brydling Posted August 27, 2011 Posted August 27, 2011 (edited) Update: NEW THREAD IN THE FOR SALE SECTION OF THE FORUM! The original post if someone want to follow the story: Just thought I'd post a couple of pictures to show you guys that have shown interest in what my upcoming joystick controller will look like. The photo is of the current controller of which I have only made 2 pcs a long time ago in the PCB prototype milling machine at work. It is called B240A1310 since it has support for 240 buttons and 13 10-bit axis. The new version is called B256A13. I left out the 10 for 10-bit since the same PCB could be used to make a version with 12-bit axis inputs with the swap of an IC and some software changes. It has a little more space between the button connectors compared to the B240A1310, and no power connection up in the left corner since this one draws it from the USB port instead. It is also 10 mm smaller in both directions (150x90). /Niclas EDIT: Sorry, had to remove the 3D render of the new version. Edited September 29, 2012 by brydling Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
brydling Posted August 27, 2011 Author Posted August 27, 2011 This is an image of how the pins in the button connectors are connected on the bottom of the PCB (but viewed from the top). As you can see I am using a matrix of rows and columns just like for example Leo's BU0836. The difference is that each row has one pin for every column, simplifying connections. And my matrix is a lot bigger! :D /Niclas Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
Krebs20 Posted August 27, 2011 Posted August 27, 2011 Wow. Just wow. How much did the board cost? Do you mind showing what windows sees in device manager? [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
brydling Posted August 27, 2011 Author Posted August 27, 2011 (edited) Wow. Just wow. How much did the board cost? Do you mind showing what windows sees in device manager? Thanks! I calculated a bit before and got 94 USD + shipping as a DIY-kit. I've been told that a colleague at work have a soldering machine at home, so assembled cards may be available. I don't know about that yet though. I am not sure he still has the machine or that it is still working, and I haven't got an answer from him yet. Will probably get it on monday. You have three pictures below. "HID-kompatibel spelenhet" means "HID-compatible gaming device". In the box "Gaming devices" it shows up as two joysticks. Windows only reads the name from one of them and puts it on both. I had hoped one should say "Joystick 1" and the other "Joystick 2", since that is what is programmed in the board. However, you can tell them apart anyway by opening them and see which one has 8 axis and which one has 5. /Niclas Edited August 27, 2011 by brydling Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
trigen Posted August 28, 2011 Posted August 28, 2011 Looking good, what i really miss tho is the ability to set curves outside of the game, but i'm sure some good programmer can come up with that (believe there something lurking on the software side around the forums already) 1080 ti, i7700k 5ghz, 16gb 3600 cl14 ddr4 oc
brydling Posted August 28, 2011 Author Posted August 28, 2011 (edited) Looking really good ! Thanks! Looking good, what i really miss tho is the ability to set curves outside of the game, but i'm sure some good programmer can come up with that (believe there something lurking on the software side around the forums already) Thank you! I have thought of adding such things, but I haven't figured out why someone would want to do that. Therefore it hasn't been done. Is it because there are simulators that won't let you adjust curves? If a lot of people is interested in it maybe I could add it to the software, but it is a lot of work for one guy :) Also, I think there is a program called DIView that will let you do it on the PC side. It won't be stored in the controller hovewer, only on that machine. Two things I will probably add is axis inversion and rotary encoder support. /Niclas Edited August 28, 2011 by brydling Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
MA_Goblin Posted August 28, 2011 Posted August 28, 2011 Great work, I will most likely be very interested in buying either a DIY kit or a ready made one. keep up the good work. // [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] _____________Semper paratus, In hoc signo vinces________________ PC: Intel i7-8700K (4.9 GHz), Aorus Ultra Gaming Z370 MB, Gigabyte RTX 3080, 32 GB DDR3 (3,2 GHz), Samsung EVO 860 M.2 500 GB SSD + Samsung 960 M.2 250 GB SSD Gaming: Virpil T-50 CM2, TM WH Throttle, Crosswind pedals, HP Reverb
brydling Posted August 28, 2011 Author Posted August 28, 2011 Great work, I will most likely be very interested in buying either a DIY kit or a ready made one. keep up the good work. // Thank you! One more from Sweden :) So far all but one of the guys that have signed up are from Sweden. Makes shipping a little easier :) /Niclas Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
brydling Posted August 28, 2011 Author Posted August 28, 2011 Just tested DIView. The joystick did not appear, so I guess that won't work for setting curves and deadzones. Don't know if it's a Win7 issue. The program is from 2004 so that seems possible. I have no other joystick to test with at this computer. /Niclas Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
trigen Posted August 28, 2011 Posted August 28, 2011 thanks for giving it a test Brydling, i know some of the programmers here on the forums was working on a combined stick setup program but i doubt they have done any curves so perhaps they would like to help out later on, in any case its mostly for fsx and some older games it would be needed so no big deal, guess im just to spoiled with the cougar 1080 ti, i7700k 5ghz, 16gb 3600 cl14 ddr4 oc
brydling Posted August 30, 2011 Author Posted August 30, 2011 thanks for giving it a test Brydling, i know some of the programmers here on the forums was working on a combined stick setup program but i doubt they have done any curves so perhaps they would like to help out later on, in any case its mostly for fsx and some older games it would be needed so no big deal, guess im just to spoiled with the cougar No problem! I know you can adjust curves in FSX, but maybe you need FSUIPC for it. /Niclas Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
HitchHikingFlatlander Posted August 30, 2011 Posted August 30, 2011 Nice work Brydling! http://dcs-mercenaries.com/ USA Squad
Sokol1_br Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Just tested DIView. The joystick did not appear, so I guess that won't work for setting curves and deadzones. Don't know if it's a Win7 issue. The program is from 2004 so that seems possible. I have no other joystick to test with at this computer. /Niclas Brydling, Just for FYI: I test with DView and DXTweak2 DIY Mjoy8 and Mjoy16 controllers, both in Win7/64. Able to settings deadzones and curves. Sokol1
brydling Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 Nice work Brydling! Thanks! Brydling, Just for FYI: I test with DView and DXTweak2 DIY Mjoy8 and Mjoy16 controllers, both in Win7/64. Able to settings deadzones and curves. Sokol1 Interesting! Thank you for testing that. Would you mind e-mailing your version of DIView to me so that I can make sure we have the same version? I will test at my main computer today where I have my HOTAS:WH and see if that one shows up. My e-mail adress is in my profile. /Niclas Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
brydling Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 (edited) Just tested DIView at my main computer. It worked great there. I have no idea why it didn't work on my laptop. I tried DXTweak2 also, it didn't work as good. When you press "Next" and get to the first virtual joystick of the B240A1310 (the one with eight axes), it crashes. Both 32- and 64-bit versions of the program crashed (tested on Win7/64). Maybe the program can't handle controllers with eight axes? The second virtual joystick shows up fine, and that one only has five axes. Anyone with a BU0836 or other eight-axis controller that would like to try it out? /Niclas Edited August 31, 2011 by brydling Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
brydling Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 After some more testing of the two utilities it became obvious to me that none of them allow you to adjust curves anyway :P The only thing you can do is change calibration settings. They should be able to set deadzones too, but it doesn't work on WinXP and later. DirectInput issue it says.. So, anyone knows a utility that actually let you adjust curves? /Niclas Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
brydling Posted October 1, 2011 Author Posted October 1, 2011 (edited) About 3 weeks ago I got my PCB's and soldered all components except the connectors to one of them to get it up and running over USB. It worked and looked good (at least if you're into electronics ;)). Work and other musts then kept me occupied a couple of weeks until yesterday, when I soldered the connectors and took a photograph. Today I updated the firmware to handle the 16 new inputs and also added code for the POV hats. The controller's 256 digital inputs are now distributed over 248 buttons and two 8-way POV hats (4 inputs/POV). Everything tested in DCS:WH 10 minutes ago and worked like a charm! :) Edited October 1, 2011 by brydling Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
pitbull Posted October 1, 2011 Posted October 1, 2011 Great news!!!!! MOBO ASUS P5QL-Pro, Intel Q9550 2.8Ghz @ 3.5 GHZ, 8GB DDR2 Crucial, XFX HD6950, TM Warthog, TIR4 /w Pro-Clip, 24 In Samsung Syncmaster LED, 2 X Cheapo 8in LCD's for MFD's and TM MFCD's attached to it, Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
MA_Goblin Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 Great work :) [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] _____________Semper paratus, In hoc signo vinces________________ PC: Intel i7-8700K (4.9 GHz), Aorus Ultra Gaming Z370 MB, Gigabyte RTX 3080, 32 GB DDR3 (3,2 GHz), Samsung EVO 860 M.2 500 GB SSD + Samsung 960 M.2 250 GB SSD Gaming: Virpil T-50 CM2, TM WH Throttle, Crosswind pedals, HP Reverb
RvEYoda Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 If there is any interest, I did write a test software capable of reading directx devices and binding responses to them as ordinary c++ functions. Source code is open to anyone who wants it. Generates DX data input formats on the fly so handles any number of devices, axes, povs and/or buttons. I would myself be interested in acquiring such a unit as you have in this thread....Did you design that pcb yourself, or was everything done from the start? (firmware also) Does it need any special drivers for windows 7? - I considered making a fake/software emulated hid device from my profiling software but from my understanding, that would require me to write some HID device drivers (which isnt such a bad deal I think as the documentation is out there), but MS enforces some driver certification which costs a lot of $ each year ... (well you can boot into test mode and run custom drivers but that's a bit of a mess) S = SPARSE(m,n) abbreviates SPARSE([],[],[],m,n,0). This generates the ultimate sparse matrix, an m-by-n all zero matrix. - Matlab help on 'sparse'
brydling Posted October 2, 2011 Author Posted October 2, 2011 Thanks for the compliments guys! Filtering of the analog inputs have now been implemented too. What remains to be done is a configuration software that lets me set VID/PID and S/N when producing them. Also, I need to order a lot of components :) Yoda: Sounds like a useful program! I'm sure someone should be interested. I designed everything from scratch. It enumerates as a regular HID joystick, and needs no special drivers. Windows driver development is something that I don't have any experience with. Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
questerymj Posted October 3, 2011 Posted October 3, 2011 Hello brydling, I have great interesting on your control board. But I have a question to ask first, as far as I know Direct input limited any HID devide to have 8 axis and 32 buttons+1*POV(totaly 36 buttons), how do you emulate 240 buttons in 2 HID devices? are they all act as buttons and can be keep pressing (for toggle switch) without any problems?
brydling Posted October 3, 2011 Author Posted October 3, 2011 (edited) Hello brydling, I have great interesting on your control board. But I have a question to ask first, as far as I know Direct input limited any HID devide to have 8 axis and 32 buttons+1*POV(totaly 36 buttons), how do you emulate 240 buttons in 2 HID devices? are they all act as buttons and can be keep pressing (for toggle switch) without any problems? Hi! The 32 button limit is not a limit in DirectInput itself but rather in how it is used by many games. DCS series can handle 8 axis, 128 buttons and 4 POV's on a single game controller, and the B256A13 has 124 buttons and 1 POV on each of the two virtual joysticks that Windows sees. There are no limitations on the inputs, they work just as you would expect. Edited October 3, 2011 by brydling Digital-to-Synchro converter for interfacing real aircraft instruments - Thread Check out my High Input Count Joystick Controller for cockpit builders, with support for 248 switches, 2 POV hats and 13 analog axes. Over 60 units sold. - B256A13 www.novelair.com - The world's most realistic flight simulators of the J35J Draken and the AJS37 Viggen.
questerymj Posted October 4, 2011 Posted October 4, 2011 Thanks for reply! I would like to know how to order B256A13 from you now, please send me more detail about this. Thanks!
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