(Advice/Tips needed) How to make a button plate?

[ThatRacingGuy]

Hello my fellow (sim) racers.

I recently bought a second hand C shaped wheel from Fanatec (Picture down below)

And i really wanna build a button plate for it myself, problem is.. I'm completely new to DIY.
So my question to you guys is. How do i make a button plate. What materials, dimentions, electronics etc.

I believe this wheel has the same inner dimentions as the Momo 27C series.

Thanks in advance.

 

[MJH78]

Hi, nothing to it really as long as you are happy cutting and drilling the plate and soldering the wires to the buttons. First you just need a stiff plate material. Anything from carbon fibre to hard plastic to instal the buttons onto. The softer the material, the easier it is to cut but the more flexible it is as well which you don’t really want. The tool you need is really dependent on the material. I used 3mm carbon fibre plate from eBay and cut and sanded it with a dremel. The design is up to you. Just make sure you leave enough of a gap that your fingers can comfortably grip the wheel. I’d leave some extra clearance if you are using a direct drive to be able to pull your thumb out in a hurry in case you lose control. Drill the holes to whatever buttons or switches you have picked out as well as the three holes to attach to the wheel and QR. Generally you would want momentary buttons or switches (SPST or SPDT) which means they only engage when pressed. Then you need some kind of universal USB board such as the Leo Bodnar BU836 or BBI32. There are plenty of other options as well or you could use an arduino if you know how to use one. The universal boards are easy though as you just solder two leads from your button into it and it works straight away with no further software needed.
That’s basically it. One of the hardest parts I found is trying to figure out where and how to connect the usb board so think about this in advance while still in the design phase.
Hopefully this helps. It’s a fun project and you will learn a lot while doing it and aside from the plate itself everything is reusable so don’t worry if you want to change your plans or redo the whole project once you have a better grasp of things.