rel4y

Hey John, One board has 3x 4021 SRs, so 24 Bit total. = You only need one board for 24 buttons. No need to ask Debolestis, I posted the links to my models on Shapeways that I know work, because several people have ordered these before. You just need to measure the dimensions and find out which one you need. When I made these models Debolestis didnt offer any for CH, otherwise I would have simply ordered from him. The layout you need to use for the Warthog base can be found here. simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/download/Number/9859/filename/myHOTAS%20-%20mapowanie%20-%20Warthog%20pinout.pdf If you like you can also use the same model I used in my build with a male mini DIN adapter and Gardena nut. Then I would need to reupload that one.

Sorry, I cant find it on these forums as well. But you can check out my thread on the ATAG forum: https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26942&p=300039&viewfull=1#post300039 I used 74HC165 shift regs in this build above since I dont connect it to a Warthog base. I still have two 4021 shift registers left from this thread in case you are interested btw. https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=217084&highlight=4021+shift Also be careful to measure the "post" your CH Stick sits on. There were two versions made by CH, one smaller one for the Gameport and early USB sticks and one thicker for the later USB sticks. I dont know which one Debolestis has modeled his adapter after, since I dont think he realized there are two versions. The different dimensions are in the description. https://www.shapeways.com/product/6X7K6EWGD/ch-usb-to-thrustmaster-brd-virpil-adapter?optionId=64716413 https://www.shapeways.com/product/W6RVJRRAG/ch-gameport-early-usb-to-thrustmaster-brd-virp?optionId=64716418

Yeah, i made one. There are two versions, so you will have to check which one you need. https://www.shapeways.com/shops/rel4y-diy-joystick-flight-simming Sorry misread your post. You will need a 24 bit 4021 shift register and preferably a Gameport CH stick. These are very easy to modify with a shift register. I have posted pictures of my conversion here on the forums a while ago.

You are the same Nephilim from SimHQ, right? I will make another batch once the first is gone, so dont worry. As shown in the pictures above the Throttle sensor directly replaces the potentiometer without any fancy mounts. But as it communicates via digital SPI protocol (6 wires), it only works with my USB standalone adapter. I thought about making a plug and play sensor for the Throttle as well, but since there is 3.3v and 5V version of the Throttle trouble is bound to happen sooner or later.

Yes they will. The maximum deflection angle is hard coded in the PCB via a set of resistors. That is why there was some considerable effort involved in getting the values correct and for CH pots I have to use different resistor values eg. The trim pot on the back fine tunes the center point which is for every sensor a bit different because of slight variations in the magnetic plane or minimal variations in resistance. I do however use 1% rated resistors across the board. With hall sensors you have the problem of getting the magnetic flux strong enough to reach gimbal limits, therefore you have to put the magnet very close to the sensor and generally have to use the most sensitive models anyway. Now a slight off axis setting will cause non linear readout and putting the magnet at the incorrect distance will not give full detection range. Not so with the magnetoresistive sensors. :)

Thank you Sokol. And also thanks for all the great help I got from you in the past! Your posts basically inspired me to make these things in the first place! :smilewink:

Thank you for the kind words xoxen!

Hey guys, After some time the analog pots of my very nice Thrustmaster Cougar started putting out erratic values and were spiking all over the place. These pots seem really cheap and even if there were still replacement parts from TM available, in my eyes it would not make much sense to replace them with the same low quality parts. I have been tinkering with my idea of contactless sensors for the Cougar now for around a year and I think I am finally satisfied with what I got. These sensors are plug and play, fully sealed, make use of a ball bearing on the axle and use a N52 neodymium magnet for contactless angular measurement. The PCBs are only 14 x 20 mm (0.55 x 0.78 in) and were quite the hassle to make all the necessary ICs and SMD parts fit in. The housing is a two part SLS 3D print from Shapeways, which is a very tough material. I use it for all sorts of mechanical parts. (Here you can find development pictures: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...er#Post4419858) These sensors in reality are not hall sensors, but instead use next gen magnetoresistive sensors which are heavily used in the automotive industry and have basically replaced hall sensors there. The main advantages are higher sensitivity and actual angular measurement instead of only measuring the magnetic flux (as hall sensors do). The same type of sensor is used eg in Baur BRD devices in form of MagRez or RAMS. These devices are known for their amazing precision and I wanted to make use of the same sensor in the Cougar. Installation is as easy as stick it in, screw it tight, plug it in and done. You can calibrate them as you normally would via the Hotas Cougar Control Panel and the whole thing stays fully TARGET compatible as well. Now enough talk, here are some pictures. TM Cougar stick sensors Because the question comes up a lot, you can invert every axis of the Cougar in the first tab of the Cougar Control Panel (CCP) software. If you are interested or want to ask questions please contact mtwsims@tutamail.com. No PMs please! Please note that sometimes I am rather slow to respond and it can take me several days to answer your emails. Payment via PayPal or SEPA bank transaction, but for PayPal I would have to add the PayPal fees on top. All sensors are designed, assembled & hand soldered by me. Every single sensor is then checked and calibrated manually. I can proudly say it is 100% Made in Germany. Price: 44€ (set of two sensors) + 7€ tracked international shipping (from experience shipping within Europe is around 2-6 days and to the US 14 days) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TM Cougar Throttle standalone USB adapter + digital contacless 14 Bit GMR sensor I also have made a USB standalone adapter for the Cougar with a high res 14 Bit GMR TLE5011 digital sensor on the Throttle axis. This one is similar to the TUSBA, but half the price and with an added extension bay that supports extra shift registers, encoders, buttons, analog and digital axis. You can buy the USB standalone adapter without the new digital sensor and simply keep using the original pot. However you can not use the digital sensor without the USB adapter, as it communicates via the digital SPI protocol. I have been selling these on the german Craigslist/ ebay since 2018 and people were really enthusiastic about their performance. Price is 33€ for the adapter and 20€ for the sensor + 7€ tracked international shipping (shipping is only paid once per order) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TM Cougar Throttle hall sensor kit I can now also offer a simpler Hall effect sensor kit for the Throttle. It consists of an Allegro 1324 hall sensor + cable and a 3D printed casing + N52 magnet. It is plug and play for the Throttle unit without my USB standalone adapter and similiar to older hall sensor kits for the Cougar. The difference is it requires no fancy mounts and is fixed in the correct position in two out of three axis for more precision. The third axis is dependent on magnet strength and can be hardware and or software calibrated. By hardware calibration I mean depth of insertion into the 3D printed case, nothing to it really. The mod is only compatible with the 5V mainboard version as is! The solution to this problem is a little voltage conversion board that is 3€ extra. The 5V and 3.8V versions differ in a resistor on the VCC line. Here you can check which version of the Throttle mainboard you have: https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/135000-new-hall-sensor-kits/?do=findComment&comment=2916178 Awesome installation instructions by JCook: Price is 22€ + 7€ tracked international shipping (shipping is only paid once per order) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cougar Ministick/ Slew replacement This mod replaces the original Ministick of the Cougar Throttle. Often times the original Ministick is worn out and as no replacement parts are available from Thrusmaster anymore a solution was in dire need for many HOTAS Cougar fans. The thumbhat is modeled after the earlier block original F-16 slew. The mod is completely plug and play. Price is 22€ + 7€ tracked international shipping (shipping is only paid once per order) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cougar ANT sensor replacement This mod replaces the original ANT pot of the Cougar Throttle. Often times the original ANT pot is worn out and as no replacement parts are available from Thrusmaster anymore a solution was in dire need for many HOTAS Cougar fans. The implemented chip allows me to program the min/ max voltage output of the sensor to correspond to the exact min/ max angle actually needed in practice. For the Cougar ANT pot this means 270° of rotation in total. Important installation instruction: Price is 22€ + 7€ tracked international shipping (shipping is only paid once per order) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CH Pro Throttle, CH Fighterstick, CH Combatstick, CH Pro Pedals etc. magnetoresistive sensors The cool thing about these MR sensors is that they are a drop in replacement for the standard CH pots, but contrary to these they work contactlessly. That means you can simply connect these sensors to your CH mainboard and done. You will never have to worry about deteriorating or dirty pots again. The CH Control Manager recognizes this sensor normally and you can calibrate it within the software. Important installation instruction: Price is 22€ + 7€ tracked international shipping (shipping is only paid once per order) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Bit shift registers for Cougar USB standalone, Thrustmaster gear, MMJoy2 These are compatible to the Thrustmaster hardware, to MMJoy2 and to my Cougar USB standalone adapter. The dimensions are 20 mm x 50 mm (0.79 in x 1.97 in), so they are very small and fit basically in everywhere. The pins are spaced in standard 2,54 mm (0.1 in) to fit normal header pins (see picture 2). I offer them either with or without header pins. The shift register is 24 Bit, so it has 24 inputs that you can connect buttons to. It can also be daisy chained, so you can put several shift register boards in series. Eg MMJoy2 supports 12 shift registers in series. So if you daisy chain 4 of my 24 Bit shift register boards, you have a total of 96 button inputs with just 2 pins used. If this isnt pretty damn cool I dont know what is. Price is 10€ + 7€ tracked international shipping (shipping is only paid once per order) If you are interested or want to ask questions please contact mtwsims@tutamail.com. No PMs please! Please note that sometimes I am rather slow to respond and it can take me several days to answer your emails. Payment via PayPal or SEPA bank transaction, but for PayPal I would have to add the fees on top. All sensors are designed, assembled & hand soldered by me. Every single sensor is then checked and calibrated manually. I can proudly say all my mods are 100% Made in Germany.

Just tried it. Definitely something weird going on! The wheel fiction is off, the aircraft doesnt dig in on one wheel anymore. You can basically tokyo drift with the thing now. :D

If anybody else is interested I made a batch of 10 pieces and have a few left.

Hey there, I am based in Germany, so if your german shipping will be cheaper. PayPal is no problem. I have previously sold a bunch of these shift regs as DIY kits on the SimHQ forum to USA & Europe. Some people posted pictures in the thread I linked above. Formerly I couldnt offer them soldered up and only as DIY kits, as I had to hand solder the SOIC chips and SMD components which takes forever. Now I acquired PCB stencils, solder paste and built a small reflow oven, so the process is much more time effective and I only have to hand solder the resistor networks. To answer your question the boards come completely ready to go. However I currently have no JST PH connectors left, with these connectors the boards were 12€ per piece. But they are honestly more of a hassle anyway in my oppinion as you have to crimp cables or buy ready made ones and as you can tell in my CH Combatstick mod I didnt use them as well. So the boards would come in shape of the purple one. Glad to help Edit: just saw your London based..

You will have to heavily modify it. http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4423404/re-mmjoy-mmjoy2-build-your-own-usb-controller#Post4423404 To be precise you have to at least add pull up resistors to the inputs. These pull the pin high in idle condition. On activation the pin is pulled to ground = low. The pull up resistors are necessary to keep the button state from floating, which causes unwanted button presses. If you wish I can offer you completed 24 Bit shift regs 4021 or 74HC165 for 10€ a piece. Both are compatible with MMJoy2 and the 4021s also with Thrustmaster hardware. The 4021s can be daisychained and MMJoy2 recognizes up to 9 chips in series, so 9x8=72 buttons on 5 cables. These shift registers are really minimum footprint, the ones that can be daisy chained are 23x50x9 mm and the ones without daisy chaining capacity are 23x45x9 mm. They really fit everywhere. International shipping is 3.70€ untracked or 6€ tracked.

I posted all of this info right after map release and nothing changed so far. Therefore I doubt anything will change in future to make this map credible in any way.

Well that was the plan. But without the dimensions of the pins it is hard to make a design. So I ended up going another route. After I was done I found a lay6 file on the russian IL2 forum which includes a pinout for the thumbstick as well. Sokol has linked it somewhere.

My point is ED gave out a license to these guys and Luthier made it clear from the beginning that models ED already made will be a part of this DCS WWII package. Clearly this was not just a thing Luthier did in a solo attempt but it required lots of cooperation with ED from the very start. Map tools, import tools, this was a full blown cooperation effort. Obviously ED didnt envision Luthier burning all the kickstarter money and then dusting off. However its not like they were completely out of responsibility in the first place as this project beared the DCS label and DCS is EDs trademark! Where is the new damage model, I am hearing talk about it for ages now? Were is the extra armament for the 109? If they were throwing cash into the WWII modules relative to profits then we should be further ahead in this endeavor, shouldnt we.. Lots of talk, but nobody seems to actually pick it up. The WWII community overall feels treated like a step child that noone cares for. Its nice that you would also like to see additions and changes to the Normandy map. Just three days ago you wrote that the Normandy map is just about feature complete. So even if I cut Ugra some slack for being a new kid on the block, then that doesnt sound like anything will improve much, does it? I will surely not buy any new WWII map until the Normandy map is at least of the same quality as Nevada or Georgia. Do you now get my point? I am sure you have to defend EDs perspective on this Sith, but if you are a true WWII nut you must feel the frustrations as well...

I got nothing for "free", I wasnt part of the kickstarter and paid for every single WWII module. Nonsensical comment. Matt Wagner himself stated that the profit margin of WWII modules is huge compared to the modern stuff.

The whole Normandy map and WWII assets thing is a big slap in the face. Anybody I talked to agrees. This map is neither very believable nor enjoyable, the forrests are the biggest immersion killer for me personally. Others are more bothered by the terrible colors or whatnot. Honestly, there are tons of reasons to be disappointed. And all these allied ALGs make historical campaigns pretty much impossible, as there is only two airfields that actually were german during the Normandy campaign. Some of these ALGs were demolished before others were built, it lacks any coherence whatsoever. Some of them are not even in the right spot and these and other errors (floating bridges eg) have been reported since "early access" release day and it honestly seems like not many fs were given so far... But ED has made it clear that WWII was the cash cow of DCS and there it ends I guess. :noexpression:

I combined the amplifier circuit you made with an MCP3202 and uploaded it to OSH Park. Are the values still up to date? I am going to order it tomorrow and I have the 4 pin PS3 sticks on order as well. The plan is using it on an MMJoy modded gameport CH Pro Throttle, as it is lacking the USB versions ministick. https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/ZGK66vsm

Thats awesome, thank you! :thumbup:

No no electrically it's clear, I need the pin distances and dimensions. So where the holes need to be in the PCB and how large they should be.

Hey Debolestis! Would you be so kind to give me a pin layout (dimensions) of the 4 pin PS3 Thumbstick please? I have looked everywhere but cant find any datasheet or breakout schematic and even if it was supposedly built by ALPS there is no 4 pin version in their portfolio. I have already asked Sokol, but he doesnt know where to find this as well. Id appreciate the help!

Does it support CD4021 shift registers? And any chance you could upload the schematic in gerber file format?

I encourage you to reread my post. I have bought these and I have calculated hinge moments and I have said so in my post. You are probably kidding me, right? Let me qoute Yo-Yo on this: (https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2258251&postcount=36) So the DCS module has the trim limited to 1.83 degrees as Yo-Yo said and that also can be tested youself within like one minute. Where in the world do you get that 2 deg number from? The 109 elevator mach tests show absolutely no control reversal... ever, at all, anywhere. You still are misunderstanding that one graph, arent you? But by now I am honestly inclined to think you are trolling us because so far everything is pretty much the opposite of what you claim it is. I think I better rest my case here... :huh:

Let me tell you why I think it is very important. The forces applied in the real plane translate to different control surface forces when the transmission = leverage and effector hinge moments change. That means for a fixed size elevator I can apply 300N of force on my stick and this may result in a hinge moment that is sufficient to deflect the elevator fully up to M = 0.3. But now I change the transmission and all of the sudden I can reach the same deflection with 300N of stick force easily at M= 0.6. Do you realize the relevance now? The reduced maximum elevator deflection in G-10/U4 and K-4 models was initially a clear indicator that transmission leverage have increased in these aircraft. And what I have calculated so far from blueprints is that there is a quite significant change in hinge moments. (https://www.ebay.de/itm/WW2-German-Flugzeug-Bauplan-Blueprints-Me109-Fw190/391441687123?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649) If you really think there should be any control reversal then I suggest you take out the DCS K-4 dive it to Mach 0.8 and check if your controls reverse. If it doesnt it must be modeled incorrectly and you should tell YoYo, right? Im glad you dont insist on this. :) S!

Thanks for the info mate! :) But isnt 0.1 mF a bit high? That should give you a pretty large slope of like 1 second. The 100 nF cap should theoretically provide a 1 ms slope in the PCB I posted above.