Anyone had any experience with the DSD button boxes?

[SierraFox]

As the title says above. Has anyone used the DSD button boxes? And if so which ones? I can see some of them are stated as being natively supported with DCS. Are they plug and play or do they involve some kind of set up to get the toggle switches to work?

 

For those who don't know about them

http://www.derekspearedesigns.com

[hansangb]

I don't have the button box, but I do have the 64 input board. It works just fine. You go into the setting, and you'll see DSD column (shows up like joysticks, rudders etc). Then you click on the function you want to map (UHF, MASTER ARM, etc), and hit the switch/button that you want to map it to. DCS will then create a DIFF lua file automatically.

 

So basically, it works just like when you remap a joystick button.

[Thisdale]

the DSD products are pretty damn Awesome.

Derek makes very solid gear.

 

I know his work mostly from the racing crowd (iracing.com).

Edited September 7, 2016 by Thisdale

[Icefalcon]

Pretty much all standalone button boxes use some sort of USB encoder board that translate the input into a generic USB joystick readable by default drivers. It'll show up in your control panel with some number of axis things, and a number of buttons. You can then program them either directly in DCS by just clicking on the button, or through something like AutoHotKey AHK for more advanced functionalities and macro like sequence behaviors like those typically found in joystick programming utilities.

 

I just finished building my own buttons box this weekend and I'm going through the AHK programming portion myself. Doing the macro programming is pretty fun, take some a few hours though.

[FeistyLemur]

Wow, this is my first hearing of this product line. I have my own toggle box but I definitely can't build stuff for the price he sells these for.

 

Not to mention free worldwide shipping which is crazy.

[Sokol1_br]

Wow, this is my first hearing of this product line.

 

But DSD boards are mentioned in this same forum several times... ;)

 

"Flight" model:

 

http://www.derekspearedesigns.com/uploads/3/3/3/7/3337442/1431795_orig.jpg

Edited September 6, 2016 by Sokol1_br

[SVgamer72]

I have one of his older boxes.

 

It shows up in DCS as a "DSD Device.....", and all of the buttons map with no issues.

 

[FeistyLemur]

I'm considering ordering one or both of the flight models at this point. I was going to build my own rotary encoder box eventually but I can't do it that cheap, and this is ready to go.

[hansangb]

His boxes look fantastic. And yes, it's just as expensive to build one. But for me, the process of building one is therapeutic. :)

[Icefalcon]

The one advantage to building your own is toggle switches gallore, you can have so many SPDT switches and LED switches it's just like a real aircraft panel.

[SierraFox]

The one advantage to building your own is toggle switches gallore, you can have so many SPDT switches and LED switches it's just like a real aircraft panel.

I would but have noo idea what i'd be doing. And i couldn't make a box as pretty as those. just wish they were flatter and didnt have the USB on the "bottom" if you have it face up

[Icefalcon]

It's actually not hard. Amazon or eBay something called the Zero Delay USB Encoder. It's a board with 12 buttons, come with the plug wiring and terminators for it. I did mine without any soldering at all. As long as you can use a drill and have some step bits to drill holes in a plastic box, you can get pretty much any decent size project box from the electronic store and it'll work. Check out some youtube videos on how people make buttons box, once you get started, it's super easy.

 

The hard part is buying a ton of different buttons and figuring out what you want on your box. But honestly, if you have the space, I think it's a good beginning toward doing a cockpit. You know you're going to need multiple panel with buttons and toggle switches later on. Or just make different boxes for different games.

[hansangb]

SierraFox, I'm in the process of creating a step by step document on how to build the boxes. *but* pretty is up to you! :)

 

I'd get the DSD box, and then you can decide if you want to go crazy and build button/switch boxes.

[dcshobbis]

...and the gear shifter would be a excellent landing gear solution as well for the simpit :pilotfly:

 

http://www.derekspearedesigns.com/pro-sequential---std.html

 

Punch it up to get gear up, and punch it down to get gear down!

Hmm, thinking of placing a order :joystick:

 

[Tricky11]

Derek is a member here. He is usually found in the oculus rift section of the forum. I use one of his adapters for my t500rs... His products are not expensive compared to most and the quality is very good..

[GregP]

Derek's button boxes are top notch. I'm running four of them in DCS with no issues at all.

[hansangb]

saweet!

[LeCuvier]

Very interesting! I ordered one FLT2 and will report back on my experience.

They convert the currency at 1 Euro = 1,05456 Dollar USD

Edit: I received my FLT2 and tried it. The 6 up/down toggle switches work fine. The 6 On/Off switches however do not work as I expected. I have a number of 2-position On/Off commands where one On/Off switch triggers both the On and the Off. This reqires that the switch input stays On or Off depending on the switch position, and that works fine with the TM Warthog Throttle. The On/Off switches in the button box do not work that way. They only produce a pulse. Thus, for an On/Off command in DCS you need two of these switches, or use them in toggle mode. In toggle mode however you can have a situation where the switch is in the Off position and the control in the sim is On.

Edit 1:

I sent an e-mail to DSD about this issue. They have come back with a simple solution, and now I can use the On/Off switches just like the ones on the TM Warthog throttle.

This requires a little mod of the "default.lua" in order to combine ON and OFF into a single input binding; but that's no issue for me.

Edit 2:

I found that the two rotary encoders on the DSD button box are very suitable for setting the compass course and the altimeter in the Bf-109. These two controls don't work well with normal toggle or pushbutton switches, as the program in DCS translates even very short activations of these switches into big changes of altitude or compass course. The rotary encoders work like up/down toggle switches; but they generate very short pulses with each rotation step, and this allows very precise setting of compass course and altitude.

Edited March 26, 2017 by LeCuvier
Use of rotary encoders found