Boot910

So far everything looks good. No problems with the paint at all.

Hi Feed. I hadn't checked the forum in a few days. My method was very low-tech. I got a bag of black caps (easiest to get from Digikey stock-wise) and painted them by hand with Testor's Model Master Aircraft Gray. I used a P-Touch label maker to do the text on my caps using White on Clear extra-strength adhesive. If you have the means to do engraving then I think getting white caps if you can is a great idea.

Hi Smoky. I've certainly learned a lot building this first one. Still ironing out a few things like fabricating an ENT key, and getting it to work as I want in-game. The buttons and rockers all work at least! That I know already. :) I still have to do a final tally to figure a cost/unit and see if I bought the big pieces in bulk what it would cost before I could offer to sell completed units. I'll work this all out and post back. If demand is high enough and final price is too high to scare everyone off I might be tempted to do this.

Hi Pendra. I'd be interested to hear more about your app. I don't think it's necessary if the gamepad buttons work but I think you're right in that it'd make things much more flexible.

If you're looking for a good general supply of just about everything electrical and electronic, give Digikey a try. http://www.digikey.com You can either look online or download their huge 2000+ page pdf catalog. I've gotten most of my stuff from them. As for labeling metal panels, there are 4 ways I can think of in increasing order of expense. 1. You can buy pre-made white dry transfer letter sheets from a hobby store and label your panel one letter at a time. 2. You can use white on clear P-Touch label maker tape if you own a P-Touch. If not, that's an added expense. 3. If you own or have a friend who has a laser printer, you can get a toner-transfer decal kit (available @ digikey by the way) and make your own dry-transfer sheets. This process not only requires a laser printer, but also a hot roll laminator and a heat gun to make the decal sheets so it can get a bit pricey. 4. Buy a desktop CNC machine and create/engrave your own panels. Would be the most fun and is easily the most expensive option.

Just the front panel by itself was somewhere around $65-70, yes. I had them do the entire enclosure. Front, back, top, bottom, sides, and corner extrusions to hold it all together. The top and sides were simple pieces of black anodized aluminum @ 1.5mm thickness so they didn't cost much overall. I had a slot cut out of the back panel for the cable, and the bottom panel was thicker to provide a more stable base @ 3mm or so. I also had 5 threaded holes drilled in the bottom piece to mount the control board and a stand-off for a cable restraint, and I had the sides machined to fit the grooves in the extrusions so those two cost a bit. Total for the whole package (all six panels, 4 extrusions, 8 M5 screws, 4 rubber feet) was a bit over $200 with shipping.

The front panel was engraved and backfilled with white paint when it was manufactured by Front Panel Express. The labeling on the buttons I did with a P-Touch using white on clear extra strength adhesive tape. I didn't have any plans to hook it up to the lighting system or else I would've made the front panel out of perspex instead of black anodized aluminum.

Quick update for those still interested. I finished up the soldering/wiring the other night but I haven't been able to program/test the UFC until tonight. Plugged it in and no sparks or magic smoke so that was good. :) I used the U-HID Config utility to program all the named buttons/rockers as gamepad buttons. You can do keystrokes but it doesn't do combos like Left Shift-A it seems, so gamepad buttons look to be the way to go. I can still program the blank 3 buttons (under FWD, MID, and AFT) with keystrokes to do other things later. Windows only allows 32 gamepad buttons and fortunately all the required functions add up to exactly 32! Anyways, everything works. Now it's just a matter of integrating it into DCS:A-10C. To test out the Master Caution LED I programmed it to turn on when I depress the MC button and that works too. If I can figure out how to interface that with the game it should work. Only thing really left to do is fabricate the final ENT button.

The U-HID card I'm using has an SDK that would allow me to drive an LED (Master Caution) from an external program. I'm guessing this is where export.lua comes into play. If I can get this figured out then the MC light will be functional. The actual button reading should be pretty straight forward. I can configure the buttons as either standard key presses or as game pad buttons. I might set them as game pad buttons since the card outputs standard keyscan codes and it doesn't look like there's a way to combine them; I can output an A, or Left Control, but I don't think I can do LCtrl+A.

Thanks! I downloaded Digikey's entire PDF catalog. It's huge and would take a bit of searching to find that I think, so thanks for the link. To be honest, once I settled on the NKK switch I stopped looking but it's cool someone is thinking on it. Since I already have the front panel and it'd cost another 65 bucks to do a new one I guess I'll stick with what I have. :)

Thanks! I have a U-HID card (http://www.u-hid.com/home/overview_board.php) It's small enough to fit inside the UFC and seems to have all the capabilities I need. I can configure the buttons as either key presses or game pad buttons, and I can drive the LED in the Master Caution switch with it. You could really use any of the solutions out there I think but this particular card fits inside so I can make it a self-contained solution with just a USB cable coming out the back. I still have to work out how I want to interface with the game and I'll probably need help with some code in export.lua for the LED. It's been a fun project so far though! Lot's of different skills exercised.

Here's an update on my build This is the back of my pcboard with my connectors attached. I have a photo of the front of the bare board, but it was blurry and I put my camera away and I'm tired, so I'll upload it later. This is the front of my pcboard with the buttons soldered in. The one without the cap is the Enter button. I still have to fabricate the final button. Here's the insides of the UFC with the panel mounted. You'll notice I haven't soldered the wires to the rockers or Master Caution yet. I also haven't mounted the interface card. That I will do last of all when making the final connections. And here's the UFC buttoned up for the night. I labeled all the buttons and put in a temp cap for the Enter button. This is what the finished project looks like... pretty much. Final Enter button needed obviously, and I'll paint the screws for the rockers flat black. Still to do: Put together a build/cost list and whatever info is useful.

Wow. Nice and clean looking. Looks great!

Thanks! Yeah, I agree it's a bit pricey but it's one of the most useful panels to have a "real" version of, and it looked like a fun project to do (which it is!). I already had the P-Touch so the labeling thing was a no-brainer. If I hadn't already spent enough money on this thing I'd think about getting the DecalPro system. It lets you use your laser printer if you have one to create dry transfer decals. Since it can create white decals it'd also work for labeling the buttons. It's actually a very cool system that I may get sometime later for a bunch of other stuff but you need a few extra accessories like a laminator and a heat gun which all together would cost about $250 or so. Don't need all that right now... although the heat gun would be handy to have to be able to use shrink-tube.

Should be something more to see early next week.