emulate keyboard keys

or joystick buttons in all cases

What sort of components would I need and what would be involved in getting the computer to read it as an input device?

Grendel, could your sidewinder usb box be easily modded to do this?

get all the usual mechanical and electromechanical (switches) stuff and start. if something is missing, head out and get it
best plan is to sketch the whole thing beforehand to get a picture of what it'll look like and what you'll need.
wiring controls into the computer might be the easiest by buying a cheap usb-joystick or usb-game pad (like $5, check for the number of switches you need), rip it apart so that the only thing left is the circuit board with the usb cable. remove the switches from the board and connect the switches of your POV with the pads of the switches that were on the circuit board. leave the circuit board as is, and don't touch the shiny pins/pads too often, neither after you walked over a carpet etc. (discharge yourself by touching the computer case then)

btw., what is the handle gonna look like? are you going to form one from resin, or are you carving it from stone or wood?

Edit:
i might add that the circuit pads are going to detach if you hold the soldering iron too long/often at them. also, unplug the circuit before doing any soldering on it.

as for emulating keys, you could also use an usb keyboard circuit instead of the joystick/joypad one, since you would'nt need joystick software to emulate the keys, but directly transmitting the proper key to the system. on the other hand, this might be a little tricky for starters. if you want to change the key settings in the future, i'd call this next to impossible for starters. if you know someone who is into electronics, he might be able to help you with the assembly and application though.

one more thing: before you buy the stick/pad, check if it has or is compatible with joystick software capable of emulating keys, OR check if you can use joystick buttons in your game. if it's descent 3, this is no problem, since it supports two joysticks, which means you can skip all the hassle with the keys and software and just plug it in.

Weyrman wrote:Grendel, could your sidewinder usb box be easily modded to do this?

I would not start w/ that specific PCB but in general, yes -- the uC and the software are an easy to use base for that.

Software wise: the 3DP stuff can be stripped easily, routines to sample the switches and/or pots are a lot simpler than the 3DP stuff (w/ the exception of auto calibration), new HID descriptors shouldn't be too hard.

The 3DP-Vert bases on MJoy (heavily modified tho..), other ppl used it as well -- CJoy, JoyAdapter. Hm, must be something about germans..

The whole thing should be fairly straight forward to build on a breadboard.