DIY Button Plate for Sim Racing Using a Arduino Pro Micro
Introduction: DIY Button Plate for Sim Racing Using a Arduino Pro Micro
I will be showing my process of designing and realising a button plate, and teach you a few tricks for designing your own as well. If you want to build the one I'm using as an example, please see 'Supplies' below for the BOM. If you're just following along for inspiration, you can use them as a estimate for your own project.
I've been Sim racing since the summer of 2021. I started with building everything on my own. That includes wheelbase, steering wheel, H shifter, pedals and the rig. I recently bought a steering wheel for cheap on AliExpress, link will be down with the supplies, wanting to build a button box around it and that's what I'm showing today. 120
I will include the files for the pedal shifters, but I won't be explaining them in this Instructables.
The button box will include
- 2x Momentary 3-way toggles
- 6x Push buttons (4 are included with the steering wheel, just need to wire them up)
- 2x Rotary encoders
- 2x Latching 2-way toggles
- LED's
And the tools you'll be needing are
- 3D printer
- Soldering iron
- Laser cutter (Optional for frontplate)
Supplies
STL's: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5207013
- 1x Arduino Pro Micro
- 1x male micro USB pinout
Hardware
- 28x M3x4.6x3mm inserts (4x for front plate, 6x for backplate, 8x for mounting the flippers, 10x for mounting the paddles to the backplate)
- 20x M3 washers
- 10x M3x6 (To mount the pedals behind the wheel)
- 10x M3x8 (6 to secure the backplate, 4 for the optional front plate)
- 5x M3x25 (To secure the shifter pedals)
- 3x M5x25 (Shorter bolts to connect the steering wheel to the button plate)
- 3x M5x40 (To connect the whole assembly to your 70mm wheel adapter)
- 1x M4x10 (For the clutch spring)
- 1x M4 washer (For the clutch spring)
- 1x M4 Nut (For the clutch spring)
- 1x Spring, 15mm long, 0.8mm wire thickness, 6mm ID (for clutch spring)
- 3x 7x5mm Aluminium pipe, 24mm long
- Steering wheel: https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/33052964263.html?ga...
Frontplate
- 3mm Plywood 200x160mm
Buttonplate
- Button plate base (250g of filament)
- Button plate backplate (50g of filament)
- 2x Momentary push button (PS102/DS612)
- 2x Latching 2-way toggle (MTS102)
- 2x Momentary 3-way toggle (MTS123)
- 2x Rotary encoder w/ push button (EC11)
- 11x RGB LED (WS2812b 144x/m)
- 1x GX12 female chassis connector
Shifters
- 4x Microswitch (KW11)
- 1x Lineair hall effect sensor (A1302)
- 8x 10x6mm Neo magnets
- 1x 5mm cube Neo magnet
Step 1: Step 1: Looking for a Suitable Steering Wheel and Tracing It's Outlines
First step, though not the hardest, will be our starting point. What kind of steering wheel do you want? Do you want to drive Nascar? Or open-seaters? Maybe just plain old GT cars? Or do you want a more versatile steering wheel?
As I already had a open-seater styled steering wheel, I opted for the GT style of steering wheel. These steering wheels typical have a 360-540degree rotation circle and are around 300mm in diameter. That means a round steering steering wasn't needed. In the end I just chose the cheapest open steering wheel on AliExpress with a size of 310mm.
After receiving your steering wheel, you first need to find out the dimensions of the steering wheel. You can place a piece of paper behind the steering wheel and trace it, make/find a good picture of the steering from the front and trace it using your 3D modelling software or if you're lucky, you can find the CAD model already online.
Make sure to test fit your basic outlines! We don't want to print out the whole thing and find out the buttons are too low. 16