my desktop pit

[heartburn]

I have just finished the first design of my ICP printed circuit board (pcb). I now have to design the MFD's, a communications panel, master section, and game controls. Because I plan to have the desktop pit cover my keyboard so I will have to have an easy way to exit the game that is why I am including certain functions like Esc and such.. These images are lower quality than what I am using so they might look funny and blurry. Also, they are about 1.25 times the size of the actual boards as well.

Here is the first board (this view is so that you can read everything)
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m241/kdittyr/ICP_forward.png

Here is the design that can be printed and will appear as above after the etching.
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m241/kdittyr/ICP.png

I am truly excited to start this thing, though I have realised that it is going to be a long process because I am using PCB's. I haven't found a better solution, yet, that involves buttons that look more like the ICP or MFD buttons, so I think I have to fabricate those as well.

Anyway, I just thought you all might be interested.

[Dukey]

Thats cool stuff bud, keep us updated if you would it's always good to see what other folks are doing :thumb:

[Sundowner]

Hey Heartburn, what are you using for PCB design ? I see it's not Eagle, Protel nor Cadstar so what is it ?

[heartburn]

I'm using Sprint-Layout (http://www.abacom-online.de/uk/html/sprint-layout.html) it is pretty cheap (though I have yet to buy it) and can do boards the size that I need (over 5"x5"). If you know of a free PCB designer that I can use and get boards that big, please let me know. Right now I am exporting the layouts and pasting them together and cleaning them up in Photoshop. I would like to not have to do that with a full version.

[Sundowner]

I'm using Cadsoft Eagle (http://www.cadsoft.de/index.htm) its freeware version is fully functional, except it's restricted to 100 x 80 mm (4 x 3.2 inches).

BTW that's my project, its modified Mjoy16 PCB:

http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/2710/mjoy16r1qo4.th.gif (http://img77.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mjoy16r1qo4.gif)

the original was on two PCBs and had few useless parts, so I decided to do entirely new design based on original schematics. Probably next week it’s going to be made by a professional company for me and few people from Polish combat sim community.

[heartburn]

That is very cool, Sundowner, thanks for posting your pics. I have been thinking of building my own HOTAS rig (I have an X-52 but would love a Cougar-type rig) using a board similar to that. Though I am going to jump this hurdle before I move onto another project.