BamJr

Neat! I've seen a couple of attempts with hand painting (both with raised or "engraved" lettering) but they didn't look as clean as yours do. Only downside I can see with this technique is you can't print that side of the panel on the printing bed. At least on my machine, the bottom layer comes out much cleaner then the top one. I might have to start messing with ironing settings sooner or later.

This might be a good starting point, at least for the grip and connector "pinout": https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/45j5pk/tm_warthog_stick_circuitry/ You can either savage an existing board like already suggested, or make your own using existing schematics. In both cases, if you use the same type and number of shift register and wire them to the main connector correctly no programming should be needed. You'll be limited to 24 buttons and no axes, which should works with the Tomcat grip but won't be compatible with some of the "switches" you linked (thumbsticks and encoders won't work). Weather you make your own board or use an existing one I do strongly suggest you do some basic research on how these shift registers work, though. It will help you with understanding the schematics, wiring your switches to the board and do any potential troubleshooting.

Gamechanger, as others have said. Looking around became so natural to me that, when watching DCS videos or playing games that do not support TrackIR, I tilt my head to look around and then wonder why the view isn't moving! Whether you buy the real deal or make your own for a few bucks, it will be worth every cent

Amazing work, both in terms of quality and time effort spent on it. I printed my own gimbal + grip, and that alone took days of printing and months of design work. Can't even imagine how much time and care was needed to design and print almost an entire cockpit! I'm curious about how you achieved the lettering, filament change at a predefined layer height?

I second this: JSTs are my first choice nowadays because of the keying factor. Also, I find their lower profile and greater sturdiness (when mounted on PCBs) compared to Dupont ones another great benefit. I also often use JST-PH (2.00mm pitch) in tight spaces. They can be crimped with the same crimping tool and are also very easy to find in sets on Amazon or other sites.

Also, I assume this is a considerably work heavy fix which probably needs more testing than usual. Give the devs time, I can assure you from personal experience that rushing them and cutting corners will 99% result in a disappointment on our end. Spent over a year at my job dealing with a particularly "difficult" customer who kept demanding "hotfixes" over "hotfixes" and single bugfix releases skipping QA. Lost count of how many regressions we introduced, how many hours of overhead and how many late nights "emergency releases" we had 'cause he couldn't wait a week for proper release cycle...

Are you planning to completely redo the internals or just to map the current one's output via USB? If the first option, I've built my own stick with an Arduino Pro Micro running MMJOY, A1324 hall sensors, a few 74HC165 shift registers, and various switches and I greatly recommend that route. Had no major issues and didn't have to write a single line of code thanks to Sokol1's great work on MMJOY. I only needed to learn the basics of KiCAD in order to have some custom PCBs made for me and avoid a wiring nightmare.

Well, to be fair there are several commercial solutions plus tons of DIY options for headtracking (both from the software and hardware side of things), so preparing and mantaining official settings wouldn't be so trivial. If the issue is in curves setup, did my screenshots help a lil' bit? If the problem is OpenTrack not detecting movements, maybe contacting Smoothtrack's developer could help.

I'm hoping for that too, and I was actually about to ask HB/TrueGrit about it. Also, AFAIK some german Typhoons do have PIRATE. It's mostly two seaters, but there are a couple of single seater pictures I found with PIRATE and german markings. Not sure what tranche/block/configuration they are, though.

Reading TrueGrit's statement I'm also very happy they recognized the need for a partnership for this project and moved in that direction. IMO, it really shows commitment on delivering a quality product. This will probably be one of the few day 1 purchases for me

I almost fell from my chair when I saw this a couple of minutes ago. I was already very hyped for the Typhoon, I'm even more hyped now given the wonderful experience I'm having with the Tomcat. All my best wishes to HB and TrueGrit for this collaboration. Can't wait to throw my money at you!

I'm not familiar with Smoothtrack + OpenTrack (I'm currently using a DIY infrared clip setup + OpenTrack) so I can't help in regards to the translation/zoom issue, but the rotation mappings look a little bit off to me. 60 deg real world rotation for an ingame 180 deg yaw will force you to turn your head a lot. Also I found throwing in some exp gives me finer control when looking more or less ahead and makes clicking switches on the UFC or MFDs way easier.

I've had several friends recommend me those. I'll probably end up buying or building myself a couple in the near future.

Yup, you're right. I keep forgetting that! But I still prefer the long press/short press logic of the 16 over slewing the TDC from one end to the other of the MFD

I can't pick a favorite, to be honest, especially since the Viper is still missing a lot so I can't experience first-hand what some tasks feel like. Based on personal experience so far I think the Hornet gives way better SA (especially with that extra MFD and HMCS integration), has more loadout options for A/A thanks to the double rails and fuselage hardpoints and of course has the big bonus of carrier ops. The Viper, on the other hand, has a better HOTAS in my opinion (I hate having to use MFDs to switch radar freqs, rws/tws or auto/man on the 18), and better performance at high speed/altitudes. Also the roll rate when in CAT I FCS gain mode feels insane! Overall I currently fly the Hornet when I want a greater challenge or more complex missions, while taking the Viper when I just want to have a quick and easier BVR experience on airquake style servers. Hopefully, once the Viper is more complete it will be more fun to use for realistic missions too.