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SAS Buttons

A project log for Kerbal Spaceship Potato

This is an input focused control panel for Kerbal Space Program.

matthew-peverillMatthew Peverill 10/11/2019 at 14:340 Comments

I have some lovely buttons from a vendor on aliexpress, but they are a bit generic. I want them to have nice labels on them. How to do this? Well first we have to take them apart. The easiest way to do this is to use a screwdriver to pry out the button cap - this is no problem, as they are not latched in permanently. The transparent part of the keycap can then be separated from the white part by pulling the shorter edge of the cap away from the filled part (again I used a screwdriver). Then the white part further separates in to a cap and a plunger:

Just a note that I did break one of my buttons doing this, so you may want to plan on having extras if you want to do the same. They are not expensive.

Ok so then we want to affix labels. I considered just drawing on the inside with sharpie, but that wasn't quite the aesthetic I'm going for. Instead, I decided to print on transparencies and insert those in to the key caps. Here's how I did it:

  1. I downloaded the SVG versions of the various SAS indicators from the kerbal wiki (credit XSize). 
  2. I loaded them in to an 8.5 x 11" drawing in Inkscape and I made boxes the approximate size of the inside of the keycaps.
  3. I resized them to approximately fill the boxes.
  4. I made a new icon for stability assist by putting a tilde (~) in a circle.
  5. I used the arrange tools to center the symbols in their boxes
  6. Using snap to corners, I made lines outside the boundaries of the buttons as a cutting guide.
  7. I deleted the boxes around the buttons. This leaves you with an image that looks like this:
    (I've posted the labels file on github).
  8. I printed to pdf, and then I had it printed to transparencies at Fedex (which costs about $1.90 a sheet). Print extras (I did three). 

  9. I used an exacto knife to cut along the lines I drew out. I did not manage to do this very neatly, but it turned out totally fine. If you are exacting, I'd recommend thinking carefully about what order to cut in, as it will be difficult to cut to guidelines when your transparency pieces start coming loose.

  10. Put the transparency inside the transparent keycap and reassemble.

  11. Make sure you put the keycaps in to the panel in the orientation and order you want.

Here's the finished product - pretty cool!

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