Building a Cockpit Setup for Simulator Games? 33
Milo_Mindbender asks: "For awhile I've been looking at building a cockpit-like setup for playing simulation games. One problem is finding a way to hook up a large number (up to 100) of lighted push-buttons in the thing and interface them to a computer that would poll the switches and control the (Tri-color LED) lights. Since the buttons/LEDs won't be clustered together, it would be nice if each button (or group of 4-5 buttons) could be on some kind of multi-drop network so the thing wouldn't turn into a wiring nightmare. The trick is that you don't want to miss button presses and you want to let people hold down multiple buttons without the setup getting confused. The big problem though, is cost. Anybody got an idea of how this could be done, preferablly with off-the-shelf parts, for under $5-$10 per button including the button?" Combine this idea with the earlier article we did on LCD-screens-for-cockpits, and you might have a kick-ass setup! Networked mech sims, anyone?
Gah... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:That's what the Al-Qeda are trying to do. (Score:1, Troll)
Other uses (Score:2)
Wire all the lights to a centralised box, which acts as a keyboard pass through.
I wonder if you could adapt a system to efficently manage networks?
OPerhaps you hsould by some LED's with IPV6 intergrated? That would be pretty cool - if they are available.
It's been done (Score:3, Informative)
Build Your Own Cockpit [direct.ca]
That has a few links. Plenty more can be found with simple google searching. I had this idea a few months ago, and like any idea I have, I checked to see if it was done already, and sure enough
As for LCD screens, they've got that stuff figured out. Check it out, you won't be let down.
Re:It's been done (Score:2)
Re:It's been done (Score:2)
Why build your own computer, when you can buy a perfectly good pre-assembled one? Why build your own book case, when you can go down to OfficeMax and buy one? Why bother restoring a junky car, why not buy one that works fine to begin with?
The answers are all roughly the same...
This has a lot of wires, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Take apart a standard AT or PS/2 keyboard. Now, inside of most of them are a few layers of plastic with electronic traces, and a small bit of circuit board with one big chip (the encoder). How a keyboard works is that the keys are arranged in a grid of wires, and when you press down on a key, you connect two wires in a grid. With a little bit of work recording the electronic traces, you can figure out what keys connect what pins on the encoder. Congradulations, you now have a 101 button method of input.
Now, if you want to be lazy, then here's this link: Happs Controls [happcontrols.com], which has less inputs, and only works on win9x/NT/Mac, but saves you from wiring. Even if you go with the homebuilt solution, Happs sells a variety of buttons, and gives a price discount for large quantities. (I believe the price drops happen at 10 and 100 unit quantities.)
(Happs, btw, is a supplier of arcade game parts.)
Keep this in mind... (Score:3, Insightful)
Something to think about.
sPh
Re:Keep this in mind... (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, but the cost of lessons is only a small part of the licensing process. You need probably close to a thousand hours of flight time before you are officially a licensed pilot. Factor in travelling time to the airport, time away from the family, etc. Not exactly feasible to many. Those hours are most certainly worth more than $4000.
Re:Keep this in mind... (Score:4, Informative)
If you want a high-power, instrument, multi-engine, or ATP (airline) certificate many more hours are of course required. However, 1000 hours is close to what you need to get an airline job, not to cruise around on weekends in a 172!
sPh
Re:Keep this in mind... (Score:1)
PIC's your friend (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:PIC's your friend (Score:3, Informative)
Noone else has mentioned this and this is really exactly what you want.
Without having multiple interfaces, you will not be able to handle 25 buttons and LED without using some sort of controller. I recommend purchasing PROGRAMMING AND CUSTOMIZING PICMICRO MICROCONTROLLERS. This book goes into great details (with good examples) on how to make button debounces. It even comes with a circuit board to build your own programmer (saving you quite a bit of money).
With a cheap breadboard, and a couple PICS, you could make a circuit that had a serial port that could address any number of buttons.
If your really ambitious and get the thing to work, you could make a small board run and sell kits on eBay and probably pay for the project while your at it. I'm sure there are plenty of geeks that would pay good money for a flight simulator console.
Multiple monitor support in flight sims (Score:3, Interesting)
I would think a dual processor Xeon system with 2 GB RAM and 3 video cards should have enough horsepower (sic) to handle this type of setup, but is there any software that can do it?
sPh
Re:Multiple monitor support in flight sims (Score:1)
The power of Google... (Score:2)
sPh
Check Dallas Semiconductor (Score:1, Informative)
Basicly, they have modules to do damn near anything you want, they can check the status of a switch, toggle like a transistor/buffer combination, etc. And you can have a number of devices on the same 1-wire network. Each device is individually addressable, and device types can be access in groups.
(While they call it a 1-wire network, it is 1 wire + ground, can be accessed various speeds depending on the attached devices. (Up to 1 megabit I think.)
So, basicly what you'll want to do is work out the fastest polling rate you require and figure out if you can adaquatly transfer enough data to meet the worst case scenario. (best case is probably easy, as you can poll to see if devices changed.).
A rough estimate would be that you could do all this for about $3/[switch|LED] combination.
Re:Check Dallas Semiconductor (Score:2)
I've worked with 1-wire technology (and have also used their TINI controller board). Overall, it is relatively useful when dealing with a highly scaleable and robust design but not for something as simply as a collection of pushbuttons.
1-wire is a mess because to do anything useful, it takes more than 1-wire to deliver power and amplify the singals. The components are more advanced then simply switchs and therefore, are considerably more expensive.
EPIC board (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.mindspring.com/~rrelect/epic/info/te
At least, that's what all the hardcore cockpit builder guys I know use. One just bought a cockpit from a little fighter (it's an F-5 or one of it's variants that wound up in a scrap heap) and is in the process of rewiring the whole thing to run off an epic board.
Some Interesting Links... (Score:2)
The JoyRider Virtual Flyer [acesim.com]
Homebrew Flight Sim Cockpit [direct.ca]
Full Motion Flight Simulation Platform [cadsoftusa.com]
Homemade Flight Simulator [senet.com.au]
3 Axis Flight Simulator [webcom.com]
Also, look for something called the "Rock-N-Ride" - it was a commercial low-cost motion platform, that interfaced to a serial port and used a airbrush compressor for power. It wasn't cheap, but it was cheaper than a real 3 axis platform. I have also seen real 3 axis platforms sold on eBay, but be prepared for hydraulic behemoths (in weight, if not size) that will set you back some.
Now, granted, none of these sites will probably answer your question about what to do in regards to all of the lights, switches, etc. For that, I would suggest looking into PIC or BASIC Stamp interfacing over a "single-wire" serial interface or similar. You could probably also do it with logic circuits and shift register-based systems (to effect a parallel to serial to parallel interface), or use a MAX232 for comm. There is also a guy out there that sells an ethernet -> uPU interface (people have used it to hook old C64's to ethernet, etc).
You could also hook up to the joystick port - in theory you could hook resistors up to get input from both axis's, a different resistor per switch, two joysticks - plus all of the buttons - that is a lot of buttons!
There is also the possibility of using the joystick port as a MIDI port, and comm'ing over that. Also, look up joystick info, there is a method of toggling a bit or so on the joystick port to actually gain a certain low-speed output over the joystick port to allow you to "clock" data from the port - supposedly some "digital" joysticks have done this.
There is always USB - check out Nuts and Volts magazine - there have been articles in the past on the chipsets, etc needed to interface using USB.
I hope this helps...
Microcontrollers and Serial Communication (Score:1)
Where are all the whiners? (Score:2)
Build your own Arcade Controls (Score:2, Informative)
Try the EPIC card (Score:2)