DCS A-10: Building your own instrument panel. WIP

Tigershark · Post by **Tigershark** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:49 am

Hi HS,
If all goes to plan I will plug my panel in the USB port and a10 will think it is just another plug and play joystick. From there it's a matter of going into the options screen for a10, selecting a function such as "master arm" and remapping it to another button on my new recognized controller.

I heard back in beta 3 that soon all functions would appear in the options screen so you could map them to controllers (such as a thrustmaster cougar mfd for example). I guess that hasn't happened yet.

So my question is this. Say I wanted to map the l/g horn silencer or signal test lamp button to my joystick. If they don't appear as functions in the options screen how do I do it? And if it is via lua scripting, could you write a quick script for me for my tests this weekend?

Greets from Bali everybody. When I get back to Switzerland I will post a pic of me in a cage next to a 5.5m croc swimming together.

Tiger out.

Headspace · Post by **Headspace** » Mon Jan 10, 2011 11:48 pm

Looks like you're in luck, all of those functions are mappable now as inputs.

As far as Lua scripting is concerned, the lua part is rather easy. Tying that into XInput though, you'd need to make a library or program to tie XInput and then build it against Lua, so that you have Lua functions that can be called to check input status and things like that. You are much better off if you can map controls via XInput like you are doing.

Tigershark · Post by **Tigershark** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:47 am

I have to admit this talk about xinput is confusing me. As I mentioned, there should be no need to write any interface. When I plug the panel in windows should think it is a new joystick only with just buttons. I go to control panel, choose game controllers, select new panel and I will have a list of 32 buttons I can test. Just like a joystick. From there, because windows recognizes it, a10 should see it as a new joystick in it's options screen.

I have now finalized the circuit diagram for toggle switches. Using a oneshot TTL and a capacitor I can force toggle switches to fire a short burst instead of keeping the switch open constantly. This was a key challenge to overcome. I have breadboarded it but won't actually solder the circuit until some proof of concept is done inside a10 to validate the new controller actually works.

Perhaps headspace we can incorporate all this knowledge into your TARS site somehow. Like a a10 knowledge base on cool projects. Make it more generic than just Tars. Your educational videos. My how to videos, missions and future stuff.

What do you think? Or do you want to keep it tars only?

Headspace · Post by **Headspace** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:51 am

That's a good idea. Let's start with TARS and we can go from there. I'm certainly not averse to making it a clearing house for neat info about sim stuff, but we would need the content.

Tigershark · Post by **Tigershark** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 11:16 pm

Just thought I'd share a sample of how the panel design should look once I work out how to this text into the enclosure that will house the buttons.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/170804/DIY%20Pa ... 0Panel.pdf

It uses a special font that replicates the font used by the special engraving machines that engrave aircraft panels with text. You've seen it a millions times before on name badges and such but someone had to build a custom font for it. It matches the A-10 panels almost perfectly.

Post by **fer** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:51 am

Hang on a second - if this interfaces via USB, is it possible to make a switch that interacts with any Windows application? In other words, could I make something that talked to a custom app and gave me hard switches that activated batch files etc.?

Tigershark · Post by **Tigershark** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 3:35 am

Yup. Anything you can map a Windows plug and play joystick to you can also map to the box I am building.

Tigershark · Post by **Tigershark** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:59 pm

Please refer to first post for the info you need to build your own wife torture device. Or to be able to hook up electrodes to the balls of your enemy.

Tigershark · Post by **Tigershark** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 11:58 pm

Posted another vid in the first thread showing how to use a monostable multivibrator to recreate a "pulse" instead of a continuously on signal.

Tigershark · Post by **Tigershark** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 1:01 pm

I know no-one gives a shit about this but in the interest of completion:

Schematic for the video on the 74121 IC is here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/170804/One%20Sh ... tic%29.pdf

Beginnings of a PCB design are here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/170804/One%20Sh ... PCB%29.pdf