You're better off spending the money. While wasting time trying to pin out a hacked keyboard, you could already have your switches installed and working using a regular input card.

Leo Bodnar makes one of the best and simplest.

Thanks guys that is exactly want I was interested in hearing, now are there any limitations on which type of buttons or toggles or dials that can cannot be used with these kind of boards? I'm mostly wondering about toggles, because switches in the game controlled with buttons that (toggle) things off and on, but an actual toggle switch performs either off or on........I hope that makes sense?....assuming my question makes sense  is there any special requirements when looking for toggles, buttons, dials,  etc?

I just came back from holidays so not much was done, but before I left I cut out all the holes, it all fits nicely, I know it's like a (cool) keyboard is a new place, but I wanted to do something this holidays 

Just gotta frame and paint and configure 

JBaymore wrote on Jan 11^th, 2010 at 7:37pm:


Thanks for the advise and yes I have been looking through many of the older posts to try and decide on good course of action, basically it boils down to bodnar or hagstrom  one other criteria that I would like to settle before I move further forward.......I want to be able to have a numeric keypad, but I want it to have the numbers from the keyboard....not the numpad, I don't think that Bodnar board will let me do this (it's a game controller) but I think the Hagstrom would allow this (it emulates a keyboard?)
Does anyone have any insight into this question?
Cheers
Rom

JBaymore wrote on Apr 21^st, 2010 at 6:48pm:


Yes "should" is exactly what I was thinking......I guess when I'm ready to go then I'll just have to contact them and get confirmation.......or I'll be back to the idea of keyboard......dismembering 

Service re the Bodnar cards is awesome. Ordered via Paypal & got them 10 days later sent to Cape Town, South Africa. The sim sees the cards as joystick controllers. No programming, just  connect pots, switches etc, assign & calibrate.

When I (if ever) start bulding my sim console (mainly a left-hand base with buttons to hold the throttle and stuff) I plan on using an Arduino board... it costs about the same as a regular controller, but every pin can be programmed to be either input or output (possibly even both, not sure)... Since it's all programmable (from a pin read/write level), you could make any sort of buttons, toggles and whatnot... even weird stuff like hard-built input combos (like hold this then press that while stepping on that other thing to make something happen)... the possibilities are endless 

It doesn't have too many pins though, 6 analog, 8 digital and 6 more pulse width modulation if I remember correctly, but you can connect more than one board (no idea how that works, I've only used one once)... but people are apparently doing all sorts of crazy stuff with this thing... and the possibility of having LEDs that come on when the landing gear comes down or a blinking LED for stall warnings and stuff, and that being controlled by the same board that reads your switches... man... it sure does sound sweet (EDIT: speaking of sounding sweet, I was just reading about it, and you can even attach a speaker to it to buzz you if you do something wrong) 

Of course... I would first need to have the time for such a venture... which judging from how things are going, might very well be after my retirement (in about 40 years)  ... (I guess the arduino won't be so hot then... might feel a little outdated when playing SpaceSim 2050 with a The Matrix style spine plug  )... but I might win the lottery someday so it's good to have plans 

This post may have sounded a bit like a plug (no pun intended)... sorry about that... I'm not trying to advertise Arduino or anythingof the sort... I'm just excited about the possible uses of it for sim pits now that I got to know it.

Cheers