The lights controller that no one needs (but might help with custom controller projects)

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Let me start off by saying that I am fully aware that there are other solutions to this problem that do not involve making a custom joystick, but I wanted to make a custom joystick so here we are.

This project is going to be of limited use to most people in it’s current form as it is designed for a very specific use case. That said it may be a useful starting point for somone wanting to create their own custom controller.

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Materials:

  • Arduino Pro Micro (here)
  • Silicone Wire (here)
  • Two Momentary Buttons
  • Enclosure
  • USB Cable

Prerequisites:

  • PlatformIO running in VSCode (here)
  • The code from github (here)
  • A soldering iron

Electrical connections:
I am going to paint you a word picture here because I didn’t take a picture before I added silicone for vibration/strain relief.

  • Any GND pin on the arduino is connected to one side of both buttons.
  • The other side of Button 1 (Dimmer) is connected to Pin 2.
  • The other side of Button 2 (Brighter) is connected to Pin 3.

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Implementation:

See the GitHub repo for the code. The implementation here is pretty simple and uses two primary libraries:

This results in a QGroundControl compatible controller with two buttons that map to buttons 13 (Dimmer) and 14 (Brighter).

Here is a video of the controller in action:

One stumbling block was the controller calibration. I ended up making a long-press key combo to enter calibration mode. Here you can fake a calibration by stepping through fake stick inputs.

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Hi @gwa-gwa, thanks for sharing! :smiley:

While you’re probably right that the current form of this likely isn’t directly useful to many people, it does cover some useful concepts and approaches, and might prove inspirational and/or fruitful for others looking to have/create some form of custom controller :slight_smile: