Milan MFG

Guys...I must say I am impressed by this thread, and not only by one builder - but all three builders ! The way you managed to combine knowledge from different engineering branches on a very complex project is just breathtaking ! I always dreamed of building such stick and still have some ideas that simplifies your design but for me ARM was uncharted water, I didnt find a proper motor, PID controller done right is beyond me...and FFB licencing issue (expired last year) was a "no-go" reason for me. Plus nobody was asking for FFB past few years, it was like idea was dead :-)) You guys entered this project in just about right time with right set of skills. I am eagarly awaiting to see your final word here. If you ask me : - definitely aluminum or bent sheet metal gymbal components - need to go aroun 4-5kg force at 20cm extension at least - maybe MLX90380 3axis hall ...and sensor/encoder holder should be simplified ...

Hi everyone, Milan Šimundža from MFG here... --- We have lowered our prices on the occasion of opening an online store ! After 6 years of manufacturing flight simulator equipment we finally sell products from stock. We think this is a great reason for discount. Since black friday is around the corner, our discounts will stay valid until Saturday, 30.11.2019 at 12 hours Zulu time, when Black friday event ends worldwide --- Almost forgot...we now have BLACK warthog extensions too Discounts : 5% on MFG Rudder pedals 20% on rudder pedal accessories 20% on warthog extensions Enjoy your shopping folks at our new web store site mfg-sim.com For existing customers, feel invited to leave your reviews on product pages. It's a new website so really lack a reviews...so it's currently opened and any (non customer) can leave review regards Milan

Type c would be just unnecessary complication... we currently have usb 2 type B with 1000 updates per second capability, and we crimped it down to 250 updates per second because there is no need for any faster.... so why to upgrade to type c and worry about drivers, compatibility with older systems ?? Poslano sa mog LG-D802 koristeći Tapatalk

We will update it soon...first time in last 2 years we finally produce more pedals per month than we have orders...so we are catching up, and our waiting time is decreasing. In other words - we will finally have some free time on CNC machine to produce new products, and Combat style footrests is on top of the list

Ok, I will look into it. We used to fit anti-slip for carpets...but while rubber one work more or less well on all surfaces...anti-slip for carpets don't work at all on parquet or similar while rubber one does work. However, as you said yourself, when adjusted to forces close to realistic MFG Crosswind should really be fixed by using velcro pads or bolt to some large surface. Therefore we consider our baseplate as a quick solution so customer can use pedals immediately after unboxing, but most customers will somehow fix pedals if wall spacers is not suitable for them. I discussed this with many customers before, and adding big heavy baseplate which would increase price of product as well as shipping was voted as "better not"... but that debate is still on-going in my head as I would also like to provide a firm solution so my customers don't have to think too much about the way of fixing pedals...will see. We knew that we need to develop a decent electronics for our future projects so we did.... so answer on question 1 and 2 is YES.. Regarding question 3 - MFG SiMM8Rge is already implemented in all rudder pedals since around S/N 0350.. Yes, it is going to be straight swap...just swap footplates on 2 screws. Regarding heelrests on saitek I suppose you mean those plastic pieces that are supposed to support heel sliding....well, on MFG Crosswind we built a Y shaped baseplate exactly because of combat style...so there is NO obstruction for the heels during use...heels won't slide on some inclined plastic...but either your floor, or a cocpit floor...you can imagine some nice sheet of aluminum like in real aircraft for your heel to slide, completely detached from pedals itself :-)

Sorry for that. Rubber feet are simple parts with pre-glued surface that we "stick" to our pedals...and it might happen that pedals weren't properly wiped/cleaned before gluing rubber. We have recently replaced a worker in production...and while I personally inspect all pedals before packing there is always a possibility to miss something. I never thought on checking rubber feet adhesion :-) So...if any of you recieved pedals with similar glitch please REPORT TO ME. I will gladly send replacement parts, and , very important to me, I will prevent such things from happening again and improve/modify our design or production principles for next batch of MFG Crosswinds. After all, that's the way we introduce small improvements over time on MFG Crosswinds. REGARDING F-16 style footrests : - yes, these are still planed, and we are getting close. From day we started producing MFG's our priority was to produce enough so we can have at least small stock, and we still don't have stock, but with introduction of new machines at start of 2016 and getting new workers more and more qualified we are slowly getting there !... - I know there were lack of updates, mostly because I had to deal with all sorts of "production workflow" and workers education, and because I was working on many other projects , doing customer relationship and ordering stuff all by myself. We employed another worker to help me out with these and voila... I have some time to read forums again, take some pictures, introduce new color, started sales of our MFG Warthog extensions, finished firmware for universal joystick controller...more things to come. We are currently working on finishing our own webshop...after that, you can expect more frequent updates from MFG Team !!! Thank you for your patience with me regarding introduction of F-16 style footrests... we will get there soon P.S. Very important correction regarding me and Baur BRD !!!! - I was in contact with Baur on forums, very nice guy. I really appreciate his contribution to flight simulation community...that's all. Baur BRD DID NOT HELP ME WITH MFG CROSSWIND DESIGN.... but we did share same electronics producer, and yes, BAUR had produced pedals before MFG...that's a FACT. Later on we switched from hobby to business, introduced our own electronics in V2 model I belive we made a better design, appreciated by the community better, made it more available around the world...and by now...PROVEN TROUGH TIME ...and that's a FACT !!! I wish Baur all the best. We kind of need to push each other to create a better products for us all. Unlike some others, me and Baur always behaved like gentelmen so I can only say Salute ! If someone like Baur design better, for whatever reason, I am happy to hear that :-)

Yep, it's a new graphite/black color that we start producing now in August. It's just the color and a slight, barely noticable redesign of the footrests ( grey models produced since May also have this slight redesign on footrests but nothing dramatic). Starting from August we offer a color option - customers can choose to buy in mild grey or graphite color.... will update our website regarding news Enjoy Milan

Hi everyone Sorry for not being on forums lately...One of our CNC operators quit job so I'm pretty much in production again, currently educating new worker, testing pedals myself again etc... MFG Warthog extensions was supposed to enter sales when our webshop is finished, along with getting MFG Crosswind pedals in stock :-) Unfortunately that is delayed a bit till we get new worker producing desired quantity of pieces on CNC again :-) In any case... above info is TRUE , We have extensions IN STOCK... If you want to mount the stick at offset YOU CAN...in fact at any offset you like..simple as adjust the grip by rotating it and tighten the screw in that position. FOR ORDERING you can use our web contact form write number of extensions and lenght ( e.g. 2x(10+12cm) ) Write your shipping adress in detail ( important so we know if we include VAT on invoice or not) We will respond by sending paypal invoice to your e-mail adress I hope you like it...more products to come. I guess we have been too busy producing complicated pedals just to realise that others are selling so simple product for so high price...we decided to jump in by giving you fair offer, as always :-) Milan

to Lausbub78 : Yep, first 12x sets of MFG Crosswinds shipped at start of August 2013 ... For everyone : Thank you for keeping this thread alive !!!!! I'm sure your positive comments here get some more orders for MFG Crosswinds. So thanks for sharing your satisfaction here. I will be free to give you some Exclusive news : MFG will start to sell warthog extensions in February 2016. priced somewhere around 30 eur + VAT and shipping. We are currently testing some samples and waiting some cables to arrive from cable manufacturers before we know exact price.We made a decision to produce extensions because we will probably need these in our own gymbal design too. But most importantly, after evaluating the cost of production... others are ripping you off for a piece of aluminum pipe and one cable !!! In fact others make more profit on one piece of pipe and a cable than we make on MFG Croswind which is a really complex and high quality product....that's something where I went crazy ...huh. We were so focused on producing pedals that we didn't bother much what others are doing...and current available warthog extensions are just to expensive so we decided to jump in ! I just wanted to share this with you first. I'll probably publish the news in January, send a newsletter to all of our customers in January, and get our web shop running in February 2016 with extensions in stock. I might also set a poll regarding what extension lengt you prefer so I get a decent quantity produced. I'll keep you informed Happy New Year everyone ! Milan

Correct . I didn't want to bother people with good vs bad PS3 eye. I spoke about a "good" one. Like George LKMT said camera has two focus positions so you could somehow lock it in between to get it in focus...or make a permanent solution like I did... I sanded the square base of camera lens ( plastic) to get it back in focus. It's tricky to do because that base has some locking pins if I remember right. Anyway...it's not a procedure that someone would do and repack the camera to resell as "IR filter removed"...it's a pain to do it right so I guess people reselling "PS3 eye with filter removed" didn't do it correctly but left camera out of focus. Also , newly put visible light filter should be located on the CMOS directly..otherwise you'll see ghosting of white dots. Out of focuse works, but has impact on tracking precision

Some more info that might intrest you Two years ago I intended to provide to the community something like DelanClip offer now. "DBS T}{or" forum member can confirm as I've told him my plan a while back. I didn't do it because of two reasons. I was too occupied with pedals, and PS3 Eye camera seemed to much of a hassle to convert and sell it. I dunno what DelanClip and others do with the camera to convert it, but it's not just a IR filter removal. IR filter is few mm thick glass filter. When you remove it camera is Out of focus. You need to put a visible light filter in, but also to sand the seat of the lens to get the camera back in focus ( lens distance from CMOS need to change). It also work out of focus too, but not a job well done in my book. I just abandoned it in hope that "inertial trackers" are the future. As I realised afterwards intertial tracker are capable of only 3dof :-( ..and that's not gonna change. ED tracker seems like a good one but why go 3dof route when we have a working 6dof :-) There are other, propriety and expensive tracking solutions. To save you from googling here it is : http://polhemus.com/motion-tracking/all-trackers/scout Camera + Point tracker is Still the route to go because of price/performance. But, as HegyKC realised...we simply have to make hardware from scratch :-)

Thanks. Info above is just scratching the surface, quickly written without editing ! To add some more info for anyone intrested : FACETRACKING sucess and failure : - it is Excellent for civil sims, airliners and such. Simply because you don't need to wear anything on your head, and you don't need to make a precise and quick head movements this solution is still great for civil sims. It is also good to get people to use head tracking without any investment ! - Downsides, beside precision and occasional loss of tracking it require A LOT of computing power compared to point tracking - direct hit on your in game frame rate....and that's for a mid 20's camera FPS !!! CAMERA HARDWARE ( resolution, FPS, flicker...) For those of you that think we need a full HD camera I ask where you base your assumptions on ?!?! Do you know how point tracker work ?? I will try to explain this in common language : GOAL is that camera provide a high contrast black image with only typically 3 round dots in white color. Such image is transferred to a point tracker software which need to : a) accurately and quickly work out those camera pixels to determine the position of the CENTER of the 3 round dots b) filter the jitter of these round dots movement c) interpolate the position of the dots into a head position data over 6 axis of movement Now if you consider this : High resolution = more pixels to process = more impact on PC High jitter = require stronger filtering = more guesswork and more impact on PC Higher Frame per second = less lag in game response to your head movement. Impact on PC highly depend on camera resolution and filtering strenght, because resolution and jitter need to be processed ( multiplied) by number of frames per second ( FPS). Based on above I give you a conclusion : How Much Camera resolution we need ? As little as possible to achieve accurate detection of center of those 3x dots...usually 320x240 is ENOUGH...but we can go 640X480 if performance hit is not too much How many Camera FPS we need ? At least 60 fps to have no visible Lag ( or delay between head movement and in game reaction). More = better... 120FPS is more then enough. Actual best FPS setting depend on camera's cmos chip. We need to find a FPS setting where choosen cmos chip produces least flicker... probably ticke with cameraa's 50/60 Hz too to achieve that.In my tests I've tried using PS3 eye camera on very high FPS as driver allow it.I've also tried 80, 90, 95 FPS... Result is that camera "flicker" is noticable on some FPS settings while NOT on others...this is beyond my knowlage but probably has something to do with camera processing and cmos chip and frequency ... Thing is more FPS don't necessary bring better results. If camera give flicker image results are worse :-)

Considering Freetrack Vs. "real thing I don't see any comparisons on the net. I wanted to write some a while ago but pedals production took me away from the forums :-) Anyway... a while back I was trying more than a few solutions... - Dirty cheap camera and Facetrack NoIR - face tracking...I ended up being killed so many times because of loss of head tracking...so - average camera and Freetrack CAP setup With IR leds - I got annoyed by my DIY setup and changing batteries. Tracking was moderately good...but low mid 20's FPS and poor IR made it below average solution for me. I knew it could be better...so - PS3 eye camera fitted with IR led's + HAT with 3 reflective bulbs.... FREETRACK. This solution worked VERY GOOD at 320x240 at 120 FPS. I also used 640X480 at 60 FPS. Like others mentioned solution is good...but you need to spend a lot of time to get it right. This is called a reflective setup as you don't have strange wires on your head - just the cap with 3 reflection points. Setup was a little bit annoying because I used a cheap IR filter for camera ( made of unexposed photography film)...so I had occasional loss of head tracking because a) camera could see a light from a cigaret and b) my glasses caused IR reflection too. I later switched to wear eye lenses but that's another story :-) Obviously...later on I invested some money in the hoby and bought "the real thing" TrackIR 5... track clip pro too. So impressions are : - It works really well without any fuzz - Performance is very very comparable to my latest reflective PS3 eye reflective setup...but Track IR 5 is better in terms of a professional IR filter as opposed to my DIY one. Still, even "the real thing" can be disturbed by a cigar bulb...what differs in TrackIR 5 as opposed to freetrack is that it has more polished software -therefore TrackIR 5 software somehow KNOW that cigar bulb is something really far from other 3 tracking points and disregard it !!! Anyway... original solution vs DIY ( If made good) is : Original is much more expensive, but diy will cost you a LOT OF TIME Original software is more polished and straight forward as opposed to DIY where you have to have more knowledge and tickle a lot of adjustments to get it right One VERY GOOD thing in FREETRACK software, as oposed to original ...is that FREETRACK have something called "adaptive acceleration" if I remember correctly.... original don't have that...and I miss that a lot !!! To be perfectly honest... Freetrack's adaptive acceleration gave me idea for our own MFG filtering on rudder pedals and it's doing really well :-) It is a really GREAT THING... one of those subtle things you get to apreciate weather it's head tracking or noise cancelation on hall sensors . How it's implemented in FREETRACK ... You set the curvature right !... and you want some deadzone in the middle...and you set the curvature accordingly ...so when you're looking straight ahead your screen is nicely still...and your head is always moving slightly :-) But when you look fast from left to right...or up to down....that deadzone is a bit annoying at least...as you make a rapid move with your head from side to side. That's where ADAPTIVE acceleration comes in. When you're making fast movement in Freetrack it override your curvature and skip that deadzoning - make a more "linear movement on screen :-) That's it. Freetrack have it.... TrackIR miss it. Small, but very important stuff. I hope HegyKC can really pull this off. I looked into the subject a while back and I had " a fight" with Jason on Rise of Flight forums regarding freetrack. My nickname is "meanstreak" there... Like above mentioned site says..that thread got deleted.TrackIR are fighting hard to keep their protocol propriety and keep the competition out. P.S. It's not just any camera. It don't have to be above 640x480 in resolution...but really need a good FPS...at least 60 FPS. Anything less causes microstuters for dogfighting... I recomend 120 FPS newer CMOS chip....but be aware that while Cmos can do 120 FPS that don't mean it's processing chip can...so choose wisely. Reflective setup is really good enough - just put enough wide angle IR led's around camera...and 120 degree lens on camera itself Milan

I guess this tragedy might lead to something like : a) reduced intervals between evaluations for less experienced pilots b) added psychology topic to the human performance book c) Crew duties expanded to regular assessment of other crew members P.S. I always considered medical certificate to be buggy. Good doctors are fully aware that many things can happen between the checks so they write a lot of stuff on certificate itself ...like : "Licence owners shall not excercise the priviledge of their licence and related ratings or certificates at any time when they:"......."are AWARE of any decrease in their medical fitness that might render them unable to safely exercise those priviledges" If pilot is insane...hmm...my guess is that we should be trained to observe the changes in personality of other crew members, report it, ask for temporary replacement and reevaluation. I guess we should all take it as a matter of precaution, something normal, not as embarrasment (as you can probably imagine). I am writing this in assumption that such personality changes can be observed, but I am layman on that subject

Thanks a lot on great wishes. I doubt I'll get that big, and I don't intend to anyway :-) Might happen if flight sims get so popular again like at the end of 90'...that would qualify for a miracle :-) P.S. I've updated my website news section, finally

As a leftie and a PPL pilot myself I must confirm what everyone is writing here...it's not a problem. Pilot is supposed to have skills to adopt...so it is the case with different aircraft types, nobody ask you if you're a leftie or not. However...I belive you are all missing the point. Question is for SPACE SIMS...and many space simmers want to explore an option with dual joysticks...that's why LEFT + RIGHT stick. As a manufacturer of MFG Crosswinds I can say two things : - don't wait for next gen 3d print technology - keep space simmers in mind...they seem to be a large crowd, larger than "us" flight simmers...will buy in quantity and keep the project feaseable for us too :-) As hegy noted...making a mirror stick( left one) is not a problem when 3d printing greetings to all Milan

I'm doing well, thanks. Today I send e-mails with delivery schedule and to confirm your orders are correctly input. There was some problem with script used to autorespond on google forms, that's why you did not recive "confirmation e-mail"...but will be sorted today

Hi everybody Nice to see so many comments and discussion here. Thanks to all for sharing their satisfaction with pedals. About these last few posts concerning waiting line. Yes, quite possible I've mixed up a couple of orders, but it's now only a week difference to those customers so I did not pay much attention to my list about that matter. Last of the "old" orders will be ready to ship this week. After that I start shipping to people who filled and recently validated online "preorder intent for February-march" google form. My website will be updated in few days with news and new order form for June/july 2015. --------------------------- I've attached a newsletter here if you like to read, it will also be available on my website. Most important is price : 256 eur ( + 25% Croatian VAT for EU customers) Due to the fact that Euro to Dollar conversion rate is nearing 1:1 now and lower price of pedals without tax for export out of EU I belive it's a great time for US customers to buy pedals at more affordable price. Europeans are not so lucky as price increased to 320 EUR with all taxes included, but I belive it's still a fair price for MFG Crosswinds quality, especially with all improvements. Now it's really well proven, polished out product. I'm still booked up front with waiting list few months long. However... I am no longer a one man band. I have invested a lot of time to train new employes on producing pedals and it finally start to pay off as monthly production increased...therefore waiting time should be finally reduced in next two months. Now I'm still doing quality controll, customer correspondence and similar things myself, everything else is done by my coworkers. Thanks to you all MFG Crosswinds just reached a higher level than hobby grade custom built device. MFG is now a small department of dedicated people :-) Now, I will finally dedicate more of my time to develop new stuff and hopefully get back to enjoy simming again :-) Salute to you all and see you on virtual sky ! Milan MFG Newsletter March 2015 general.pdf

Understand your point :-) I am busy recently as you know, but I'll get into hampstick and try to contribute. Wish you a luck with this project...such project deserve a big audience so I'll spread the word

I don't know if you considered the other end - reciving such responsive control in a simulator What you are doing now is sending 1000 updates per second for a simulator to interpret... I don't know how coding of flight simulator to a game controller goes...depending on a coder....but consider this Fire up joytester to give you only a graphical representation of the axis...simple job right. Now...at 1ms update rate...take a look how much joytester alone consume PC's CPU :-) I didn't thought about it either untill I've tried it on my notebook and vent's started spinning like crazy :-) All I'm saying...is that speed really necessary...and if it come with a performance hit within a simulator or not...I suggest : - testing various update speeds within a Sim - making update rate adjustable...like option for 1,5,10,15 ms update rate Did you consider making a windows front end application for making such adjustments like I did, so less experienced user can simply plug in a few cables, burn appropriate firmware...and hook up axis,buttons, filtering and other behaviour on a user friendly way...not a coder friendly way :-) I've just published manual for my application, it's within a software package. I suggest to download and take a look of user adjustable features within windows for my chip http://mfg.simundza.com/download.php It's suited for pedals, and hamptstick should have a couple of more features there :-) It's coded in a way to communicate trough HID buffer just like any other axis. I took an easy route with already done comunication by using mcHID.dll Also...a bootloader stuff for upgrading firmware, I guess Atmel has some already prepared Since you used Atmel tools to allow true open source with a free tool from Atmel to change the code...I guess application should follow the same principle ...but what is a free tool to make it

Hi Hempstead We exchanged more than a few e-mails and opinions, but I just wanted to stop by and share my admiration to your project - in public :-) Let's put my words in another context so users can understand : If hempstick was released a year ago I would probably embrace it and develop firmware for MFG Crosswind together with Hempstead...that's how promising this thing looks :-) Nice article on resolution too, good reading. If it can make you feel better, I know warthog is NOT 16 bit stick :-) I've just thrown a few words myself about sensor resolution, digital versus analog...sensor accuracy... to stop the hype about digital sensors. My words are ment for more general public without going too deep or nicely structured as yours : http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3990928/Re:_Slaw_VS._Milan_the_battle_#Post3990928 I hope you won't mind if I share a link to your document. Subject that you described about resolution, or should I say only "scratched the surface" in your manual is truth :-) I would say that your document on resolution also touch the subject of extracting more juice than sensor and ADC are capable of :-)...and could be useful to build up on top of my explanation :-) However...I'll stress out a few things that you did not touch Human performance of reaction within 100ms, or 200 ms...don't matter...is a performance delay BEFORE even reaching mechanical input which trigger sensor reading - and further delay in signal processing to simulator reaction. That's why it is important to keep electronics speedy, but 10 ms delay to windows output is truthly enough. Why I say this...human reaction + signal delay... If it's human 200 ms + 1 ms signal delay...or 200ms + 20ms...it makes some minor difference and can be noticed by virtual aces :-) Pure Signal output speed to windows is not that critical. The way signal is processed can fool the end user and I belive that's what Warthog is all about. In your document you assume that averaging takes place like...wait for a bunch of samples...then calculate and send...so it take sampling time I can't reveal my code here but I'll give you a hint When taking last sample from the sensor you DON'T WAIT for other samples...but get the juice for resolution based on the samples that were taken in the past. Easy way to use it...is just like histogram... you retain high resolution as well as fast output ...but in the end...it's fooling...as value that is output to windows is calculated upon values in the past...( I belive it's warthog's way) Better way to use this method is to make such equatation that more recent samples are more important than older samples...getting best of both worlds...require some juice from MCU...so put ARM to good use :-) Even better way is to add some averaging and decimation for "each sample that count" in the process...get you greatest juice. On top of that...since I only use 3x axis on pedals so I have cycles to spare...more than one calculation can be used...one for fast movements and one for fine movements...this get the best of both worlds in terms of reaction time, noise and resolution...again...a bit MCU intensive. I call it "adaptive FIR, Low pas, averaging and oversampling method"

Yes, recenty I started to ship pedals with rubber feet so pedals don't slide at low spring settings...but I belive hard mounting pedals is still the best solution in many cases. About pedals being shorter than saiteks....since I designed pedals nobody mentioned that so I forgot about it myself :-) But it was a design intention from a start. During design stage of the pedals I was testing some other pedal models and as a simmer myself I concluded that most models were to close to my feet. Back then I played with joystick on table surface which makes seating position very close to table. I figured, most cases are just like mine...table is 70-90 cm deep and there is a wall on the other side. Problem is that most pedals are too close to your feet in that situation and that's what I wanted to improve. You see...it is easy to fix your problem by making some kind of "wall spacer"....but it would be impossible to fix if it was other way around...I mean...if youre pedals are too close and you can't push them trough the wall :-) For anyone is intrested, if you have a "wall obstacle" behind your desk, MFG crosswind can be positioned further away than Simped pedals too

Hi all, I finally joined this nice forum, and wanted to thank you all for publishing your satisfaction with MFG Crosswind. By doing that you help others decide and help to spread the word about pedals to many simmers who are not aware of MFG Crosswinds yet. One big thank you ! P.S. I still have quite a list of preordered pedals that I'm working hard to produce. At the moment schedule for next ordered pedals is approx. 15.07...so it's a loooong wait. That is also a reason why I spend very little time online...but I answer any question sent to my e-mail promptly. Milan