My DIY Space Pew Pew Cockpit 'Primary Buffer Panel'

[tight birch]

Simpit made from cardboard on a budget mainly used to play Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen and plenty of other Space Pew Pew.

This is work in progress.

It's mobile and can be completely removed because my battlestation is, unlike most gaming rigs, also my workstation and has to move a lot. It's also frequently occupied by my kids who also love clicky buttons and compete with me for stick time 😄

It features:

• DIY headtracker
• DIY button box with LCD display
• DIY status indicators
• Lots of plumbing with Node-Red
• Arduino Mega with a custom Rust daemon for driving the joystick and LEDs
• A custom written ReactJS "App" to drive the "MFDs"
• …and a Linux PC to power all the crazy 🤪

Primary Source (RSS-, JSON-, ActivityPub-, Webmentions-Enabled)

• 🌐 https://beko.famkos.net/category/simpit/

Corporate Social Media:

• ~~🐦 https://twitter.com/bekopharm~~
• 📼 https://www.youtube.com/@BekoPharm
• 📹 https://twitch.tv/bekopharm

Federated Social Media:

• 🦣 https://social.tchncs.de/@bekopharm / @[email protected]
• 🌐 https://beko.famkos.net/author/beko / @[email protected]
• 📼 https://tube.tchncs.de/a/bekopharm / @[email protected]
• 📹 https://live.famkos.net/ / @[email protected]

My videos/images are usually licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, sourcecode makes it occasional to GitHub or is shown in live streams or Discord voice chats on request.

1/14 🧵

Demo playing Elite Dangerous in early 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5Xdu_PcSxE

The humble beginnings back in September 2021

Improved situational awareness by putting the video feed of wingman / gunner on the central MFD.

Calculating speed and heading to pre programmed destination in Elite Dangerous

Modding of a now retired CY-822A with analogue input

ReactJS based App, a website using the Arwes FUI framework. Without the cardboard covering up parts of the screen it looks basically like this.

Find a quick demo video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raxtYYPyewA

Developing the first version of the status indicators using a Neopixel RGB string and a Raspberry Pi (Now retired and superseded with an Arduino Mega)

A view under the hood from the rewiring process when I replaced all the internal components with a single Arduino Mega 🤪

My DIY headtracker I spent 5 EUR on - still working. No idea why 🤓

Another simPit I built for my little one 🤓

A sneak peek for planned version 2 based on a Macross|Robotech Valkyrie cockpit

[weary bridge]

This is amazing!!! I really liked the way you designed the screens.

[tight birch]

Thanks mate 🙂 I was going for some sci-fi look that is actually usable but also integrates well known elements from older jets so I ended up with a wild crossover that features this ICP (also seen in Alien on the ship consoles btw), some classic "round" gauges and some more wild geometry as seen in Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse. I wasn't going for a specific game because my Pew Pew is ever changing 🤪

[regal mortar]

nicely done

[tight birch]

https://youtu.be/MNjBj4QTNm0 with all the [glorious?] clicky button sounds.

[tight birch]

Look-y who got featured this time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6MjoN27oCs 😁

[lone dune]

this is pretty extreme. Very cool, it must have been a monster project.

[tight birch]

It's on n off for a year now 😁

[tight birch]

@regal mortar any chance to recover the first post?
No idea. I updated the project links from mobile phone and it went poof.
I guess I tripped some bot?

[regal mortar]

there is nothing in the audit log

so nothing I can really do

[tight birch]

weird. So I did fumble on the touchscreen. Well fck. I hate touchscreens.
can you change sort order by chance so I can simply repost it again? I took notes

Nope kills it instantly again

There this works… I guess not all links are fine with the moderation bot.

What a freakin tripmine

So every time I update the links there is a good chance it will just delete the post without warning o0

@regal mortar I moved it around somewhat and edited the former 2nd post. Thanks for assistance. I'll keep that in mind and "test"-post a link next time so I don't loose the thread intro again o0

[regal mortar]

I can bring it up with ddrake to see if he can change anything

[tight birch]

I guess a warning would be nice 🙂 Seeked through the rules again but nothing really jumped at me so I'm at a loss 🤷

[regal mortar]

it certainly was not intentional

[tight birch]

never assumed it is 🙂

[regal mortar]

my guess is overzealus auto-mod, but that should show up in the audit logs

so I got no idea, tbh

once ddrake is back from vacation, we should be able to pinpoint what does it, though

[tight birch]

mebbe it's the amount of links 🤔 mebbe I should just set up a landing page or sth

alright, back to house cleaning. Hoping to do more programming on my MFD tonight 🙂

[tight birch]

Oh great. It killed all reactions as well.

[tight birch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCrM283NP_E

[tight birch]

Working on version 2 (VF-1 cockpit)

[night moth]

Cool

[tight birch]

Drilling 38 precise holes looked more fun on paper. Some are slightly off. Best I can do with my wobbly machine.

[tight birch]

Some progress on the left panel. I recreated the cardboard mock-up with a wooden panel (that I'll eventually replace with an acrylic plate at some point). Sadly I had to start salvaging my v1 panel so it's no longer operational 😦 I also made some fitting tests with the old display that I'm hoping to replace soon.

[tight birch]

Mhm Mhm… getting there 🙂 Work in progress. Painted the button box, added more buttons and the LCD and set it to playing the BSG DRADIS animation by David Gian-Cursio: https://www.gian-cursio.net/2016/07/battlestar-pegasus-dradis-screens/
Next is wiring everything up (and when that is done finishing the frame for the display) and add decals.