Reddit mentions of Arduino Micro with Headers [A000053]

After seeing a couple posts of people's custom button boxes on reddit I knew I had found my next project. I've been doing quite a bit of Arduino and small electronics lately, and this was the perfect fit. So off I went to Amazon, ordered a bunch of stuff I thought might be cool / useful and started piecing things together. Took a few weekends of working on it here and there, the most time consuming part just being tediously soldering and wiring the 38 inputs.

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Was originally going to set it into some sort of project enclosure, but ended up getting impatient and just mounting it to two pieces of plywood with some feet. It added enough heft to it that I can lift the switch guard and rotate the somewhat stiff selector without issue. Eventually I'll get a better enclosure for it, probably grab one off of Hammond mfg or get someone with a larger 3D printer to make one. The Engine Start and black/red button (that I'm going to use for quantum jump) have leds in them that I don't currently have hooked up to the Arduino, but once we get some sort of API into Star Citizen hopefully I can tie them to engine state and jump spool/ready state.

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The controls are:

Power on, flight ready, 3 misc buttons, zoom rotary encoder, 3 misc buttons, quantum spool, quantum jump

Hat switch + center for shield distribution and reset, engine, shield, and thruster power switches, power distribution profile selector, misc selector

Flare Fire button, flare select, 7 misc toggle switches, self destruct switch, eject switch.

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I mapped everything to a button in the Arduino code (no rotary encoder as zoom in this screenshot) so that I can easily bind to functions in Star Citizen. Unfortunately without an API this means the switch positions can get out of sync with the actual ship status easily. If by the time of release / they make an API there still isn't a way to read / set state by API then I'll probably make a new version with only toggle buttons.

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Code Libraries

PCF8574_library for interfacing with the IO expanders
- https://github.com/xreef/PCF8574_library

ArduinoJoystickLibrary for emulating a joystick on windows
- https://github.com/MHeironimus/ArduinoJoystickLibrary/

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Useful Instructables

Joystick Library
- https://www.instructables.com/id/Create-a-Joystick-Using-the-Arduino-Joystick-Libra/

PCF8574
- https://www.instructables.com/id/PCF8574-GPIO-Extender-With-Arduino-and-NodeMCU/

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Parts List

1 Terminal Expansion Board - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PGDWJ2V

3 PCF8574 IO Expansion Board - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B95LMLQ

1 Rotary Encoder - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DM2YMT4

1 4 Position Rotary Selector - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JN2967L

1 Red Ring Momentary Push Button - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017ILTX60

1 Engine Start Momentary Push Button - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MK2394L

5 Heavy Duty Toggle Switch - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078KBC5VH

1 12 Position Rotary Switch - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074WMC9C8

1 5-Channel Rocker - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K5PFPNC

1 Arduino Micro - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AFY2S56

7 Red/Black Momentary Push Buttons - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BD2D96W

2 Red Cover Toggle Switches - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BD2D96W

8 Small Toggle Switches - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013DZB6CO

The Arduino generic Game Controller provides the following:

X, Y, and Z axis
32 buttons
X, Y, and Z axis rotation
Rudder
Throttle
2 Point of View Hat Switches

So you can actually make your own controller relatively easy, and even have things such as a few Pots for trim adjustment, or simple buttons too.


Instructions on how to program and set up the microcontroller;

http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-LeonardoMicro-as-Game-ControllerJoystick/

Soldering tutorials;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Sb21qbpEQ&list=PLNEAKeawWr2wiTBpoUUXdeRGnpqFUNhwP&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYz5nIHH0iY&list=PLNEAKeawWr2wiTBpoUUXdeRGnpqFUNhwP&index=5



Parts list;

http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-ARD-A000059-Micro/dp/B00AFY2S56

http://www.amazon.com/Joystick-Analog-Stick-Assembly-Replacement/dp/B00170JDZU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450210079&sr=8-1&keywords=psp+joystick

And whatever the heck you build it with. Soldering is easy as pie, and some wire from whatever.

You could do a complete "Keyboard" if you will with this single Microcontroller.

Momentary Toggle switches, Regular buttons, 3 axis controls, and like i said, even a set of 3 pots for something like trim adjustment or whatever.

I highly recommend getting a breadboard, which you can simply plug and play everything in to test out your circuit and design, and then getting a perf board of some sort for the final layout.

UPDATED: Apparently there is software out there that completely removes the need for you to know how to code, provided by /u/foofad please see the following post. honestly, this just got even easier.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3899105/MMJoy_-_Build_your_own_USB_con

Gyro I have bought:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008BOPN40/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


This should work for the 32u4

http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-A000053-Micro/dp/B00AFY2S56/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420236069&sr=8-1&keywords=arduino+micro

I used a Leonardo knockoff (same chip, larger pcb), since I had one already.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CO07PNY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They could stick a micro arduino in there and have full control over fade up and flicker effects as well.

Arduino micro for $25

Adafruit trinket for $10