Rotary knobs, how to?

[witwas]

Hi Guys,

 

Great to hear that the NS430 system is implemented in dcs.

 

Since i mainly fly in vr it is a bit a pain in the ass to use the rotary knobs with your mouse (especially when not on the ground).

 

Is there a way to buy two physical knobs and connect them to a pc via usb?

 

Help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Sokol1_br]

http://www.derekspearedesigns.com/dsd-flight---flt1flt2.html

[FSFIan]

If you want to mimic the real thing, Leo Bodnar offers ELMA E37 stacked rotary encoders and matching knobs, which you'll have to wire up to a suitable interface board (I think you can DIY that with a $3.60 Arduino Pro Micro and MMJoy).

 

The off-the-shelf stacked encoders are quite expensive considering you can get normal ones as a bag of 10 for $6 from China, but apparently they are almost exclusively found in avionics and other markets where high reliability is important, so no one makes a low-quality cheap alternative.

 

Warhog did a DIY solution with nested brass tubing and some gears for the A-10C TACAN panel:

http://s221.photobucket.com/user/MRAR15/library/A10%20Cockpit%20Panels?sort=3&page=11

[witwas]

Hi Ian,

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

Do you have an idea if the Leo Bodnar knobs would be suitable to pair with an arduino board?

[Ranma13]

Yes, the Leo Bodnar stacked rotary encoder works just like any other rotary encoder, there just happens to be 2 of them. The encoder comes with a breakout board to make it easier to use breadboard-friendly PC pins with it, but you will have to solder everything yourself.

 

If you've never attempted something like this before, I recommend you pick up an Arduino or Teensy and a cheap rotary encoder from Adafruit or Sparkfun. It should cost you $30 or so. You can see how difficult it is, and if acceptable, you can then commit to the Leo Bodnar one.