Buttonbox with matrix (simhub)

This is a small "quick guide" on building a buttonbox.

Design wise it had to be functional, but also replace most keyboard features while in race.

• Pit menu on left side, to adjust while gearing up on straits with right hand.
• Mirror adjust requires 2 press/hand combo so one part on left, arrow seat/mirror on right.
• Esc, ignition and ffb reset on top right
• And to fill up space with some quick chat/vote buttons.
• Also some ARB adjust, unfortunately very few cars support this.
• Size, it had to fit on my diy wood rig
• And had to be easy to take of.

Button layout and LED color planning (1:1 size pdf in buttonbox.zip file attachment)



Build
I had access to some acryl, its lightweight and easy to cut and form.
I also had some vinyl carbon look wrap leftovers.
Cut from my drawing, sanded the edges and bend some with a heat torch.
Glued with a gluegun, and added some magnets for easy mounting on my direct drive wheelbase.



Buttons and wiring

• Bought some LED momentary buttons from aliexpress, mine was 16mm. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/10000049849274.html
  
• And a Arduino Micro with usb micro, important it has be be a ATMega32U4 version.
• Alot of wires from old ethernet cables, because they are in different colors.

I used simhub (go buy it, its great for any diy stuff) to setup and configure buttons.
I cant attach the sketchup since its generated by simhub.
But attached the simhub project you can load in simhub. See the buttonbox.zip in the end of this post.



Most of the buttons are in a matrix to save space on connections to the arduino but I had 4 buttons I have to be able to push at the same time as the others so they have their own pins.



I then drawed at "mirrored" wiring diagram to have a soldering plan to work from.
Its mirrored because you soldering from the back.
Note, the arduino faces upwards in the wiring diagram, but downwards in real picture.





The LED wires (orange/brown) are not in the diagram, since they are simple +/- wires.
They are also connected to a potentiometer so I can dim or turn off the LED. But since they only run on 3V there is only a short step between on and off.

View attachment 40029

 

lessee...strip some wires....drill some holes, sniff some glue......project..??? what project???

 

fantastic job, thank you so much

 

Has anyone made a virtual button box for Simhub to use on a phone or tablet?

 

Roccat, a company that sells keyboards, mice, etc. Had a virtual button box but it required a server and they stopped supporting that. Worked great until they stopped supporting the app, but being a phone, it was not easy to use while driving. So I assigned as many commands as possible to items like adjusting the mirrors, seats, the ignition and starter...stuff you could ignore once you got under way. I haven't found anything like it since.

 

Thanks, can you still see the download on their site or has it been removed since its not being maintained anymore?