
Kerbal Control Panel - jsnell
http://www.sgtnoodle.com/projects/kerbal-control-panel/
======
Animats
That's a very nice piece of work, especially for the methods used.

If you want to make a front panel without going out and buying a large format
laser printer, there's Front Panel Express. All they do is make metal plates
with holes and lettering. The lettering is engraved and powder coated. I've
used their service, and they do a nice job.

~~~
Luc
In Europe that would be Schaeffer in Germany. They do the complete housing as
well. Very nice.

In fact it seems they were involved in setting up Front Panel Express:
[http://www.schaeffer-ag.de/en/company/company_history/](http://www.schaeffer-
ag.de/en/company/company_history/)

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Yes, if you try to visit the Front Panel Express site from Europe, you are
redirected to Schaeffer's site with the same service.

------
throwaway7767
That's a really cool project.

The choice of joystick is disappointing though - an arcade stick? Those are
digital only, usually either 4- or 8-way. Kerbal would be better controlled
with a real analog joystick. But I guess the game probably doesn't support
analog input.

~~~
moron4hire
No, it supports analog input.

I have to say, though, if you're building a custom digital controller, it's
usually easier to just crack open a cheap USB keyboard and repurpose the PCB.
They are small, support lots of buttons, and already have drivers on your PC.

~~~
AstroJetson
Or use this device
[https://www.adafruit.com/product/1535](https://www.adafruit.com/product/1535)
It lets you put 12 switches on it and then acts like a keyboard. I've used it
for a couple of custom input projects and it works well, nothing to do on the
PC.

Using a digital joystick would then be the way to go. I like his choice of
that input device.

But, like Quequau, I've never been able to get into Kerbal. I guess I could go
whip a panel up, but at the end of the day not sure that it would be enough to
catch my interest.

~~~
moron4hire
Yeah, that works if you've planned your project out and junk like that :) I'm
usually just slapping junk together at the last minute and cannibalising
whatever I have laying around (and for some reason, I have a lot of keyboards
laying around).

If you were writing the consuming app, you could get analog support with an
ADC into a decoder into individual or combinations of keys. I say you'd have
to be writing the app because I don't know many existing apps that support
that sort of key binding (though I do seem to recall MS Flight Simulator doing
it, at least for throttle).

~~~
AstroJetson
Yea, how I fail the "True Maker test". I tend to plan stuff out, dig through a
pretty well stocked set of parts. Then China markets for parts for projects
that I can wait on, Digikey for a project I want to build tomorrow.

I do refactor parts (I've done the keyboard thing mentioned above) but now
since I'm older I realize I don't have the time to dork around with a dodgy
keyboard (ummm is that the reason I tossed it into the junk bin?) and want
things to work after I fix my design errors, not after I fix a broken part.

I'm more a pragmatic Maker. Can I run to Home Despot and buy wood, fasters,
plan, cut, assemble and install shelves? Yes. Can I go to Ikea, buy something
close and make it fit that then looks really nice? Yes. With 400 linear feet
of shelving in the robot lab, sometimes Ikea wins.

Likewise, some nifty Adafruit board is the quicker way to win.

------
ferongr
Ironically, the controller itself looks more sturdy than the wobbly, jello
ships in KSP proper (doesn't help that Unity's physics engine chokes on KSP's
complexity).

~~~
merpnderp
To be fair, I'm not sure there is a physics engine that can handle KSP in real
time.

------
kuyan
Here's another mirror, as Google's cache doesn't display the images.
[https://archive.fo/bRaGJ](https://archive.fo/bRaGJ)

------
paulftw
A guy at our makerspace in Sydney built a couple times larger system with
working seven segment speed & fuel indicators, two joysticks, etc. That was
last year, I think the project kept growing since.

Here's a demo video from last year's Makerfaire:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCuNyiseJ5g&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCuNyiseJ5g&feature=youtu.be&t=110)

edit: grammar

------
Erwin
I love that solid hardware. It reminds me of this unique Xbox game that came
with an extremely large controller:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Battalion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Battalion)
\-- 2 joysticks and 40 buttons. $200 for the game and controller.

------
Quequau
I never could get into KSP. I really love this project, though I have the
feeling I'd spend the time, energy, and effort building something similar and
get right back to the point where I just can't get into the game.

~~~
jscheel
Their osx support killed it for me. I don't have a gaming computer anymore,
and trying to run it on my mbp ran into nothing but terrible performance and
constant crashes. I would switch to the playstation version, but I don't want
to buy the game again, when I already purchased it and it doesn't run well.

~~~
Bartweiss
When was the last time you tried it?

The OS X version is still a bit slow to load, but it's far better than it was
a year or two ago. I get basically no crashes and fairly reasonable
performance these days, so it might be worth another look.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I get performance that's largely indistinguishable from my desktop - although,
I will admit that I only played on my mbp maybe 5% of my total play-time.

------
RickS
Google cache, since the site seems to be buckling under load:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JEozcO...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JEozcOqy2J0J:www.sgtnoodle.com/projects/kerbal-
control-panel/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
aninhumer
Unfortunately that doesn't pick up the images which are half of the content
here.

~~~
petepete
The images appear to load for me.

~~~
aninhumer
What I mean is that the images are still being served from the original
server. They load eventually, but very slowly for me.

------
Something1234
I think I saw something similar in one of the Linux magazines in Barnes and
Noble like a couple of years ago. I wonder if they're the same thing. Still a
cool project.

------
satyajeet23
Thats amazing! Love the design, programming can be improved I think.

------
sam4ritan
on one hand, i would say 'some people have too much free time'

on the other hand, i DO say 'i know what i am gonna spend my weekend on'

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _on one hand, i would say 'some people have too much free time'_

I'd say, that's why free time is awesome, and we need _much more of it_.

