operate a keyboard+mouse when in a simpit

[Gareth Barry]

I feel like a complete idiot asking this, but how do you guys with simpits operate the keyboard and mouse when in the full simpit? I am in the process of building a simpit for the F14, and have just attached the front panel, both side panels are also attached. I was all excited to try it last night, and suddenly, I realised how impractical my current setup is, and I felt like such an idiot! The thing is, no matter how full fidelity my simpit is (and I hope to make it very high fidelity) I still need to access the keyboard for gameplay reasons. My thinking is that I may have to replace the master warning panel on the right side panel with a keyboard and mouse. I plan to go VR eventually anyway. 

Another question is USB cables to the PC. Currently, I am using a 10 into 1 USB hub. However, I can't put my joystick, headtracker and all the arduinos into the hub, as the connection seems to be somewhat unstable. Is this because the current draw is too much? My solution at the moment is to have the joystick and headtracker directly into the PC USB ports, and then the arduinos into the USB hub, then into the PC. This means a whole bunch of wires going all over the place that seems unnecessary! Ideally, all of the USB cables would go into the hub, which would then have a wireless/bluetooth connection to the PC. The whole simpit will be on caster wheels so to move it when needed. 

Thanks in advance for any help and advice!

 

[Nightdare]

You must have more than 1 Port on the back, use several Hubs (especially since you'd probably be mixing and downgrading USB speed)

Also: I wouldn't suggest Wireless hubs, but that's just me

And since you have a 'real' pit, I would think routing USB cables shouldn't be such a big problem? I mean, they jam in several miles of cables into a real cockpit 

[scommander2]

7 hours ago, Gareth Barry said:

However, I can't put my joystick, headtracker and all the arduinos into the hub, as the connection seems to be somewhat unstable. Is this because the current draw is too much?

I have everything is connected to one 10 port hub, and the hub has its own power to support each port and ensure all devices have enough power.

But, please do watch out to ensure the hub controllers will not be maxed up (for example:  there are two controllers inside my 10-port hub and 5 ports per one controller, the 2nd controller is daisy-chain from the 1st controller) and I think the max USB controller from PC is allowed 5 (hope I am right).  The devices will not work if they are connected with the 5th USB controller (please do check the device manager if they work okay or not).

I put my keyboard and mouse on the Bluetooth since they should not cause the latency (but not the audio devices and my audio devices are on USB).

[scommander2]

In addition, I use the USB-Thunderbolt cable for my 10-port hub since I have the TB4 ports that can deliver more bandwidth to 40Gbps. 

[Despayre]

2 hours ago, scommander2 said:

there are two controllers inside my 10-port hub and 5 ports per one controller, the 2nd controller is daisy-chain from the 1st controller) and I think the max USB controller from PC is allowed 5 (hope I am right). 

A USB Controller can handle 127 devices each, but a daisy chain of only 5 hubs, as it's a maximum of 7 tiers in the USB spec (devices above and below any given hub make up the other 2 tiers). Ergo, use bigger hubs if you need to, the USB spec itself is not holding you back.

[Gareth Barry]

Thanks so much guys that's very useful information