Kerbal Control Panel
sgtnoodle.com
sgtnoodle.com
If you want to make a front panel without going out and buying a large format laser printer, there's Front Panel Express. All they do is make metal plates with holes and lettering. The lettering is engraved and powder coated. I've used their service, and they do a nice job.
In fact it seems they were involved in setting up Front Panel Express: http://www.schaeffer-ag.de/en/company/company_history/
The choice of joystick is disappointing though - an arcade stick? Those are digital only, usually either 4- or 8-way. Kerbal would be better controlled with a real analog joystick. But I guess the game probably doesn't support analog input.
Also of note: while I've never played Kerbal, years ago I was very seriously into Orbiter, which is a somewhat more rigorous simulation. Especially when maneuvering in close proximity to another vehicle, you actually wanted to avoid analog control of RCS thrust, because that's hard to control precisely and it's very easy to find small errors compounding and your ship getting away from you. So you'd put the RCS in what I want to say I remember being called "vernier" mode, where each control input regardless of magnitude or duration produces a specific, calibrated quantity of thrust, which can be precisely counteracted by the opposite control input. So at this point, you're effectively treating an analog control device as digital - which works, but something like the three-axis controller detailed here would actually be a lot more comfortable to use for vernier control. If I still played Orbiter at all, I'd be asking OP for more details on the parts he used and how he put them together, so I could build something similar for my own use.
Huh? There are plenty of twist-handle joysticks that give you 3 analog axes. Some will even give you 5 or 7 (One or two mini-sticks)
The idea behind a controller like the one under discussion here is that its three axes are, first, all translational, and second, all in direct correspondence with the motion they impart to the spacecraft. With such a device, no mental mapping between control axes and motion is required. You just push the controller in the direction in which you want to add thrust.
If it's still unclear what that means, look at this diagram [1] of the Apollo translation controller. Disregard the limited rotational capability for which I have been unable to find documentation. Observe the translation axis diagram alongside the handle. Note the three degrees of freedom it depicts. Consider their correspondence with the three degrees of freedom in which a spacecraft may experience translational motion.
To provide a matching capability, the joysticks you're talking about would need to allow for pushing the handle into, or lifting it out of, the base. I doubt anyone makes a joystick like that, because it would not be a very useful capability to add, and the engineering requirements and effect on retail price would be significant.
Analog input usually isn't that important because the inertia of the thing you're rotating typically overpowers your system's ability to generate torque by a fair amount. So fine-grained control of orientation/rotation isn't as critical as being able to turn at all.
I have to say, though, if you're building a custom digital controller, it's usually easier to just crack open a cheap USB keyboard and repurpose the PCB. They are small, support lots of buttons, and already have drivers on your PC.
Using a digital joystick would then be the way to go. I like his choice of that input device.
But, like Quequau, I've never been able to get into Kerbal. I guess I could go whip a panel up, but at the end of the day not sure that it would be enough to catch my interest.
If you were writing the consuming app, you could get analog support with an ADC into a decoder into individual or combinations of keys. I say you'd have to be writing the app because I don't know many existing apps that support that sort of key binding (though I do seem to recall MS Flight Simulator doing it, at least for throttle).
I do refactor parts (I've done the keyboard thing mentioned above) but now since I'm older I realize I don't have the time to dork around with a dodgy keyboard (ummm is that the reason I tossed it into the junk bin?) and want things to work after I fix my design errors, not after I fix a broken part.
I'm more a pragmatic Maker. Can I run to Home Despot and buy wood, fasters, plan, cut, assemble and install shelves? Yes. Can I go to Ikea, buy something close and make it fit that then looks really nice? Yes. With 400 linear feet of shelving in the robot lab, sometimes Ikea wins.
Likewise, some nifty Adafruit board is the quicker way to win.
Here's a demo video from last year's Makerfaire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCuNyiseJ5g&feature=youtu.be...
edit: grammar
The OS X version is still a bit slow to load, but it's far better than it was a year or two ago. I get basically no crashes and fairly reasonable performance these days, so it might be worth another look.
on the other hand, i DO say 'i know what i am gonna spend my weekend on'
I'd say, that's why free time is awesome, and we need much more of it.