Hi Karl,
Great design as usual! Thanks for the support on the forum.
I thought I would also document my build as well. So far I have your MCP (2nd oldest design) where I have modded it a bit and made it backlit - it's great! I also have the basic throttle design for the Saitek levers. The 10K pots for the reversers aren't good, but I think you advised in the build page to use HQ pots, that's my fault! It just means I have a smaller range to use the reversers, FSUIPC takes care of it.
I use an Ender 3 Pro with a BLTouch and glass plate. PLA is from JOYO, I have all 5 colour bundle (paid over £60 and now it's £30) - https://amzn.to/3n6VCAV
I also use CURA which I have a really good profile for the above printer and PLA. I have started to use Prusa recently as this has a bit more flexibility with supports.
I have plans in Easyada for a FMC PCB which I was going to have made, but didn't have time to get the 3D housing made to go with it.
The tactile buttons are these (white LED) it was ~ £15 - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32762591668.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.36814c4d3p498x
I reduced 8A by 1mm (not 0.75mm) and it seems to be quite good, parts sit flush as per photos. Need to use my black PLA for the 12 LSK buttons.
FMC Arduino Mount is printed.
Will need to tidy up prints and remove stringing / excess supports for buttons to pass in and out.
Next steps are to see if the white buttons (8A) can be rotated by Karl and wait for the laser buttons to become avaialble. Looking forward to the complete unit :)
The build made good progress with wiring up buttons to the MEGAs and backlighting, but then some of the connections started to fall away from the pins of the tactile buttons.
Ordered new 24AWG wire and will have longer strands and use terminal blocks to avoid the daisychaining issue I have. Should work out well.
Better to start from scratch and have the wiring done properly!
Also, I am considering making a PCB instead. @Karl Clarke I've sent a message via the website chat. Let's see what we can do :)
Here is my plan on wiring the LEDs into groups of four based on Karl's wiring diagram. For every bank of 4 LEDs the LEDs will be connected together in series, first LED will have a wire for + and last LED a wire for -. Every + wire gets connected onto a master wire and all - wire gets connected together.
My buttons from Sam came last week and have been printing out buttons and testing the “click”. Rigged up 2 columns of number buttons and looking good. Mammoth wiring job coming up!
I have my own profile for Cura and Prusa. Settings reflect my filament and print bed.
@Karl Clarke - are you able to rotate 8A by 90*?
Thanks.
Great stuff! :) I'm also building one on the ender 3. So far I've only done the upper bezel and have experimented with some buttons to get the light to pass through, but it seems quite tricky to get it to work. Are you using the standard Cura profile for Ender 3?