Build Your Own Button Box
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- Опубликовано: 3 май 2019
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DCS World
Hey Guys and Gals! I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! I wanted to share with you an easy way to build a custom switch/button box for CHEAP!!! This setup cost me a whopping $42!!
In the next video I'll show the build process from start to finish so you get an idea of the HOW. Parts listed below! Enjoy!
Zero Delay Encoder w/ LED control
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
Zero Delay Button encoder w/o LED(THIS WILL STILL TURN ON LED LIGHTS WHEN THE SWITCH IS ON) THIS IS THE BOARD BEING USED IN THE VIDEO
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Lexan Plastic for the framework
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...
Switches and button examples. BE CREATIVE!! Think about what YOU want!!
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
www.amazon.com/SupportTM-Blac... 
Игры
I've done some thinking about that three way switch and it would work if you designate the one switch as two separate buttons. You would solder two button connections to it. Both grounds being on the same contact, and either positive on opposing ends of the switch. The computer would then read each direction as a separate and different button press. Very helpful video! Just wanted to add that for anyone looking to do momentary 3-way switches.
Thank you so much for this! That was genius thinking! I will probably start my first project and I might try that. Have you or anyone here tried that?
you can even find two 3 ways with 6 total pins meaning you could very easily use the cables supplied w/o modifications
@@wolfpack2viking847 sorry for the late reply but yes I did this on multiple switches and it worked like a charm
@@greenman5907 The moment you do soldering you might as well just go arduino.
4:08 That’s what she said! 🤣🤣 Good video mate. Appreciate your effort.
If you need simple rotary encoder inclusion, I'd suggest a Leo Bodnar USB interface such as the BU0836A 12-Bit Joystick Controller.
If you also get the matrix breakout board, you get 32 pairs of contacts for switches that can be programmed with a simple app to operate as rotary encoders (up to 16 encoders), as well as 8 analogue channels for potentiometers, etc.
There are other boards that have more inputs available.
They're not as cheap as the zero delay units, but they work well.
This looks like an ideal way to start for people with me with zero electronics skills but who would love to build their own button boxes. Thank you. Arduino can wait...
Make fun of you??? Dude that’s awesome!!! I definitely want to give it a try.
A three position switch will work easily, however will require two button positions with splicing the two white wires together on the same lead.
Could a rotary encoder be worked that way also?
You have simplified a lot of things. Thank you, subscribed
this is the answer to all my button box questions. thank you for making this video. you just made my gaming that much more fun
Regarding rotaries, you can buy a 3 position rotary and momentary switch, which is OFF in the middle, and just wire it to two of the 12 places. So if you turn it left, you can assign it to decrease, and increase for the right. Can come in handy when using autopilot.
Can u explain a little more?
@@theVRpilot Of course. Imagine a momentary (pulled back to off by a spring) switch, with to ON stages one on each side. This thing is fitted to a rotary case, like an ignition key in a car. So if you turn it left or right, it activates, but the spring pulls it back to the center as you stop holding it to a side. It has 3 pins. So you can wire it to two ports into the encoder, just like if each side would be a button, since the PC will recognize it as two buttons. In the sim, you can assign them to increase and decrease the desired value (altimeter, heading, etc.), so if you turn it left, you decrease, and if you turn it right, you increase. It's not the most realistic, but works, and easy.
@@theVRpilot A rotary two position switch with the center position OFF and turn switch left is button 01 ON, center is both OFF, and right is button 2 ON. Then go the MSFS Controls screen and map button 01 as frequency DOWN and button 02 as frequency UP. Momentary means when you turn switch left or right and then let go of the switch, then the switch springs back to the center (OFF) position. These two buttons, say button 01 and button 02 are two of the twelve DX buttons this board allows.
Let's say like me you want to fly vintage GA aircraft and pretend you are in the era where they navigated with ADF's because that's what they had for radios (e.g. the Douglas DC3 era).
MSFS controls setup screen has 6 ADF frequency buttons: 1 place digit up, 1 place digit down, 10 place digit up, and 10 down, 100 place digit up, and 100 down. So you install 3 knobs side by side on the board. On the left knob you set 3, the knob in the middle you set 6, and the knob on the right you set 2. And you watch in the MSFS panel as it dials the ADF radio to frequency 632.
you can use the joystick pins on the arcade board to run 2 rotary encoders: the first one is using the up/down motion pins, the second one the left/right pins. I hope that helped someone…
Can you give more details please?
Overkill, thanks for the video. I would love to see the follow-up video you mentioned (I could not find it on your channel). However, I would *really* love to see how you connected the 12v rocker toggle switches. I thought I had it but mine do not seem to work. Thanks in advance for the help!
You can use a three position switch it will just use two of the button inputs
Agreed! Consider a rotary switch as 2 switches. Connect one port on the board to one side, another board port to the other side, combine the grounds for both onto the single ground on the switch.
Yep a 6 position rotary is just 6 internal switches.
Yep connect all the negatives together and the positives to the different connections
How i have to wire it?
could you also do this with the rotary encoder? turning left will use a button input and turning right would be another button input??
Thank you so much for this video! I've been thinking about designing my own button box for DCS World and I will probably do something very similar to yours. Thank you so much for sharing this video with us!
Best build video so far. Because I wanted something I could customise.
So glad I came across your video. I intend on building a mostly correct F14 Pilot Simpit. I ordered one of these boards and a few different types of toggles and buttons just to try out and get some ideas before moving onto a higher end usb encoder. I was able to get a 3 position (mom on - off - mom on) toggle to work for the left and right engine crank on the Tomcat. It works perfectly using two inputs, however in my case I only needed to use one ground for it to work correctly. ( I just cut the other ground wire to second input off) This has given me so many ideas! Hopefully the wife wont divorce me! Thanks again!
We get lucky with our wives! Somehow they put up with us... the money I have spent on dcs alone not too mention the countless hours every time I come up with a new "project" lol. Good luck to you!
That's great. Awesome work. Many years ago, I built a button box but with just the round buttons like you used. And this was before we had the nice circuit boards on Amazon. Amazon wasn't even a thing then... lol. I ripped apart an old USB keyboard and used that circuit board instead. I then had to solder around 60 wires to it and it actually worked. Then in FSX at the time I programmed it with the keys because it technically was still a keyboard... lol
This what you created is much better though than the plywood box I made.
Nice thank you for info on the 5x5 boxes
I have made a few arcade games with this type of board and the issue with on/off switches is that, if you use the same slot in the board both on and off position think its the same key. So MS FS2020 will think its "1" for on but its also "1" for off. So you have to split it to another pin on the card. Or it works as is for "Toggle" only switches in the sim. Example, "Taxi" lights have both a "toggle" options and an "on" "off" mapping. This type of connection as is can be used for those.
This is genius! Thank you so much for finding this! I never thought possible to build my own panel.
Try wrapping it in carbon fibre wrap as well! Makes it look really clean. There is another guy on RUclips who did a button box in carbon fibre and it looked so nice!
@@tomobrien4182 I went with MDF and 12 coats of high gloss black lacquer polished with 6000 grit paste. Looks like a million bucks.
Muru Roa Jesus Christ 12 coats! Nice!
@@mrcontroversy222 It's how I've learned to get more depth in the gloss. For furniture I go up to 26 to get a mirror finish.
This was very cool. Really got my brain going now on things I didn't think of earlier. I'd really like an expanded setup. I'm still using my X52, just can't justify upgrading it yet since it is still pretty much in perfect condition other than the rubber parts just starting to turn back into oil. I'd ultimately like to upgrade to a Virpil throttle and stick, but that will be some time from now. But I really need the extra buttons and switches, this seems like a super easy way to get into that. Very cool video.
I absolutely can not thank you enough. I've been looking at designing button panels for Star Citizen for years and I'm terrible at soldering. This not only a solution, it is THE solution.
Again, can't thank you enough. You took what looked like a tedious and intimidating project and made it doable. Awesome. Liked and subbed.
Check out emstudio as well! He made a button box as more of a tutorial, included the code and wrapped it really nicely in carbon fibre wrap! Looks great! This is a really good video too!
You don't have to solder anything, even with other microcontrollers . Just buy some separate crimps for the buttons/switches. Thats way cheaper. Combine it with an arduino pro micro clone for more space in your encasing. you can then spend the saved money on the buttons or a nice aluminium front panel. And you're not so limited to the amount of buttons if you build a Matrix. I'm currently also building a star citizen control panel. With the solution mentioned in this video, i would run out of connections half way trough.
OMG arcade boards that don't need code, just wires?!!?! My good sir I thank you a thousand times over!!!
I have couple of wood and metal sheets left in my dad's garage, gotta steal that somehow and make it in secret, don't wanna let him know till I show it to him lol
Nice setup 👍. I'm getting ready to start on panels. I've decided on the type of controller I'm going to use. I'm working on a design for a universal combat aircraft panel set. But, not an unnecessarily busy interface. Just the functions that are mostly used for weapon readiness, deployment and navigation. I don't intend to install numeric displays or mfd screens, these are perfectly modeled in sim. Plus, it will keep cost down for me and the customer. I want to offer an affordable panel set for those of us who are a little more than casual flyers but not full on pit builders/users. Something to keep us away from the mouse and keyboard a little more.
I felt the same dude. Saw one for a car guy and got to the code section and was like oh damn so I have to build this specific box because of this code I’m supposed to copy. And there I was on Amazon lol
Can use 2 different type codes with the quickstart parallax. Don't necessarily know everything but can read the manual and sample codes. I could use logic gates instead maybe.
Really great video Thank you so much for sharing! I will definitely give it a shot
Hope it all goes well!
For 3-way and rotary switches, I think you have to use several connectors on the board, connect the ground pins together and for each positive pin on the switch, you'll have to use a different connector positive pin. (Sorry,english is not my native language, I hope you understand what I mean).
For what it's worth, that's perfectly good English.
Though I will say that the ground pins might already all be connected on the board. It may not be necessary to connect them all as well as the positive pins.
@@No1sonuk I think this is the solution, 1 knob will consume two plugs. I dont have a diagram in front of me, but yes.
I think it looks great 😁
Old video, but just in case someone is interested in doing a button box or custom controller. The shown controller works great for what it is, but if you want a little more functionality, like the ability to use rotary encoders, or even potensiometers to control axis' in the sim, you can look up Leo Bodnar. It's a small company in the UK that sells USB controller boards that does everything, depending on the model you get 12 bit axis' or 64 buttons. Very easy and simple to wire up and use, 100% plug and play in Windows. I've used them for around 10 years now, never had any issue. Really great if you want to add rotary encoders to build nav radios or autopilots.
Pretty clear cut video.
This may give me an idea for something like this I could shift away some controls like using Nitrous from my wheel to a button box.
Found this while looking for ideas to build my cockpit. My idea was to strip an old keyboard and run cables from the key contacts underneath to external switches, not sure if this has been done before or if even possible but your solution may be an easier solution. Thanks
Yes it’s been done but it’s extremely difficult to do
Wow, i didn't even know those USB encoders for Arcade are a thing. That seems super easy, just connect 10 of those things to your PC and you can build a whole cockpit without any further configuration, lmao. Nice vid!
I just found a version that supports 104 buttons for only 50 bucks. You're a lifesaver man.
I have just done this diy box and it works fantastically, even with my iMac, great video this is a very good solution for an easy button box.
thanks man i am inspired from this
Thanks for this Overkill! Are you still using this? Have you done anything new? Love to see an update video if warranted. Thanks for showing this electronically challenged virtual pilot this is a project to embrace.
Awesome just made one . I can either have lights on constant or when switched on ! thanks for vid :)
Right on!
This is the way I decided to go, I have 2 of these on the way. I used to mess around with coding. But with my migraines almost every day now, it is to hard to concentrate.
great video!
Hey I'm referencing this video for a build. I'm Curious as to seeing a little more in depth on the backside of the panel, as well as what size holes did you drill for the press buttons? 1/2" works great for the toggle switches.. also consider using a "project box" its pre built and has water proofing theyre only 10 bucks and even simpler than making an entire box if you're not picky on placement.
Great video! you saved me almost 70 dollars!!
Amazing video!!! Very informative! I wonder how many buttons or switches this one board can handle thou
Great video mate 👍
Very detailed thanks!!!
Thanks for this video!!! Did you also use the the function and joystick pins or just buttons?
Who would say it looks bad? With the exceptions of the seams it looks like something you would buy.
I can’t stress how much I’m thankful for this video!
I was about to go and do it the hard way with an Arduino and such. This is just what I need, I’m building a small panel with a rocker switch for each of my four engines!!
Awesome! Glad it saved some pain
OverKill seriously though, you’ve earned you’re self a sub!
Take a look at what I’m building if you wish; m.imgur.com/a/f4f4qXw
@@nathanbasset The pic you uploaded there could be an advertisement lmao
That is very affordable. I need something more for my controls for VR use and I will look into this. Having to check for keys on my keyboard during VR is very suboptimal.
YES YOU CAN USE THEM WITH THE BOARD FROM WHAT I SEEN
I think it looked good.
hey men good video but i have a question. you see i want to build a 737-800 overhead panel and that way over 12 switches so i wanted to know if i could use multiple of those boards for different assigments. by the way great video
Some of these come with a 2 pin joystick adaptation. I am currently building my own hotas flight chair and I am looking to incorporate the buttons into the wooden arms I've made to mount my HOTAS too. I'd like to use a 2 pin joystick as a menu navigation tool. Wondering if anyone had insight into getting one to work as the board does support it along with 2 way switches. Or does that require coding. I just want it to work as a directional pad essentially.
3 position switches should work, if you think about it, they are 2 switches in one. You need 2 of your cables, and connect the ground to the middle pin of the 3 pos switch, then the other 2 wires to each of the other pins corresponding to the 2 on positions of the switch.
You can add 4 more buttons or functions by using the up/down/left/right on your board. It is meant for the joystick but it is a input as well and your game will read it fine.
Really will that work? Did you test it?
@@stevenirish6160 Yes I did. You may need to change the mode of the Circuit board to change the joystick setting from POV to hat switch by connecting a button or switch to the mode connector. Depending on your settings. I am thinking of making a video showing that and all things I found out during my build.
Brilliant. That is really good to know mate. Thank you for the information 😎
Glad I found your video. I just started back playing DCS once I realized there was an F-14 module now. I intend to eventually build a full replica of the pilot controls or at least most of the buttons and switches on each side. I ordered one of these boards and a few different toggles just to play around with to get ideas. The first one I did was a 3 position toggle (mom on - off - mom on). It did take up two slots. Power to each outside lug and use only 1 of the grounds. It works perfectly! Will use that setup for my left and right engine crank on the Tomcat! I know I’ll have to get more advanced boards for the future, but for now this little thing rocks! Thanks for the video!!
@@youmasenchi where is your video? Keen to learn more about this board!
A 3 position switch could work if all the switches have a common ground, you could check this with a multi meter on continuity mode,
Thanks
Thank you
i have the rockerswits with cap you recoment it doesnt work wat am i doing wrong 12volt 20amp board is thesj@jx cy-822b led is also not working momentary button is working ??
do you hevan a wiring scheme ???
I assume moment switches work, but how about three position? Will be great to have one for the engine crank on the F/A18
how do you make it work in the sim?
You want easy setup, use mmjoy 2 with arduino micro pro. Can use encoders,axis,switches and buttons. You just have to research wiring a button matrix for it which is simple.
GOOD JOB
Thanks!
you could technically use a multiple position switch. just use 3 inputs and wire them to the switch accordingly. it may take a bit of basic electrical knowledge but its 100% possible. I do have one question about these little arcade boards. Is there any way to edit the name of the board and the button names as they are seen in software? for instants if i want it to show up as BUTTON BOX 1 and not GENERIC USB ENCODER 1
Voilà! You're done!
That's very French.
i bought the usb encoder to use with msfs2020 but flight doesn't like on/off switches, can only use momentary switches. is there a way around this??
Can you please share how did you wire the switch with light. Where did you get the power supply for the led.
Something to add is that you should decide where to put your buttons carefully.
You have a lot of space under the red ones that someone might be tempted to use for more buttons. That's OK, BUT those buttons can't be accessed if the throttle levers are forward...
So only put switches there that will be used with the throttles back.
Hey Overkill I have been designing and running button boxes similar but find that if I plug two in windows only sees one ? Did you have this issue? Would love to know the fix on this one
Question about the on/off switches, does it detect those two switches as two different inputs? When it's in the ON postion is it registering it as one button, then registering the OFF as another button?
Nope... I took the lazy route and hooked up an old DS4. Now I have to extra joystick axis to use for slew.
On the 3 pin connectors is the middle the led power
I know this is an old video but I am trying to get my button box setup and was curious on how you wired the switches so the leds come on only when active. I can’t seem to have both light on and active
Excelent !!
For the switches with led, is there a third wire that needs to be connected? If so where on the board?
@Overkill i want to set up a butten so when i press it it press "b" on keybord and a 8 way joystick and up is W and left is A and right is D and down is S
Check out Axis and Oh's online. The software will allow you do that very easily. Read the .pdf manual there at their site.
great vid as usual , the joystick part can still be used ,ie for canopy or landing gear am sure
That's a really good point! L,R,U,D could also be used with 3 position switches... at least 2 of them. Good catch!
@@OverkillSimulations i took a great deal of interest in this sir ,just orderd a bucket full of parts ,would love to chat with you one on one ,i am thinking dcs related ???
@@mrwolf614 Absolutely! I would love to!
Could the joystick be used to control a radar cursor?
Or a seat adjust !
which switch pin do you connect the board two
I should probably write a button box that won't break and can be programmed like that zero decoder by work with more. I've already written a lot of the code and I fly in VR too!
Rotary encoders wont work with that control board because of how it works/they work. Let me know what sort of functions you would like and such and I'll see how feasible we can make it. Some soldering will be required for fancier jobs but there's no point me looking if there's zero interest.
you can't use rotary encoders though.... I personally will go with leo bodnar boards
I think with the encoder switch’s you need to use two connectors, one for the left turn one for the right, the two ground pins are connected together and used on the centre pin on the encoder switch.
The problem with that is that rotary encoders usually don't work like that. Both outputs switch state when it's rotated in a particular direction, but they're "out of phase". The electronics need to be able to read that and decide which way it's turning.
Yes, you are right, I tried it and both directions were working at the same time. It showed up as one button being pressed before the other depending on the directions it was turned.
If, you guys know of any other ways to do this, please share!!
I'm building the same one can I please have the program or link my email is dwholland2002@gmail.com
@@Burner709 what program bud?
Doesnt this require coding or is it plug and play?
Oh I didn't catch the part where you said plug and your ready to go thanks for your time btw you should do a setup tour!
@@Burner709 I may do that one day. It's changed a lot now lol. The move to VR removed the need for a bunch of things lol
So I am trying to understand how a simple on-off toggle can be used in DCS WORLD. I have the switch working to turn the battery on for the A-10, but to turn it off I have to turn the swtich off and on. Bascially when I go to off on the toggle the Battery is still on. Not sure how I fix that in game. Missing something
Could you have two of these boards with double the switches and 2 usb connections? Or would the pc see it as the same usb controller?
Should work.
The only reason I want to know how to do this is because I want to flick like 5 switches to turn my pc on. Its pointless but I'm gonna feel cool doing it.
hey man, your guide is awesome its what brought me to building my own box... i have a question about the led toggles. i have the same board and the same toggles, they light up when switched on but they dont register as a function. any suggestions? im also struggling to have it register as a "joystick" or "controller" when opening my games and attempting to program my buttons, should i have to do additional steps? thanks!
I'm having a similar issue, I have 3 boards but my keybinds resetvand move between the board when I close my game, no clue why can't find anything on it
@@jackobecantrell9451 i found it. steam library->rightclick game->properties->disable steam input.
Do you have the the problem where the switch wont register the off position?
Hi. Can anyone tell me if i can use multiple of those on my pc? Because i have heard somewhere that the pc can t distinguish them and sees them as one.
Question:
I have this build idea and wondering if it would work? Would like to get some feedback before I spend money to "try".
Say, I build a box with X number of switch/buttons and when button is pressed it would trigger same action to two physically seperate PC.
So I would have two encoder board wired to a single button? with each board connected to each PC via USB.
If something like this would work, is there a way to do something for a USB mouse as well? (Y Splitter type does not work).
Honestly, that is a really good question. I'm not sure I can answer that. I would suppose in theory as long as somehow the same command was being sent to both systems it should.. I just don't know about the application process. Never tried anything like that before.
Thanks for the video and the links. Nice job. By the way. How do you like those pedals?
LOVE THEM!!!
OverKill Nice. I found your review after I posted. Thanks for that as well.
I maybe late to the party but have you tried using potentiometers or rotary encoders for the joystick functions since they can be converted to analog using the MODE header on the zero delay encoder.
I actually haven't made anything new in a very long time. I was thinking about doing a new one though.
@@OverkillSimulations i just received my Zero Dekay too and tried it but it didn't work. I am thinking of getting an ardruino for the best results.
Could you maybe go over how easy it is to map the keys by chance?
How did you wire up the toggle switches and able to get them to illuminate?
Mark Lathwell please let me know I have the same question
Hi..Do you need any special software to get this to work with DCS?
I'm not sure how one would interface this to DCS and a particular aircraft.
With some boards, Joytokey or DCS Bios is needed.
Is this the case with this board?
My guess is it will show up as a USB input in the keybinds section. Not sure what the name will be called, but my Joystick is a USB but shows up per the thrustmaster throttle name that thrustmaster encoded into the USB connection. His board may just show up as REYANN on the input list column.
Does this solution have a problem with ghosting?
Can i use the USB encoder to make a button box for Xbox?
If you buy the hardware with the screw terminals, you don't even have to solder the wires on.
the 3 way switches should just be a matter of connecting 2 negatives together on one terminal no? its my thinking that the normal state is off, switching one way or the other activates either live completing that circuit so you should have a 3 state switch, it just takes up 2 points of your board. Im wondering if they can be daisy chained to add more switches without adding a USB cable for every 10 switches, or i guess you could have a usb hub coming to the box and it divides up to each controller.
Very interested if this assumption/take on the 3 way switch correct? I'm exploring ways how to easily create a gear lever and flaps switch, the latter one being a 3-way switch (in the Hornet at least) for my VR setup.
Actually it reversed . You have combine the positives. If you combine the negatives, when toggle the switch it will register both buttons being pressed at once.
Looking at your board and the amazon wiring diagram, you have the 5V hooked up, whats that for?
there is my question the board is 5v but the switches are 12v?
@@MyLuc97 12V is what they can handle but they'll work at 5V. LEDs won't be as bright or won't light up at all depending on their type.
@@mururoa7024 okay Thanks!!
@@MyLuc97 Yeah i'm not referring to the switches. If you look at the amazon diagram there's a 5v port on the board itself, if you look at the flyover shot he does of the wiring it's hooked up to something. But I can't see anything that would need a 5v live constant.
how are you drilling the holes? I've tried with normal drill bits and it breaks the plexiglass apart
Drill backwards in a anti clockwise rotation
look at the leo bodnar boards