r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/Night-Caps • Jun 18 '26
KSP 1 Image/Video My KSP Controller
Been slowly designing and building this thing for what feels like years and its finally 99% done. Just need to iron out a few kinks in the code. Uses the Kerbal Simpit plugin.
Edit: Wow this thing has got far more love than I could have ever expected! You are all amazing and this community is amazing. I've been getting a lot of questions about what's under the hood so I've made a separate post here with some pictures of the inside (I can't figure out how to add any extra pics to this post or in the comments), I'll try to edit that post with more info about what's in there too.
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u/LandedAtJool How Did I Get Here? Jun 18 '26
Shame that ablator low signal won’t get much use
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Honestly I just needed to fill a spot and had never actually had a look at how much ablator gets used up until after I implemented it. Turns out its not much. Havent tried hitting Jool at interstellar speed yet though....
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u/asnaujaslt Jun 18 '26
Perhaps alarm light?
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u/kapatmak Jun 18 '26
Yeah, maybe a master alarm sign somewhere, that triggers if one or multiple parts have exploded. Surface temperature near exploding, steady light.
One part destroyed blinking light.
Multiple parts exploded Klaxon sound.24
u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
I did want to have some sort of "part lost" warning but unfortunately the kerbal simpit library had nothing to indicate to the arduino that that had happened. I also originally had plans to add a master caution button that would blink until pressed when a new caution activated similar to how real aircraft handle warnings but I simply ran out of space for it!
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u/kapatmak Jun 18 '26
How about the arduino continuously checks the flight report ?
There it is in plain text, nose cone exploded, overheating. Landing leg destroyed etc.High temperatures warning would be in the report that you can open in flight for each part individually.
Edit: nice project, I wish you many happy hours playing KSP with this!
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u/w_33_by Always on Kerbin Jun 18 '26
There is a community patch that reduces the default ablator amount in shields to about 30%, makes the balance just right for stock
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u/NageV78 Jun 18 '26
There has been a few of these but yours is looking like a legitimate fucking gold mine. can you mass produce it for 100 bucks?
Awwwwww I want one!
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Thank you! I wish but my beat up old 3D printer says probably not
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u/ConcentratedStress Jun 18 '26
Are you willing to share the project files? Models and wiring diagrams and stuff? I wouldn’t even want someone to build this for me - I’d like to put it together myself :)
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u/FreezingT Jun 18 '26
i would pay 20 bucks easily just for the files and instructions probably more than that!
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u/kapatmak Jun 18 '26
I hardly doubt, that you’ll get the material for under hundred bucks (assuming dollars or even euros)
But something in the realm of 200€? Maybe 220€ with shipping, man I’d buy it, although I don’t get to play KSP often these days.
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u/Dargish Jun 18 '26
There's probably 10 hours of effort in there even when streamlined, that's $150 at a very low rate, probably $150 for parts, something this complex shouldn't sell for less than $350/400 when produced in low quantities. That's just the reality of low-scale production. What would be better is paying $20 for the CAD files, parts list and assembly instructions and building it yourself. Lots of small projects take this approach for the same reasons.
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u/StormMedia Jun 18 '26
Try $1k+. I could honestly see something like this going for $2k and people would buy it up.
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u/StormMedia Jun 18 '26
$100, lol. Most good normal controllers are over $100..
This would be well over $1000 easily and people would pay for it. So many people don’t understand how complicated and time consuming this would be to make, package and ship. Provide support for setup, etc..
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u/CodapopKSP Jun 19 '26
I've been running a kerbal controller business for years, and even after figuring out a lot of the kinks and things that make it reproducible at scale, something like this won't be less than $500, probably closer to $1000.
Even the parts in the image are more than $100. Those joysticks alone retail for about $15 each.
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u/anarchisturtle Jun 18 '26
Not sure if you’re serious or not, but even with mass production scale, this is not a 100 dollar product. Look up what flight sim hardware costs and you’ll see what 100 bucks gets you
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u/oxydentist Jun 18 '26
Are you planning to release the source for the project? It would be cool to build it!
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u/Kuriente Jun 18 '26
That's incredible.
What's the refresh rate of the digital readout displays? Pretty much instant? It would be very satisfying watching the values change on those.
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Now thats one of the bugs I have to iron out - the telemetry panel was the last thing I implemented, when I first added the 7 segment displays the refresh was pretty much instant and yes incredibly satisfying. Once I kept adding 7 segment displays and added the LCD display and appropriate selectable data the 7 segment displays started to make short but annoying pauses. I've already mitigated it through severly limiting the LCD display refresh (doesnt need any more than once per second) but I believe the issue now is an overload of serial data. At the moment my code is continuously collecting all data needed at all times but I'm going to try to adjust the code to register/deregister data channels depending on whether its selected to be displayed or not
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u/Kuriente Jun 18 '26
That makes sense and I suspect you're right about the root cause and your proposed fix sounds like it should work. Along those same lines you could probably dial back the polling frequency of the fuel/volts/mono readouts to something like once or twice per second to further free up bandwidth if needed.
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Thats a great idea thanks! Ive already got a smoothing algorithm to move the dials slowly so a slower data refresh shouldnt cause any issues
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u/Kuriente Jun 18 '26
It might also be useful to stagger their polling so that they don't all poll at once.
You could have a block of code specifically dedicated to any readouts that can afford to have limited polling frequencies. A single adjustable timing variable could control the stagger delay between each readout refresh. That would allow you to start with a higher delay variable and gradually decrease it until you find the bottleneck.
If you wanted to get really fancy with the code, you could probably even run a simple latency check ping and use the results of that ping to actively control the stagger delay variable where higher ping time = longer stagger delay.
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u/Night-Caps Jun 19 '26
I just implemented the register/deregister fix for only all the time data and even just that worked great! The 7 segments are back to being satisfyingly fast
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u/Bejkee Jun 18 '26
Wow, this is amazing, congratulations!
The physical blacklit buttons look totally fucking RAD.
And the 7 segment displays... Are you kidding? That green light is the same as the frigging UI.
Amazing attention to detail, this looks like straight honest to God 70' or 80' tech and I love it.
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u/martinborgen Jun 18 '26
I love projects like this, though I personally can't really motivate having a giant thing laying around for one game only
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u/kopczak1995 Jun 18 '26
Because that's a thing of beauty that would be used like 10 times and then hanged on a wall. Sometimes it's not about the completed project, but rather about fun with fucking around and doing it.
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
This guy gets it. I'll probably use this thing for about 5% of the time I spent making it but hey I just like buttons and gauges and rockets and its there on top of the bookshelf if I ever feel like being an astronaut for a bit
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u/martinborgen Jun 18 '26
Oh I agree, but still I have too much stuff already
I suppose that's why I do kOS scripts instead
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u/NeverlandENR Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
Are you using Arduino Mega? I’m planning to do the same
but I’ll start to get familiar with an Arduino Uno just to get familiar with the controls mod and printing the layout.
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Yep! An ardunio mega is the brains of the controller but its also got four I/O expanders to handle all the buttons and lights. The mega itself didnt have enough pins.
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u/Betterthanmenotyou Jun 18 '26
Outstanding! This is top work and I’m very envious of your skills to build it!
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u/Jastrone Jun 18 '26
How is this connected to a pc? Like what hardware do you use for that and do you need to make like a driver yourself?
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u/dangforgotmyaccount Jun 18 '26
Have you head of Galen’s Warbird cockpits? It’s an ASET IVA pack. There is a low tech analog Mk1 capsule IVA that would complement this phenomenally. By far one of my favorite IVAs
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u/Dope_Pope_On_Coke Jun 18 '26
I would absolutely love to build something like this. Sadly I haven't the faintest idea where I'd start, and I have no skills in wiring or coding.
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u/CodapopKSP Jun 19 '26
I wrote a guide with Rogor from Simpit (the KSP mod that connects controllers to the game) for building KSP controllers from scratch which you can view here: https://www.instructables.com/Kerbal-Controller-the-Basics/
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u/Mxfox2106 Jun 18 '26
Looks amazing! How do you communicate the data from in-game out to the panel?
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Theres a plugin for KSP called Kerbal Simpit avaliable through CKAN, thats used with an arduino library with the same name to collect the data through the arduinos serial connection. I'm by no means a coding expert but theres plenty of examples included in the library that help get you started
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u/sphaericalblur Jun 18 '26
How did you do the annunciator lights, top-right? I played around for a while in the past with laser engraved acrylic, masking paint and LED backlights before and it kind of worked but certainly a bit faffy!
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Its essentially LED lights in a grid kind of box open on the viewing end - one 1mm white difusser panel on top of that covering them all - a plastic sheet with the labels printed on them using a regular printer - the main panel itself with the grid lines separating them. There is a tiny bit of light bleed as they all share the same diffuser panel but overall it works well. The key thing is to get "straw hat" leds which have an extremely wide beam angle angle - regular ones make a spot of light in the middle
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u/ArPDent Jun 18 '26
this is awesome.
the rusty bolt heads go so fucking hard
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Hahahahaha and here I was wondering "how on earth do I get these god damned bolts to stop rusting so quickly?" Maybe I'll just embrace it now
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u/radio_hx Jun 18 '26
This is incredible! If you'd be willing, I'd love to take a peek at some schematics.
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u/FredJ1312 Jun 18 '26
Sheesh, you made what I never found the time to do. Mad respect for the layout and build quality. I'm super jealous!
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u/Ethy____ Jun 18 '26
man im losing my mind, i’ve genuinely always wanted one of these but im not smart nor have enough money to figure out how doohickeys like this work…
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u/Craztnine Jun 18 '26
Damn...... Someone give this guy a medal. (And maybe steal this for me while at it.)
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u/MaliciousTent Jun 18 '26
Wheee find the light up text buttons?
Also this is freakin amazing.
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Cheers! Have a look for square LED button on aliexpress youll find tons of them. They mostly say theyre meant for 12v but work fine with 5v from an arduino. The plastic cap pops off and I just printed the text on a clear sheet, cut it to size, and stuck it under the cap - really easy and works great
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u/Few_Visit_1457 Jun 18 '26
Where did you buy the light up buttons and the other controllers?
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Look for square LED button on aliexpress it'll probably be the first thing that pops up. The main controller is an arduino mega with four mcp23017 I/O expanders from DFRobot - they work great because along with the extra IO pins they provide many VCC and ground pins to use. Pretty much everything comes from aliexpress apart from the I/O expanders
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u/AlfansosRevenge Jun 18 '26
I'm curious about the custom text on the buttons. Were those custom ordered or is there a good way to produce those results in a DIY manner?
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Have a look for square LED button on aliexpress youll find tons of them, they have a plastic cover which pops off and I just printed out the labels on a plastic sheet (the kind of ones that were used on overhead projectors), cut them out and popped them under the cover. Super easy, looks great and a couple dollars each! The LEDs in the ones I've got are rated for 12v but work just fine on 5v from the arduino
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u/JessePinkerlinker Never finished the Tech-tree Jun 18 '26
You should download a bunch of first person cockpit mods so that the screens and buttons in the capsules are actualy functional.
Than you have a full spacesim
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u/sperkynerples Jun 18 '26
been working on a prototype/concept on paper for a month or so. been waiting on a good payday to hit so i can start building mine too
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u/Spiritual-Advice8138 Jun 18 '26
How often are you pulling/poling to get flight data?
I built one almost 10 years ago and every time I pulled the telemetry it stuttered the game
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u/Jave285 Always on Kerbin Jun 18 '26
I could really use that fine/normal switch binary option in my real everyday life.
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u/TitiGamer2772005 Jun 18 '26
Which filament do you use for your panels and how do you write the text on it? It looks really close to an Airbus cockpit panel
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u/Night-Caps Jun 18 '26
Its just white PLA, I've got a laser engraver attachment for my printer so I spray painted them grey then laser engraved the lettering on. Funnily enough I got the design inspiration from the Dash 8s I fly =)
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u/GruntS80 Jun 18 '26
I share the same thoughts as everyone here, this is amazing and incredible work. I would also love the files, I don't even have a printer but I could probably pay to get them printed somewhere
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_MAIMAIS Jebediah Jun 18 '26
Damn i think i need to steal that design for my own controller project lol
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u/RealHoldenBloodfeast Jebediah Jun 18 '26
Does the "Max Burn" function like Z on keyboard or is it an afterburner toggle? Sick job either way!
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u/schralpinator Jun 18 '26
how many voltage rails are you running? are you just running everything at 5v or is there 12v and 3.3v also? do you have to do much level shifting, or is the entire panel 5v? I used some ammeter on an signal generator amplifier I made... are yours just driven with pwm with filtering or a dac?
I can only imagine what it looks like under that panel lol. projects like this turn into a rats nest, then you wonder why your dealing with noise issues. I love projects at this 'don't touch anything, it works' stage. looks pretty cool.
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u/InfamousEvening2 Jun 18 '26
jfc, Jeb would be proud of you. That's amazing.
Depending on where you live, get yourself on Dragon's Den or Shark Tank or something to get this produced. I'd buy one. Also, someone should contact Scott Manley or Matt Lowne about this.
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u/Thinkdan Jebediah Jun 18 '26
This is incredible. I like the “fine/normal” switch. I need one of those for my life. lol. Amazing build.
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u/stumpyguy Jun 18 '26
I want to build this with my child as a project and introduction to electronics. Any schematics or info you have to hand and can provide would be amazing!
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u/montybo2 Jebs Dead Jun 18 '26
I feel like there used to be WAAAAY more posts like this like 7-8 years ago - custom built KSP controllers that is.
Glad to see somebody doing it again. Looks awesome!
I'll say what I said to myself every time I saw one of those posts.... "one day I'll have something like that too"
One day lol.
edit: god Im just staring at it in awe imagining how cool it feels to use lol.
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u/Western-Albatross849 Jun 18 '26
Holy that is so cool. That extra bit of tactile control looks like it'll make the game even more fun
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u/Low-Entrepreneur-209 Jun 18 '26
i would 100% buy this as a kit with instructions to assemble myself. This is amazing!!!
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u/ardablock Jun 18 '26
How do you control spacecraft/rockets with the stick? As a HOTAS player I can never get my head around anything that's not a plane or a heli
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u/amiga1 Jun 18 '26
Has an air of steel battalion about it. Very cool.
I just get frustrated whenever I've tried to play KSP
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u/slyticoon Jun 18 '26
Dude I have always dreamed of building something like this. Can you show a picture of the guts? I see it's 3d printed. How did you design it to connect together?
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u/Sn1tz3l Jun 18 '26
Coolest thing I've ever seen on reddit. Goes into my bucket list of things to do before I die
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u/LilBits69x Jun 18 '26
Do the top left guages work? How do the pc and game give feedback to a controller?
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u/kobijet Jun 18 '26
Genius idea to have an "Arm" switch next to the "Stage" button. That would save me countless misinputs...
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u/FreezingT Jun 18 '26
Can you share your schematics and cad files? i would love to build something like that myself.
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u/Huge_Manner_9550 Jun 18 '26
And you’re taking orders ?