Thadiun Okona

Copied over from the simhq thread (I'm Loc Nar over there) in case it's relevant to anyone stumbling across this post:

I understood that from the description and I am not asking about how the Warthog base handles the analog outputs of VKB grip ministick and brake lever, so let me put this another way. My question is if I take a Warthog grip that has been modified to include a ministick and an analog sensor on the pinky paddle, will using the VKB adapter allow electronic passthorugh so I can use the ministick and analog brake function of my modified Warthog grip mounted to a Gunfighter base? The Gunfighter base obviously has the electronics for it, the unknown is if that little black box thingie with the adapter kit that turns the 5 wire I2C output into 3 wire output will handle with the additional 3 axes the same way. This is relevant to mod work I have been working on for a while.

Interesting... it's like a Pak 50 grip with the lever style adjustable palm rest of the F-35 grip. Curious to hear more about the electronics both in the grip and in the base. Question for VKB technical dept: will the Warthog adapter for Gunfighter be able to handle ministick/analog brake lever outputs if a Warthog grip had the ministick and analog sensor for the brake installed in it?

I haven't done the process for the throttle and not sure if I'm going to, but I'm about to start supplying left hand Warthog grips as a conversion. http://www.dualsticks.com/left-hand-grips/

There's a direct link below the imbedded video that doesn't work.

I'm sure this has already been dredged up, but... ${1} . direct link---> <---direct link .

Correlation is not causation. Also, I've had very professionally packaged (custom sized printed high quality box with custom cut foam inserts) things from VKB shipped to me in USA, including an adapter like this one. Normally they do much better than this, irrespective of the fact they make nice stuff.

You're quite welcome... I just found the pic I was looking for that goes with the cross section of my chair, showing what the blue styrofoam pieces look like without the cushion foam over them. The upper wedge is continuous all the way across, but the lower ones are a specific contour that transitions the radius from the thick side to the flat edge inboard. They are made from 2" thick styrofoam insulation board, roughed on a bandsaw and block sanded to contour. Use a vacuum!!

Now the extension is backwards! It crooks backward, not forwards and this is for a reason. In aircraft you are strapped into the seat and the instrument panel has to be within reach. This arrangement would make the grip clip through the panel if the shaft were straight because you can only mount it x-close to the seat you sit on, and why modern aircraft have a notch out of the front of the bottom cushion to allow the stick to be located closer to the pilot. Without the rear offset, the reaches are awkward in addition to interfering with the cockpit. Anyhow, I have many solutions and suggestions to all of these issues, but they are best summed up in my mechpit build thread on the mwo forums: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/111003-mechpit-ii-a-practical-approach/page__p__2198157#entry2198157 and possibly some stuff you can glean out of my initial mechpit post http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/47440-my-mechpit/ I recommend decoupling the part you sit on and mount your controls to from the section holding the monitor... jiggling monitor syndrome is a real bummer and unless you gigantically overbuild that section it is guaranteed unless you decouple, which also provides convenient ingress/egress by allowing a decoupled center section to be able to slide in/out. My cockpit has wheels on the back and skids on the front and guide rails on the floor. I have pins I can lock it into position if I'm playing something demanding with the pedals, or I can leave it free to slide in/out like an office-cockpit :p ...and with my current diy extension, adding 50mm rear offset for the reasons above as well as 7deg fwd pitch to correct the ergonomics Here are some views that give you an idea of the contour shapes req to turn a flat board into an actual seat. There is a reason an ACES II seatback is shaped the way it is... ..and an earlier shot that shows how the contour is not a continuous profile across the back: ...I have .skp files of the wood parts of this cockpit, it was very easy to build and I nicknamed it 'Overnight Sensation' since it was completed from first thought to actually sitting in it as it looked in the pic above in a 24 hour span, plus it's a cool Frank Zappa song and there are also a pair of diy speakers with the same name.

Yes, +/-20deg range of motion, which is the same as Warthog.

That's a poor way to handle expectation management. I'm in a similar position to Hegy (I have grip projects that will be for sale that I'm also publicly developing) and my process has been slow and frustrating having dragged out for a few years. The big difference however is that everyone interested in my projects are kept in the loop, which includes sharing bad news and setbacks and project goals, but balanced with pictures of project progress like master parts and molds and production parts, as prototypes and renders and promises don't have enough energy behind them to keep fuel in the hype train for indefinitely. Maintaining radio silence on your own is bad enough in this context, but when people directly asking for signs of life are ignored it predictably kills the hype and breeds contempt. Ignore them too long and someone swoops in to salvage the wreckage, which this thread has a pretty juicy pile of by this point.

Make provisions for ingress/egress, like make the seat able to slide in/out or something. And turn your joystick around! >:o You may want to consider buying a car seat from a junkyard or a cheap race seat off Amazon etc, it's difficult to properly do the contour of a seatpan and seatback and flat surfaces and cushions are a recipe for serious back/neck/body problems. I have successfully made my own seat with this contour, but if you don't follow specific contours you do more harm than good.

These are great but there needs to be a warning label on any 'polished' products from Shapeways... it makes the outer dimensions smaller. In my case none of the 3 tailpieces I have bought are usable because after their polishing process the od of the stem was reduced from 16mm down to 15.8mm. That 0.2mm is enough to make the stick wobble a few degrees in both axes no matter how tight you make the screws. That shaft needs to be exactly 16mm or there is enough play to be a problem.

Dremel'd it apart? o_O ..all you had to do is squeeze the 2 locking tabs with needlenose pliers far enough to get the parts to separate. Shame they use such crappy switches in those though, much nicer switches that sit taller could fit in that housing by shortening the actuation plunger.

I have a Warthog adapter and a MKII gimbals and a Cougar grip here and could verify this if you really don't believe it, but I already know they fit. I have several Warthog grips and numerous Cougars as well and have had them all apart many times and work with these pieces across various projects, including producing mirrored left hand versions of the Warthog grip (that work with the VKB's adapter too) I'm just ramping up on. The tailpiece on both TM sticks is the same part, and mount to the same architecture inside the grip. TM re-uses things they are set up to manufacture or already know work, so they retained identical internal structure for this region of both grips. The VKB adapter is manufactured to fit with that interface, and both grips also have the same microJST 1.25 connector on the pcb so are electronically compatible as well.

Same adapter for both grips...

That would likely make it so the extension keeps coming loose, which always happens at the most inopportune times. The original TM setup works with a separate nut to supply compression to keep the male/female socket mechanically engaged so very little force is needed and it doesn't come loose in yaw. Most of the extensions however rely only on the friction generated in compression to keep it from coming loose so you pretty much have to over-tighten them to keep them from coming loose in operation. One solution is a separate nut that can swivel in-place to draw a male/female part together like the original design (my own extension works this way but lacks the engagement at the base so still needs to be very tight though much less torque transfers to gimbals) because that's all weak links in the chain can handle. It makes the extensions much more complicated to produce. Metal articulation sphere would help, but then the stanchion for the magnet is the next vulnerable component... Another acceptable solution that would be much easier to manufacture, would be to put a split in the female thread at the bottom like a threaded split-collar, where small capscrew to draws it tight to keep it from unscrewing after using light torque to seat the shaft. threaded split-collar:

T16k uses 3.3vdc for vref and is not enough to excite most Halls, which generally have a 4.5vdc minimum. IIRC though, the Alegro sensors I use (A1324) also work at 3.3v even though they're rated at 5v. There's also a Honeywell sensor that works at 3.3v.

Sounds like the ground is still wacky.

What makes it different from hooking up a pot is you need to know which one is gnd, vcc, and vref *before* plugging it in because Halls are intolerant of being hooked up with reversed polarity. They will dead-short and quickly let out their magic smoke if you do it backwards. Hooking up a pot backwards on the other hand just makes it work the opposite direction. Once you know which wire is which however, pot/Hall it doesn't matter, at least with analog Halls like what would be in there. Digital voodoo ones like MX90333 (Warthog/T16k sensor) are a different animal.

I don't understand. What is the difference between holding a momentary switch 'on' manually with your finger vs the switch itself having a mechanical catch that makes it stay in the 'on' position without your finger on it?

Do you have win10? If so, your os is most likely doing you the delightful favor of powering down usb devices it thinks you are not using via the USB Power Management system. There's a way to disable this 'feature', solution 2 here: https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/fix-issue-after-upgrade-system-to-windows-10-usb-ports-dont-work/

My guess is that it's reflecting off the shiny metal. Spray paint it flat black if that's the case.

The drawback of using alternate gimbals is not being able to use TARGET anymore because they can't use the same sensor/board, which is why I'm working on my own gimbals that will be able to use them. Essentially the same mechanisms as will be found on Gunfighter, just mutated to the form factor that allows the awkward kinematics of the mx sensor. IMO until I start making metal articulation spheres the best option is likely to have one printed from Shapeways using the file that is floating around, it will be cheaper than paying TM shipping and the part will be stronger. Interesting about the bronzes not fitting, I'm pretty sure I know why if that was the case. They probably used an actual TM part to take molds from, which does not account for the fact that metal shrinks considerably (as does a wax pattern if they were making waxes, as does the rubber mold you make patterns from). The collective shrink of your entire process needs to be accounted for when casting metal pieces that are to cooperate with existing components, and even then there will be some trial/error because the shrinkage is hard to precisely predict and consistently control. This is why cast parts are almost always cast oversized and machined to tolerance on the critical dimensions, though not necessary for the spheres if done sensibly. This is literally my next order of affairs though... making metal articulation spheres, in pewter if I can get away with it, meaning when the articulation sphere is no longer the 'weak link' in the chain. I expect the next location to break to be the web inside the bell where the magnet is mounted, but I expect it will take considerable force to do so, well beyond what a gorilla overtightening an extension would generate.

That doesn't look like a bearing but rather a bracket that is part of the pedal itself, like these but bigger: The actual bearing is likely inside the floorboard where that tube goes through. Pillowblock bearings are generally very bulky/heavy and overkill for what you are doing but they are convenient in how they mount, though of course you can use them. Here's a pair of pedals I made for sailplanes that are very similar in form and function to anti-torque pedals. There's not a ball bearing in this case, just the sleeves of the pedal riding on a beefy shaft and for this configuration it's perfectly adequate... they feel like real glider pedals and would easily support my full weight if I were in a nosedive and at +/-20deg or so it doesn't matter much whether it's a ball or sleeve bearing. The pedals are from an Aeronca Champ ($40, ebay), the torque tubes/turnbuckles from a wrecked glider and the rest just junk. ServoCity has a decent selection of smaller pillowblocks and a lot of other useful parts if you are trying to avoid machining. https://www.servocity.com/motion-components/rotary-motion https://www.servocity.com/structural-components https://www.servocity.com/structural-components