Simviation Forum - Switches?

Oct 16^th, 2006 at 11:15am

beaky Offline
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Trying to make up my mind about something...

My plan is to use latching toggle and/or rockers for most of the stuff on my panel, which will most resemble a typical civil recip single or twin panel, but of course the sim requires momentary closures for all commands.

I've actually considered modding rockers so that each contains a microswitch on each surface (one for on or up; the other for off or down); not impossible, but pretty "ditzy" work to have to do. And I don't know how long the switches will last being handled directly like that, so I'm undecided.
I haven't had any luck finding switches that physically latch but provide momentary closure... I've thought about solenoids or something, but is that really practical? Remember, I'm trying to do this on the cheap... I don't mind the extra work, but I'm on a tight budget.
I could just go with momentary pushbuttons for everything, but I want it to be just a little more realistic than that.
Anybody else found a cheap solution to this?

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Reply #1 - Oct 16^th, 2006 at 12:10pm

JBaymore Offline
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rottydaddy,

I know you are looking for "on the cheap"...... but one of the relatively inexpensive and VERY simple solutions is the Hagstrom KE72 cards. You can hook up most any type of switch to it and it takes care of asssigning a keystroke or macro combination upon the switch making and on breaking it can even send a different set of keystrrokes.

Other than that the best solution I've seen is to put a relay on each switch and a capacitor that drives it. The contacts of the relay get hooked to the keyboard inputs. There is a thread on this somewhere in this forum. But by the time you buy all the relays and capacitors..... the Hagstron card might not be that much more.

best,

.....................john

Intel i7 960 quad 3.2G LGA 1366, Asus P6X58D Premium, 750W Corsair, 6 gig 1600 DDR3, Spinpoint 1TB 7200 HD, Caviar 500G 7200 HD, GTX275 1280M, Logitec Z640, Win7 Pro 64b, CH Products yoke, pedals + throttle quad, simpit

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Reply #2 - Oct 16^th, 2006 at 12:29pm

beaky Offline
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Quote:

rottydaddy,

I know you are looking for "on the cheap"...... but one of the relatively inexpensive and VERY simple solutions is the Hagstrom KE72 cards. You can hook up most any type of switch to it and it takes care of asssigning a keystroke or macro combination upon the switch making and on breaking it can even send a different set of keystrrokes.

Other than that the best solution I've seen is to put a relay on each switch and a capacitor that drives it. The contacts of the relay get hooked to the keyboard inputs. There is a thread on this somewhere in this forum. But by the time you buy all the relays and capacitors..... the Hagstron card might not be that much more.

best,

.....................john

LOL, LOL, and double- LOL!!
I was just doing another search on this topic, and immediately saw a review of the KE72.
I will look into that further; definitely a superior solution to the expense and agony of building all those relay/cap circuits or trying to modify wee rocker switches.

Thanks for the quick response... I hope this will do the trick, because I really want old-school clunky toggles and rockers where possible. Been looking on eBay; quite a bit of old junk like that, including actual aircraft switches and handles.

72 inputs will be just about right in addition to the joystick/throttle buttons which will be relegated to momentary pushbutton duty.
And no keyboard-hacking... joy... Grin

>EDIT<
I realize now that I have not dug back far enough in your earlier posts... I see you mentioned this device way back.
Lots of other neat tricks back there, too... hmmm...

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Reply #3 - Oct 16^th, 2006 at 8:59pm

JBaymore Offline
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hombuilt cockpit!

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I have two Hagstrom KE72's powereing the pit at the moment. One is on the main flight sim computer and controls most of the main flight commands.

The second one is on the computer that runs stuff like the FreeFD ND display and that card handles the EFIS panel link-up (fully fuinctional) to the ND and the Phidgets main program and Teamspeak and so on.

They are incredibly easy to set up.

best,

..................john

Intel i7 960 quad 3.2G LGA 1366, Asus P6X58D Premium, 750W Corsair, 6 gig 1600 DDR3, Spinpoint 1TB 7200 HD, Caviar 500G 7200 HD, GTX275 1280M, Logitec Z640, Win7 Pro 64b, CH Products yoke, pedals + throttle quad, simpit

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Reply #4 - Oct 16^th, 2006 at 10:41pm

Professor_Fate Offline
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"Push the button, Max!"

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I'm also using a KE-72 for my pit.

Fate

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