rel4y
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Everything posted by rel4y
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You can't have more than 8 axis in MMJoy afaik and instead of a button matrix, just use shift registers. That way you can have 96 buttons with only 2 pins used. Debolestis has uploaded DIY PCBs on osh park and I offer ready made plug and play 4021 boards. As for the MCP3208 you need to be really careful with grounding and decoupling, as the Arduino introduces enough digital noise that you can easily mess up your expected 12 Bit resolution and end up with effectively less than before.
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I am already working on a mod getting rid of that pincer mechanism. I have a working prototype, but the ball bearings I ordered are too large. It will be camless however, as cams will be nearly impossible to integrate in that gimbal.
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Hey guys, I have just made a batch of new 4021 shift registers. These are compatible to the Thrustmaster hardware and also to MMJoy2. 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 attached. 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€ per shift register.
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Hey guys, I am back from vacation and have a few cool new toys in stock. :thumbup: Lets start off with the new 4021 shift registers. 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 attached. 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€ per shift register.
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Today, I sent out a large batch of packages. Emails with the tracking number & installation instructions should be on their way too. I will ship the last packages for this year on Monday, after that I am off to the family. From now on I will be shipping the rev 1.3 Cougar throttle USB adapters. These are simply a slightly larger, cleaned up rev 1.2 board with the benefit of attaching the digital TLE5011 sensor and a shift register together without any hassle. On the same note, I also just received notice that my newly designed shift register boards have been shipped. These are Thrustmaster compatible 24Bit 4021 shift registers with teeny tiny SMD resistor networks, which was a good occasion to test factory PCB assembly. These will come in handy on my next projects and I will make a more detailed post next year. :)
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If you want to order any of the Cougar mods, please email us under mtwsims@tutamail.com
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Good news, I just took the time and answered every single email. :) The next batch of Cougar sensors is ready. Here is a picture: I didn't have time to finish the CH sensor installation guide yet. A day only has so many hours.. :(
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I made the new cougar sensors ready on Monday night, so that's not the problem. I also don't have any paid orders marked on my spreadsheet so far. Thomas was supposed to send or the mails this Tuesday while I was on a business trip . I am sorry about this, I can't tell you currently what went wrong... I can't do everything myself, just returned from Tokyo and feel jetlagged as heck.. :( The CH Throttle installation instructions are on the first page of this thread marked in red and with pictures. Make sure to read them before installation. Stick sensor installation guide is almost ready I will post it in a few hours. Most CH sensors should not have arrived yet. PS: In case you really don't want to wait, here are basic CH sensor instructions. The pins of the sensor are labled with VCC, OUT and GND. You need to make sure to connect the voltage supply only to VCC, otherwise you may grill the very sensitive opamp in the circuit. The green wire is GND, the blue is VCC, brown is X out, black is Y out and yellow is Z out. To clamp the connectors to the header pins, follow the instructions of the CH Throttle in the first post of this thread. You can use the trim function of the sensor btw, it is designed with that feature in mind. The back plate is mostly a ground plane and the surface finish of the blue solder mask is very tough. The solder points are in places where they can't interfere with the rotation.
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No need to post your emails publicly, just send a mail to mtwsims@tutamail.com if you haven't done so. If you already have, give it till tomorrow morning and you should have something in your inbox. :)
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Finally! The sensor housings from Shapeways have been shipped and should arrive in the coming days. The electronics are already done and just sitting around waiting for their housings. :) I can now accept orders for the Cougar sensors again and ship next monday. I will tell Thomas to send out notifications to all people who have expressed interest tomorrow.
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No the Thrustmaster F-16C grip has the same amount of buttons (19) as the Warthog incl. the 5 way CMS hat. Yes, this is inaccurate for an F-16 stick. It seems to be exactly the same grip with a new name at double the price tag. -
I think even a Nylon SLS part should be strong enough, but you could print in metal as well. If someone could give me the dimensions I would try. Ive been using a purely SLS 3D printed Thrustmaster connector for two years on my BRD DS gimbal. I either use it with my Cougar grip or CH grip with a 3D printed tailpiece. Here have a look at the pictures. https://www.shapeways.com/product/4NJ2VN97E/brd-ds-to-thrustmaster-virpil-vkb-adapter-ver-a?optionId=64716525&li=shop-inventory https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26942&p=300039&viewfull=1#post300039 https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26475&p=292690&viewfull=1#post292690 Edit: It seems there is a proprietary 3 wire to 5 wire SPI board included. Would need to analyze it as well of youre not only using TM grips.
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What do they look like? Maybe a 3D printed one is a possibilty?
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Well, yes sure. But then you would have to pay shipping twice. I am not in the US, so international shipping is 6.50€. Another question, would you guys prefer preorders? I always said I dont take preorders, but lately the batches are always sold out within like 3 days.. With preorders we could do some better planning and maybe cut the waiting time. I am really sorry for all the people who emailed us and are waiting for a response. But I am going through the inbox serving from earliest to latest. :/ A discord group with quick line of information and developent updates/ pictures is also a possibilty, if theres interest. We have Saitek stuff and a lot more Thrustmaster mods upcoming.
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Sorry, we are currently sold out. I am waiting for a Shapeways shipment if the sensor housings, the electronics are all ready. Once the sensors are ready for shipping I will send out/ answer all emails.
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I believe you missed the celeb quote below the product description. It certainly made me grin.
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I've never had an OMRON switch fail in my 15 year old Razor mouse eg, but that's beside the point and your millage may vary. If you could tell me what company manufactures higher quality consumer switches than OMRON, I would certainly be interested to buy some. However in the Warthog or the new F-16C Viper stick specially designed & produced, the push buttons are extremely cheap China crap. They cost maybe a tenth of a cent in bulk and that sums up their quality. Don't get me wrong, I use (modified) TM grips myself and especially love my Cougar. I own pretty much the whole Thrustmaster lineup and make mods for them, so I would think I have a good idea of their weak points. Let's have a look: Zamac: cheaper than plastics to manufacture, absolutely unsuitable for mechanical parts like the cougar gimbal, grip tailpiece and I've seen so many broken ones, yet no change People confuse weight with quality. The aluminum, resin or polycarbonate grips of the military weigh much less than the Warthog grip. Aluminium has less than half the density of Zamac with like an order of magnitude higher tensile and impact strength. In general Zamac has the mechanical properties of ice cream... Switches: I think I made my point here already, much prefer Japanese over Chinese, but yeah saved 10c per switch Sensors: 16 Bit resolution my ass, it is physically impossible for the Warthog to run the Melexis sensor at 16 Bit resolution with any meaningful baud rate, classic marketing bs Gimbal design: The F-22 and Cougar gimbal suffered mainly from strong springs and bad material but the Warthog gimbal is simply budget oriented. Just one single two axis sensor in the bottom, hard- calibrated, with a nice injection moulded plastic ball gimbal design and a large spring to top it up. Cost point: ~4-5 USD and that includes the mainboard The budget TM 16000M uses the exact same sensor and gimbal style btw. Price policy: People were buying Warthog spare grips for $110 shipped, which I guess- no I'm sure- TM didn't sell at a loss. Now they developed this crazy new F-16 stick with lots of R&D and production line setup costs, so they have to sell it at $230. It even has the 5 button CMS switch thats totally accurate to the F-16C and not the Warthog! Uh, duh! But hey it has celeb reviews: Since switching the Warthog grip on my Warthog base to a brand-new F-16C Viper grip everything changed, my air to air ratio increased tenfold and my hair is much fuller. /Rant off :)
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:thumbup: For me Software is always the easier way. It is a very basic feature imo and Bodnar should quickly fix that flaw. Do Bodnar boards support shift regs? Arent the Bodnar boards PIC based? They would need to be ATmega 32U4 based in order for MMJoy to work. Thanks for the pictures Foxmike! Seems to fit great.
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Whoever buys this F-16 grip to his Warthog or Cougar HOTAS deserves to be spanked. Hard! TM must really believe that flight simmers are retards..
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There are tons of free tools to work around this i believe, like joystick gremlin or Universal Control Remapper (UCR). I think even windows can reverse an axis internally. I will have a look at that, but there's most likely a really simple software fix around. Sokol? :) Wouldn't make much sense completely changing the hardware for simple axis reversal. How do you run your TQS into the PC? With a gameport adapter?
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No idea, I have used over 40 buttons with shift registers no problem. Over 32 buttons don't show in Windows, but you can bind them in dx compatible games. Maybe that's what you mean?
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Latest version? :huh: Check this page: https://sites.google.com/site/mmjoyproject/fajly-dla-skacivania I recommend v20160818upd1 however, not the very latest. That one has a bug.
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Shapeways is estimating December 23rd as shipping date. With a bit of luck I'll get it earlier since everything has passed the processing step already. But postage over Christmas is very slow. Let's see.. I've taken apart the F-22 Pro, as it was very grimy and cleaned it with soap water and isopropyl alcohol. I also checked the pots in the base and these are a similar type as the CH pots. So I tested my CH sensors and found they fit perfectly, just need some slight adjustments in the electronics. So I went ahead and ordered the necessary resistors. I don't really like the hats of the F-22 Pro, for some reason TM decided to incorporate Omron B3F-1006 switches. These have 500g operating force which is too much for the small lever imo. CH uses 150g Omrons, which give a nice tactile feel at just the right amount of force required. I guess there's a reason why TM changed the hat design with the Cougar. :) I also ordered one of Debolestis Cougar/ F-22 paddle switches, because the standard paddle switch is tiny. I think in terms of USB conversion I will simply use one of my new CH upgrade mainboards to convert it to 12 Bit resolution and USB. It has the necessary pinout for a shift register in the expansion bay, so the grip with its 4021 shift regs is a no brainer fit. Haven't looked at the TM TQS yet, but I know it uses the same pots.
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Is this Cougar/ F-22 paddle lever tested, because it still says beta? I wanted to make one myself, but if you have already got it ready thats even better. https://www.shapeways.com/product/4DH974GQV/paddle-lever-for-cougar-flcs-and-f22-v3?optionId=58971993
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Well I have the Throttle USB standalone adapters all ready. But the digital sensors that go with it are not ready, because I am still missing all 3D printed cases. Now that Christmas is coming up I doubt I will receive the package from the 3D printing service anytime soon...
