simple control panel

[Robb Bates]

That schematic is a bit of overkill. A few changes I'd suggest would be:

Change JP2 to a 20 pin header since the DPAx signals are pretty useless. You don't really want to run those analog signals over ribbon cable. And you don't need any VCC or GND pins since all the Column and Row signals are going to be matrixed. You have 8 columns and 12 rows. You could change the 4 pin analog headers to 3 pin headers with the analog signals in the middle. That will allow you to reverse the analog signals from your pots just by turning the three pin header 180 degrees. Gotta watch out for shorting power and ground and your shield (if your using shielded cable) might not be hooked to ground. I believe you need to short PD1 to PD2. To save board space, you really don't need the ISP header either unless you happen to have an ATMEL programmer. If you're using PonyProg and the Parallel port, just put five pads off the four 330 ohm resistors and one for GND. Then wire up your 25 pin header to that. You can remove the wires after you've programmed the chip. Also, use a ceramic resonator and you can ditch the crystal caps.

BTW, you can get PCBs much cheaper than $60 for 3. If you go single sided, no mask, no silkscreen. DIPs lend themselves to more versatile single sided layouts because you can route traces between the pins. Also, if you want a small board, you can still use a TQFP and get it down to about 1.5" x 1.5". From www.futurlec.com, that's 3 boards delivered for $22.

Hope this helps. BTW, I do PCB layout for space probes and satellites for a living.

Robb

 

[dnt462]

Its a double layer board, and the TQFP is top layer only so i can still put copper under the chip, yes i know it can be done on a smaller board. the grounds off the zener go to the same ground as pin 4 on the usb, and resistor 2.

 

[Robb Bates]

Yeah, my bad on the GND comment. I was viewing the image zoomed out and that line disappeared because of a weird image scaling thing.

Well, keep us updated on your results.

The hardware is relatively straightforward. I still haven't come up with a perfect software solution to tie it all together. Just a combination of software kludged together.

Robb

 

[dnt462]

i will keep updating, though there might not be one for a while, got to make sure the board is correct. just went to the site you posted, it was $43.39 and a week to get it, i also believe that for the ways i was going to do it was only 2-3 days to get the boards .

"For a fixed price of $51, you will receive 3 identical boards (plus $9.85 for 2nd day shipping to the continental US)."
"Orders submitted Monday through Friday by 2:00pm ET are shipped the next business day."
both copy pasted directly from their site

thats an interesting job, my dad updates the electronic piano tuner i believe, never asked him exactly what he does

 

[dnt462]

Did a test run to see that the computer would recognize the device and the picture sows what has happened, same thing on both computer, and there are no buttons yet, and how can i get it so the axes are set to zero with out any analog controls.

 

[Robb Bates]

For the analog controls you need to tie any unused inputs to ground (or +5V). Don't leave them floating, or they'll jitter all over the place and interfere with any inputs you do have connected. If you NEED them to read zero instead of -512 or +512, you'll have to put a voltage divider (like a pot) on them. But I suspect you just need them to not jitter. That make help with the button problem too.

As far as the buttons, you might have something shorted or if you have any diodes installed, you may have them backwards. Double check your layout. I know you were using a TQFP which has a different pinout than the DIP. Make sure your schematic takes that into account. I don't think there's any difference with the programming or internal device differences. The TQFP is also a fine pitch part. Did the soldering go smoothly? Check for shorting underneath the part if possible. You also might need to add some pull-ups resistors. The weak pull ups may be different (and weaker) in the TQFP.

Robb

 

[dnt462]

found an easy to fix short and fixed it, so the hat switch button it sees isn't shown now, and how would i go about tieing the unused inputs to ground?

---------- Post added 09-24-2009 at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was 09-23-2009 at 05:36 PM ----------

fixed the problem, i didnt notice that jtag was enabled, disabled that and it worked.

 

[dnt462]

Ok, just tried a simple ingame test run, and it wouldnt respond to me pushing the buttons, the computer says i am, i left the Mjoy mapper up, and i even st the joystick to MJ16.

---------- Post added at 07:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:52 AM ----------

Orbiter isn't responding to a multi-button key presses, so things like the airbrake are not working.

 

[dnt462]

Well, this project has been sitting on the sidelines for quite a while no. But, its just about finished now, just need to order the case, so I should have pictures in a week or so.

 

[Robb Bates]

What do you have now? Anything picture-worthy? Have you done anything with software?

 

[dnt462]

First one wasn't taken by me, and they were all taken with cellphone cameras so there not the greatest quality. Thats just the board, should have the finished product up latter.

Opps, Fixed, comment above still stands.

 

[Hielor]

<links>

First one wasn't taken by me, and they were all taken with cellphone cameras so there not the greatest quality. Thats just the board, should have the finished product up latter.

Those links don't go to the right places, you may want to double-check them...

 

[Robb Bates]

Very nice. Don't wait until the project is completely finished before posting more pics. Let's see some in progress stuff when you get your panel going. Share! Share!

Good job.

Robb

 

[dnt462]

Well, those were taken in like november, but I never think to get them off my phone. I'll take some more of it's more finished state when I get home.

 

[dnt462]

The Buttons.

First use of One note. In my onion not that present, ruined by Microsoft stupidity again,(But not the place for a disscussion on that).
Each Square corresponds to is equivalent button.

Closed Case, plan on getting another small capacity drive to put in.
That way I can have a mobile Orbiter.

Here with the cable inside.

And In between My x52.
I also have 3 Controls on the stick, related to atmospheric flight.

And another not, the actual cable is black, But I'm using my brothers white at the moment, haven't opened the new one yet.

And currently this isn't opportune for Orbiter 2010 yet, Need something like the overrideRCS module and to place a couple other AP, likely on the stick though.

 

[Hielor]

Looks nice! I like the portability.

I'm confused about your comment regarding OneNote, though: it seems to me like displaying text in a grid would be perfectly well handled by a table in Word, or even an Excel spreadsheet, and isn't remotely what OneNote is designed to do...

 

[dnt462]

OneNote was neat, didn't have the tabs that the other office 2007 have. But I used it because I didn't think it would make that nice grid, which wasn't perfect because of resizing problems, I thought I would manually have to position each comment. Really though I expect you could get used to the little things that Microsoft put in.

 

[dnt462]

Ok, I need some help, I as in the pictures don't have access to my keyboard. I want to map my Thrusters to to the hat on the top left of the x52, and on the back hat on the throttle. Or better yet, Have translation also be on the stick with the Forward and back on the throttle. And FBW seems futile.

 

[Robb Bates]

Futile in what sense? What's not working?

Robb

 

[dnt462]

I can't Properly put the LIN with the hat buttons because they are buttons, and putting it on the stick just fires both the LIN and ROT thrusters.