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hegykc

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Everything posted by hegykc

  1. Force feedback, or a version of it, is in play. As with fly-by-wire aircraft "force feedback" is artificial in real life, it's called "force loading". In F4 Phantom for example, it was so violent, that in a bombing dive, upon reaching a certain speed the controls stick would stiffen up so much it could pull the stick out of pilots hands. Also stall buffeting is a stick shaker motor in real life modern aircraft too. So yeah, force loading is the plan. Well, since there are now other manufacturers with incredible products, I will try not to bring knives to a bomb fight :) More affordable, more true-to-life and always in stock, is what I'm working on now, and will try to compete with that. I will let the timescale be a surprise to both my potential customers and my competition :)
  2. Absolutely, I'm already experimenting with 2 different approaches for a force sensing stick base and I have the grip too. I will reveal everything once I test it out.
  3. Yes of course, that's the whole point. That's why it needs to be heavy and solid, smooth surface finish etc. Otherwise i would have just made a crappy one with cheap flimsy ebay buttons for myself on the first try.
  4. I see a Batman sign, I respond: None of my models/renders were "digital mockups". My models are CAD files designed specifically to be manufactured. Anyone can model an F-16 grip shape, you could hire a 3d modeler and he'll be done in an hour or two. This CAD model was 1500 - 2000 hours of work. That's for the 3d model, not the actual prototype on the video link. 75% of that being the internals, switch housings and stuff you will never even see. There will be a base for it. But until it was as good/better than the King Warthog, I was not satisfied. Now it is. It's heavier than the metal Cougar handle, switches feel good with heavy solid clicks. It's not a empty shell, but an almost solid piece of plastic, which is impossible to do with traditional injection molding. No squeaks, no rattles... You drop it on the floor, you will brake the floor. Along with it being a solid chunk of plastic and not an empty shell, I use embedded stainless steel rods for extra weight and balance: Everything made in-house. Still has stuff missing and disregard the copper, I'm experimenting with materials.
  5. It's the pandemic. By this point I have 1500 packages from Aliexpress, and over 500 from ebay. Never had stuff take longer then 3 weeks, not even from China. Now it's 1 month from EU countries, and 2 months from China. 2 weeks ago I ordered a used Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback joystick from Hungary, from a friend. It is 100 miles away from me. Still hasn't arrived. Anyway I have made a deal with someone from Australia to 3d print these directly, and also someone from US. So no more waiting from next month onwards.
  6. Did some further modifications to my MFG's. A can of spray paint and no more white rudder pedals. Red spring adjustment wheel, red brake spring adjusters and some bronze accents. Also ordered a red hydraulic damper to match.
  7. These pedals are already wider than original foot rests. Try them and tell me if you want more width. I can easily make brackets with extra holes for wider mounting options.
  8. Clearing out some space for a youtube studio, so took some trial shots of the new combat pedals. Still some equipment missing so disregard the single blue spotlight and insufficient lighting:
  9. No renders this time! Only compositing several nicely lit photos into single one. Dammit I have to start taking worse pictures :)
  10. Waiting on components for the desktop mounts, so I can properly mount and film them. The virus pandemic is not helping.
  11. Interesting, I will add the lowest row of holes back in. It doesn't change anything manufacturing wise, and if anyone uses them, they're back in. On the old design that you have, bolts had to be very snug to provide support. On the new design there is a support bracket under the pedals so that is no longer an issue. I shall include a pair of new socks with the updated design, what size? :) Kidding aside, I can make them super smooth, like my 3d printed joystick grips or WWII throttle units. But then it takes the same amount of time (3x) to print a set of combat pedals, as it does to print a complete WWII throttle unit, 24 hours. So I can either make 500$ a day printing a throttle, or 30$ a day printing combat pedals. You can see my predicament there. I'm only spending time on these due to the virus delaying components and materials for my other projects, and as a "favor" to the community. I had my pair designed and mounted a year ago, but thought, MFG will make his own, and other people are 3d printing and will make theirs for sale. But no one did, so hegykc to the rescue :) MFG ones will be cnc-ed from the same material as the rest of the pedals, and the same finish quality, way better then these. But that heavy package will cost you at least 150$ with import duties. I was planning on selling mine for 29$ + 10$ shipping. But only as a favor to fellow simmers because I have way better paying jobs. They are designed so I can make 2-3.000 units in 1 month, package them up and have them ready as people need them. So the choice is really, for now at least, either this or nothing :) I have a friend from a neighboring country, where there's no limitations. I will send him the updated design, and he will re-route them to you. The new designs go out on Monday:
  12. Is the mounting plate DIY or someone selling them?
  13. We might have a winner here! I put this version last to try out because I didn't have high hopes for it. First of all, the brake axis goes straight through the middle of the foot rest, not at all what it's like on an F-16 or a WWII warbird. So I thought, that's ridiculous it'll never work right. Then you got all these adjustment holes, how's that gonna look. BUT, I like this one the most out of all the versions I tried myself. The brake axis through the middle of the foot rest means, that while you're pushing rudder, you're never accidentally applying brakes, no matter how hard you push the rudder. Because when you're pushing rudder, you apply backwards force to the brakes. So it actually works better then the old one. Where you had to be very careful not to accidentally apply brakes when using weak spring setting. Plus there are mounting holes for 20mm up/down/left/right adjustment. And the support bracket underneath means I don't have to worry about printing settings and amount of materials used, you will not brake these ones in half no matter how hard you try. If you want to see how much lower these are, mount the ones you have now, with only 1 bolt, to the lowest position. That's how low these new ones go. And the new spring adjuster can reduce spring force by 90%. Effortless braking for those without much room under their desks. And even on the weakest spring setting, it is impossible to accidentally apply brakes instead of rudder, because the center of axis goes above the pressure point. There is also still enough room to put holes for F-14, F-16 and F-18 style designs: So you can pretty much disregard the ones you have now, feedback on those is useless now. You will all be getting these new pairs next week.
  14. Oh that's interesting! I'm most curious to see all the different ways people have their setups. I see in web images, that big black cylinder connecting the 2 silver rods, is located at the very end of the silver rods. But yours has about 10cm left. Did you try sliding it to the end? Might not solve the heel issue completely, but could help a bit.
  15. The small parts where you insert the spring, with holes for different spring strength, pictured in the render above. The ones you already have are both outdated in design, and have errors in them. I changed the design and fixed the errors and will be sending out new ones along with the new pedals. Maybe possible. Like you said, it decreases the lever for braking. I will try it out and If there's no problems I will include it in the new batch of test pedals. Discussing is good, 30 thinking heads are smarter than 1 :) MFG material is a composite of wood dust and glue, so basically rock. But the nut in the 3d printed hole slips because in the original design it only grips the nut in 2 points. In the new design the nut is a hexagon, and the hole is also a hexagon, gripping the nut in 6 points. So event with no change in material strength or printing time, it fixes the problem of the spinning nut.
  16. This is the setup that I use right now: 4 bolts plus a support bracket, it's indestructible. I'll be sending it out to all the testers (minus the hydraulic brakes mod) along with fixed spring adjusters. These also allow for 44mm width adjustment for the pedals. (not seen in this render)
  17. Post #34 has info on the spring adjusters. The ones you have are already outdated. The hole for the nut is copied from the original part, which has a large rectangle hole instead of a hexagon, and will therefore easily spin out the nut when tightening. I am sending new adjusters to all the testers. New adjusters have hexagon nut holes and it is impossible to spin out the nut: Final pedals will be 3d printed. There is a reason why no mfg combat pedals in 5 years. You need a 100k$ 5-axis cnc + operator, and 6-12 months of his wages. I'll let you imagine what the price of a pair of combat pedals would be in that case. Also people already made 3d printed ones but not for sale because each one is a 30 hour print and is too large to be sent in an envelope around the world. I have managed to make mine a 3 hour print and small enough for shipping. So this is it :) This is the only way we get nicely shaped combat pedals, if we can make it work. Like I said before, I already have a fail-safe. A solid, non-destructible set myself. But that one takes 50% longer to make, so before I offer those, I'd like to see if we can shave off some printing time first. Each of you received differently made set of pedals. Those sets that survive will be the settings and internal structure I'll use for final versions. If none survive, than I will use the fail-safe settings and almost solid model.
  18. As soon as you hear creaking, that means they are braking apart. I made every few units with different settings and different internal structure. So you just report the ones that brake apart. I have an excel spreadsheet with your names and type of pedals sent. So I can mark the settings that didn't work, and only be left with the ones that do. I will then additionally strengthen only the settings that survived and re-send those to everyone. Kind of a "survival of the fittest", process of elimination. Also there is a fail-safe backup in place. A model where the bottom 3mm are completely solid, and those are impossible to brake apart, but also take 30% longer to print. Not a problem at all, but I would like to see first if there is a setting among the 30 units I sent out, that works without that overkill, solid bottom part. If there isn't, and they all show signs of weakness (very possible), then we go straight to the fail-safe and use the solid bottom design.
  19. Huey foot rests. As I haven't flown chopper until now, my personal feedback is pretty pointless, so I need chopper pilots to try these out if anyone is interested. Combined with the hydraulic damper, and disengaged or totally weakened spring, it could be pretty close to the "trim release" system on the real thing.
  20. Damper mod takes it to another level, I would never fly without it again. I will send a bunch for trying out next month, nothing to test there, just waiting on some components to arrive. I'm also waiting on hydraulic shocks, that should firm up the brakes. And on top of that I'll try load cells, but since braking is not really a part of flight, unlike with cars, I think load cell's are overkill, and the hydraulic shocks will be sufficient.
  21. Thanks for the feedback. There are some that might brake apart at the bolts. Dark grey and silver materials are most suspicious to me so if they brake I'll increase the settings for more rigidity, and test them again. If they fail again, those materials are out. Black and green should be no problem, but even with those I am at maybe 40% possible rigidity. I left plenty of room for increase in strength if needed. Busy with manufacturing and life, but he is always working on something. Regarding chopper pedals, yeah sure. I'll give that a go right away. You can PM me, I have left overs from the first test batch, and will be preparing a second round as I added features to mount hydraulic brake cylinders for a more realistic braking feel.
  22. You might have already spun-out the nuts in the spring adjusters if you installed them. I mistakenly left the original type hole, which is fine for the hard composite that the original adjusters are made from, but will VERY easily spin out the nut if you apply anything more than very light force on the hex key. The entire spring adjuster has already been changed for extra spring hole placement anyway (and a mounting hole for hydraulic brake cylinder, more on that later) so you will be getting new ones regardless, just a heads up:
  23. Done! Measured on the middle of the combat foot rests, braking forces are as following: Original spring adjusters minimum force: 20 kg (40 lbs) v1.0 adjusters you received minimum force : 8 kg (16 lbs) v1.5 adjusters I just made minimum force : 2 kg (4 lbs) So that's a 90% decrease in braking force for those who don't have the luxury of bolting down their MFG's to the floor, and their pedals either slide, or move the office chair. Or those of you who have low desks and cannot easily raise your feet to place them on top of the foot rests for braking. They don't interfere with brake range or movement.
  24. Yes travel always stays the same regardless of angle or spring position. New spring adjusters can go way beyond those first two holes, basically to 0 force if need be. So stiff spring shouldn't be an issue anymore:
  25. Alright tanks. I just took a look at the model, there is actually space for 3-5 more holes for way less spring force, I just didn't go there because my spring got too weak. I already have the new adjusters printing and I'll send them to you first thing Monday morning! Could you take a picture from the side? So I can see how much space you have BEFORE and AFT of the adjusters, those bolt nuts can get in the way depending on the angle. So set them at the angle you use with the new foot rests and take a side pic if you can.
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