Tuesday, 14 July 2015

Sim Racing Projects




Sim Racing Project

Mini Button Box

 I have decided to do a little catchup on some projects I'd been meaning to finish for a long long time. With University finished for the semester and my first baby only weeks away, I best get a move on while I have "free" time.

 So recently I'd gotten into online racing again. ProjectCars and Assetto Corsa to name them both.


 Project 1 - Mini Button Box. 



I decided to build a button box to allow me to change things such as Brake Bias, Pit requests, Headlights and Wipers etc and having a couple of Freetronic LeoSticks (see below) laying around the house I thought I'd put them to good use.


So I ended up doing much googling knowing that they can be setup to emulate a keyboard and mouse, and so updating to include a joystick I thought I'd see what I could do different.

(insert link to original reference here)

With a handful of LED Buttons and a Thumbstick I wanted to utilize the X/Y Axis for looking/selecting and a switch to Select the item. Plus as many buttons as possible in a small form factor.

Key Features:

5 x Momentary Buttons with LED illumination 
2 x Profile selection buttons to change the original 5 buttons to new functions
Button press illumination confirmation (fading effect)
Heart beat illumination effect for Active Profile



Analogue X/Y thumb stick with press selection button 



Small form factor
USB 2.0 connector
Cheap... ie under $50 total cost.
  




The simple circuit schematic


Quick Test Video



 ... more to come including code, description etc ...