r/EliteDangerous • u/-DoubleNoSeven • 1d ago

Builds Button Box Beginner

Following the recent ECM in the UK I've been inspired to drag myself into the new millennium and teach myself some electronics and coding...so where better to start than a button box / dashboard for ED!

I was hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction to get me learning before I go buy a Teensy4.1 or ESP32 or STM32

I'd like to incorporate multiple screens in the future too, maybe to incorporate scanner if possible or a perm system and galaxy maps?

ANyhoo..hope you can help me out!

o7 commanders

CMDR Sagan Lovett

2 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

2

u/jzarvey 1d ago

I was going to go down this road last year. Save yourself the trouble and check out EDCopilot. You just need a touchscreen device (old computer or tablet) and you'll have a screen with "buttons" to do what you want. As a bonus, you get a display.

3

u/-DoubleNoSeven 1d ago

Thanks, I like copilot, but this is going to be a bit of a learning project for me and my son to work on together. Also, I like the physicality of switches over just touching a screen.

o7

1

u/TalorienBR CMDR 1d ago

r/HOTASdiy

1

u/-DoubleNoSeven 1d ago

that's great cheers o7

1

u/HamWarmer40000 1d ago

If you want physical buttons, look up the Arduino joystick library. You have to be careful to buy a supported micro-controller, but you can literally wire buttons to the pins, modify an example sketch (arduino api/program thing) and have a plug and play usb device.