Hi all,
I have always been attracted by the train Simulators World (in particular by Boso View Express, also knows as BVE, even before it became Open BVE) and those plastic Desha De Go! controllers were somehow a Holy Grail for me. Being for the Japanese market only, and being me a cheap bastard, I have never had the opportunity to buy one.
Recently I had the opportunity to buy a smashed up Densha De Go! Arcade controller in the need for some love (and a lot of paint...) to be restored and while waiting for it to arrive, a light turned on why not converting a heavy duty DDG! Controller to be used with the DDG! PC port?
DDG! Arcade controller is a rare beast: apart from it's 20 Kg, it's not what i would call a easy to convert thing because of the massive use of OPTO switches; in particular, the throttle lever is made up of 6 OPTO, the pedal sends it's outputs with another OPTO and the brake lever is a 5KOhm potentiometer. Going the classical joyhack or keyboard hack was not an option, so i decided to start lurking the arduino forums to see if it could be the solution for the problem
and it really was!
In particular, Arduino Leonardo and Arduino Micro (and maybe some other version) can simulate keystrokes, mouse movements etc, so one of those was the micro-controller I was in the need for.
Here are some random pics of the controller I got. A lot of rust and removed paint. Fortunately underneath the components were close to new: the brake and throttle lever assembly were close to new; the analog voltmeters used for the odometer and brake pressure meter where working, even if most of the protective glasses were broken.
Here are the throttle OPTO switches (Omron SX4009-P1, max 16mA @28Vdc) ...
and the brake assembly
After some day of painting (I HATE this kind of work
) I finally had a decent controller that could not transmit you leptospirosys
Things I still have to do:
- repair the instruments glasses (i don't really know how to proceed with these..)
- replace the lamps bulbs
- make the bulbs do something (I will need an additional circuit for this because the USB connector outputs a too little current for bulbs and the odometer needs 12V to go fullscale )
- Everything else that comes to my mind
Ah,
is a video of "the thing" working