so I've seen a thread where a guy installed push buttons on the top of his radio transmitter to control his cannons firing. Was wondering if anyone has gone extreme enough of setting up there own radio platform from scratch like this one? Would be nice to be able to control all your cannons off the key pad
I think the closest any one here has done is a radio in a PS2 controller, but haven't seen or heard anything about that for a few years. One or two guys are playing with the Open RC transmitter but that is more focused on custom programming than custom hardware. I've added additional hardware beyond just buttons to TXs but haven't touched the main software. A lot of people in the hobby arent into electronics, adding buttons to a radio in place of a gimbal can fluster people. There doesn't seem to be a need for a custom TX like that for combat, or if there is it isn't a big enough need to be worth the effort to those people that have the skills to actually do it. Current transmitters aren't perfect but are good enough that going fully custom is probably only worth it from a cool project perspective. If you're new to the hobby I strongly recommend getting a working boat on the water first and then doing all the custom projects you can handle. You'll probably have more fun that way, plus you'll have a working test platform for your projects.
I did a custom opentx based firmware for converging fire control for big gun applications. Got it working in the back end and partly GUI implemented (although it was interesting to set up, all values were normalized based on the first to last turret spacing) then went on to other projects. never gone that far as custom hardware.
OpenTX accommodates custom hardware easily. You are only limited by the number of I/O lines of the processor. You can get an inexpensive processor board here http://www.ar9x.net/ A lot of information about the board and how to hook it up can be found in the first post of http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2479552 I've been planning to build a radio with an Arduino 2560 board, which is even cheaper. I'm looking to make a simple radio at the low end of the spectrum, one that works for cruisers and convoy ships, rather than the more complex one you want. The board and software will work either way.
Agreed on getting a boat on the water. There are a lot of little things that will demand your attention. Having said that, I typically mod the 5th and 6th channels on my radios to act as firing circuits. This post roughly describes the circuit that I use, though I mount the buttons on the back or shoulders of the radio. Left stick = Navigation, Right stick = Gun Aiming, Buttons = Fire Control Fire Control Circuit from this post: https://rcwarshipcombat.com/threads/adding-spektrum-firing-buttons.407498/
