Having ditched the idea of making a Knobome and instead resigning myself to the possibility I’ll just have a Viewnome, I’ve now decided that I’m back in the hunt. But I’m simplifying things.

My plan now, due to the lack of space and the huge complexity that seemed to be coming from the previous discussion, is to build almost an “etcha-sketch” type of interface.

In my current state, I have two sets of 8 wires, that come from the IDC headers. I know that shorting any wire from 1 set with any wire on the other set will fire a button press in the Serial.

So my plan is simple.

I will attach 1 set of the 8 wires, to the 8 legs of an 8 position rotary switch. I will attach the other set of 8 wires to the legs of another 8 position rotary switch. I will then take the single out from the two switches and join them together at a momentary switch.

So using this little box, you will turn the two switches to the coordinates you want, and press the momentary button. That will trigger a button press at that coordinate.

Yes I know it’s simple. That’s really the aim. I can see this being useful for things where pressing lots of buttons isn’t the important thing and where change a row’s value at a time might be useful – like sliders or triggers.

Stack of Sparkfun Buttons:

Stack of Sparkfun PCB’s and 2 arduinos:

This is what I’m aiming for:

I really want to make one that’s this layout:

I’m off for the next 3 days on vacation, so tomorrow I’ll hit up Radioshack and maybe I can start breadboarding some of this stuff to test it first.

My resistors – don’t they look useful?

LEDS at the top, and assorted connectors

More connectors, and two sorts of capacitors

All of the “chips”