Introduction

The flight simulator industry has spawned dozens of custom controllers for those who are looking for a more realistic and entertaining experience. These controllers range from yokes and throttles to communication and GPS systems and their price can rival the costs of actual aviation equipment.

Thankfully there is a way to create your own controllers using low cost microcontrollers, buttons, encoders and many other input devices. There are even ways to output settings to LEDs, LED segments and displays but this guide does not cover output scenarios.

For this hookup guide I am using a controller I made for myself. The G1000 glass cockpit has a dual-rotary encoder in the lower right corner labeled FMS (Flight Management System) that is a pain to control with a mouse, even more so while the plane is in the air. So I decided to build my own controller to simulate the G1000 corner. My controller includes the FMS encoder knobs and the 6 buttons that tend to be used at the same time.

You can find the source files and STL files I used on GitHub.

The Controller

For my FMS controller I found the PEC11D-4120F-H0015, a dual concentric rotary encoder (meaning it has an inner and outer encoder ring that can turn). This is not the FAA approved version on the actual G1000 but works the same and cheaper. The dual rotary encoder is similar to a single encoder except has two sets of A/B/C pins. The encoder also has a push switch. The push buttons above the encoder are standard push buttons.

The encoder and buttons are wired to a Feather board but almost any board that can run CircuitPython with USB HID enabled will work.

The first step is to get BrickLink Studio 2.0. This CAD program is intuitive to use, includes almost all bricks available, and features to test your model strength, render 3D visuals of it, view what parts you use and even generate instructions on how to build your model. This is not a guide on how to use Studio 2.0, but it includes a built in tutorial that makes getting started a breeze.

John Park wrote an excellent guide Lego Set Lighting. I used this guide to light up the LEGO Christmas Tree (set #40573) making the candles flicker away. My problem was how do I hide the electronics running everything.

I had the idea to design and build a LEGO model in the shape of a present, but the question was how.

It turns out there is an easily accessible CAD program and method of ordering parts (maybe too easy!).

Playing animated GIFs was added to CircuitPython in early 2023 and I had successfully had them running on TFT displays and even to a monitor via HDMI. I recently setup my MatrixPortal and two 64x32 matrices that I had been using to show animated GIFs. But the MatrixPortal was running Arduino code.

Time for an update and to take the code from Using Animated GIF Files in CircuitPython and Creating Projects with-the CircuitPython MatrixPortal Library and smush them together to play animated GIFs on a MatrixPortal with CircuitPython. Both guides do a great job of explaining the details of their own area and the code here combines them both.

The first half of the code sets up the matrix on DisplayIO and the second half uses OnDiskGif from the gifio module to display the animated GIF.

The code displays all GIFs found in the /gifs/ directory on the MatrixPortal. Each animated GIF will display for 30 seconds before moving to the next animation.

One major difference from the Animated GIF guide: for speed, the code in the guide sends the raw bitmap data directly to an attached display. In theory that is possible to do on the MatrixPortal but it is more complicated and likely would be slower then using DisplayIO. This is because the matrices have fewer pixels then most screens and the speed of the protomatter library that powers the matrix display.