CH products upgrades

[GPatricks]

EDIT: from looking again at the pictures, seems you mapped it to look exactly like a USB CH throttle pro, with all the buttons?... then it should do the trick... :) cheers!

 

Yes, it is mapped as a stock throttle, as is my Fighterstick... cheers!

[rel4y]

If it's mapped like the original CH throttle

(which I'm interseted in upgrading with r4lay. I'm using FF2 as a stick),

then it should be pretty much 'plug n play'?

or the upgraded throttle has to be re-mapped all together again anyway,

since it's identified as a new device in windows and the old mappings won't fit

Sorry if i'm not being very clear...

Thanks for your replies!

 

EDIT: from looking again at the pictures, seems you mapped it to look exactly like a USB CH throttle pro, with all the buttons?... then it should do the trick... :) cheers!

 

Thanks Gary! :)

 

As Gary confirmed, all the buttons are mapped exactly as on the original. Since it has a different USB ID you would need to remap ingame. However, you can give the CH upgrade mainboard the same VID/PID as the CH Pro Throttle, then it would be recognized as the same USB device and you wouldnt need to remap you controls ingame. For that the CH manager needs to be uninstalled.

[ron533]

Thank you both for the clarification! :thumbup:

[IAF.Cheetah]

Another question..

Does the pro micro have more slots available if I want to add more buttons/toggles?

[rel4y]

Another question..

Does the pro micro have more slots available if I want to add more buttons/toggles?

 

Yes, the upgrade mainboard has an expansion bay. You can have a total of 8 axes, either 8 analog with 12 Bit resolution or replace 2 of them with digital axes over SPI protocol (like TLE5011 with 14 Bit resolution). I will soon offer 34,4mm spaced (standard mount spacing on RAMS, MagRez sensors) TLE5011 sensors with header pins for your projects.

 

Further you can add up to 96 buttons via shift registers to the CH upgrade mainboard. I offer shift registers with 24 inputs (buttons) for 10€ and you can daisy chain 4 of them for the full 96 inputs.

[IAF.Cheetah]

Interesting..

Since I don't want to over stress my CH throttle, I thought I would add only few toggles and maybe 3-4 rotary encoders. So I need to connect it using a shift register? Not matrix like the old CH concept?

[rel4y]

Interesting..

Since I don't want to over stress my CH throttle, I thought I would add only few toggles and maybe 3-4 rotary encoders. So I need to connect it using a shift register? Not matrix like the old CH concept?

 

A button matrix needs way too many pins which the board doesnt have, its quite inefficient and oldschool. There are only 15 usable pins in total on the board. For the CH button matrix I wasted 9 of these pins for only 20 buttons. With shift regs I get up to 96 buttons for only 2 pins used.

 

I fear if you want to go the analog route you will be limited to 5 pins or a 2x3 matrix = 6 buttons.

[IAF.Cheetah]

Ok , i'll wait for the new board first, then I'll figure out how to implement anything on this throttle body.

[VR]

Hi all

Probably the following will help to continue using CH manager under Windows 10.

 

CH control manager DO work under Win10 1903 for me. It can switch(load\unload) normally different profiles in MAPPED mode with only one exception: the number of used CH CMS devices should be the same in all profiles thus not forcing windows to re-enumerate them on-the-fly and as a result - making them invisible for CH software.

 

 

To be more precise. For example you have two profiles for mapped mode: one with two CMS devices, and next one with three CMS devices. In order to switch flawlessly between them assign one more dummy or active CMS device for whatever control in 1st profile to make it use three devices as in 2nd profile. After that you can switch between them without problems.

[Protek438]

New user and a happy customer reporting in! I modified my gameport CH Combat Stick with rel4y’s upgrade board and shift register. See attached pictures for the result. Please ignore a few wrongly connected wires in the other picture. I corrected them after taking it. The MMJoy configuration seemed a little daunting at first, but I got it working after a few attempts. Thank you, rel4y for an amazing product and for the help and support!

 

[einarabelc5]

I can't remember as it has been ages since I looked at specs for Gameport, does it even support 32 bit Dwords?

[ron533]

@rel4y

Thank you for the throttle upgrade! (through IAF.Cheetah)

Works great :)

I would love it if the led lights (any led...) would still work though... just as an indication that power is on, as it looks dead now... ha ha

Do you think it is possible?

What is needed to alter to make it work please?

 

 

Thank you,

Ron

[rel4y]

@rel4y

Thank you for the throttle upgrade! (through IAF.Cheetah)

Works great :)

I would love it if the led lights (any led...) would still work though... just as an indication that power is on, as it looks dead now... ha ha

Do you think it is possible?

What is needed to alter to make it work please?

 

 

Thank you,

Ron

 

Awesome, glad to hear! :)

You can connect any of the three wires to a GND (ground) pin and the LEDs will light up. You can connect it somehow to the green wire going into the same PCB, as this one is the ground connection of the throttle sensor. There are also 3 unused ground pins available on the upgrade mainboard itself, one on the shift reg and two on the digital axes pins.

 

The second picture shows how you can put in a little cable bridge to light up the green LED eg. This is probably the easiest way.

 

 

[ron533]

Thank you, will try that!

Edit: I have my green light working now

Edited December 20, 2020 by ron533

[IAF.Cheetah]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a tutorial I made for this CH throttle upgrade + added switches

So here it is...

 

 

CH Throttle upgrade tutorial.pdf

[rel4y]

Wow! Amazing documentation, thank you for your awesome work my friend!

[IAF.Cheetah]

Thanks,  but the real deal hardware was yours to begin with

I'm just happy i could turn this gear into a well suited modern throttle.

[IAF.Cheetah]

By the way, the solution for making the 3 way toggle switches work with the A10C throttle pinky (hotas command in DCS), is by adding 2 lines to the keyboard.lua and joystick.lua files.

What it does is basically an ELSE command.

"Do pinky aft / else do pinky center"

And the same goes for pinky forward.

I will make a mod out of it so it won't disappear with every update.

The same concept works for all switches of course, even an ON-OFF one.

 

Here's a link to download the mod:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jtm0nvq328orelx/ELSE Mapped Commands.zip?dl=0

 

NOTE: It works with JGSME for the A10C / A10C-II and only for the Throttle Pinky (3-way), Battery power switch and APU Gen. switch.

Edited December 25, 2020 by IAF.Cheetah
Added link to MOD

[rel4y]

Today I finished up a few projects that were waiting in the pipeline to be finished for quite some time. I finally soldered up my CH Combatstick to Fighterstick conversion to one of my Thrustmaster compatible 4021 shift reg boards. First, I tested each pin of the shift reg on the Warthog base to find out which pin corresponds to what DX button. Next, I soldered up the DMS hatswitch to my CH Fighterstick conversion board with the correct OMRON B3F tactiles. Then the other hatswitches were soldered over to the Fighterstick conversion board.

 

 

This is what the completed board looked like. At some point I will paint the clear plastic grey, but that was out of my scope for now. The rotated TMS is on purpose btw.

 

 

Now it is getting a bit messy.  All wires were connected to the 4021 shift reg to the same pins as in Thrustmaster grips. Of course I forgot to add the Gardena nut on the TM adapter and had to desolder the 5 shift reg wires again to add in the nut... After following the pin layout (for the most part) and correcting the obligatory mess up, the grip was all wired up. The next hour was spent searching for the correct screws, which I had professionally stowed in some unlabled bag together with a bunch of Thrustmaster stuff. Geez...

 

 

Et voila, the finished TM compatible CH grip on a Warthog base. This grip is going on to my BRD DS base and replacing the F-22 Pro stick, which I want to modify with different OMRON switches.

 

 

I still have one CH conversion kit in spare in case anybody is interested. This includes the PCB, the DMS and the CMS with OMRON tactiles. You will need to do some soldering though.

 

The CH upgrade mainboards are in stock and one CH sensor is left. A new batch of CH sensor should be available end of next week.

 

Current stock:

4x CH 12 Bit upgrade mainboard 30€

1x CH sensor 22€

1x CH Fighterstick conversion kit 18€

 

Edited September 2, 2021 by rel4y

[sthompson]

Very cool Rel4y. I've noticed that my CH Fighterstick does not return to center uniformly in the pitch axis, and ends up in a different place when I release from pushing forward vs pulling back. I suspect that wear is the culprit. Are you aware of anything that might help with this situation?  A while back some pictures were posted of a CAD drawing of a replacement gimbal for the CH fighterstick, but I dont know if that is a project underway.

 

Relatedly, I'm thinking of ordering the 12 bit upgrade. I gather I would have to stop using CH Control Manager, and I would miss the programing features, so I'm not certain I want to go that route. Do I understand that correctly?

 

And would I have to replace the three sensors in the FS to install the mainboard upgrade? Do you have any idea when you will have more sensors available?

 

Last question: Is there any replacement available for the CH Pro Throttle ministick? Centering on mine is very bad and always has been. And the press function really can't be done without moving the axes at the same time I've found.

 

[Merkin]

I second sthompson ministick request.

[lethal205]

Yeah, would love to hear more about the CH replacement gimbal. I followed the link from the previous page, but it didn't look like they shared any models of it.

[Sokol1_br]

17 hours ago, sthompson said:

Relatedly, I'm thinking of ordering the 12 bit upgrade. I gather I would have to stop using CH Control Manager, and I would miss the programing features, so I'm not certain I want to go that route. Do I understand that correctly?

 

Use Joystick Gremlin+vJoy for have features similar of Manager.

[rel4y]

21 hours ago, sthompson said:

Very cool Rel4y. I've noticed that my CH Fighterstick does not return to center uniformly in the pitch axis, and ends up in a different place when I release from pushing forward vs pulling back. I suspect that wear is the culprit. Are you aware of anything that might help with this situation?  A while back some pictures were posted of a CAD drawing of a replacement gimbal for the CH fighterstick, but I dont know if that is a project underway.

 

Relatedly, I'm thinking of ordering the 12 bit upgrade. I gather I would have to stop using CH Control Manager, and I would miss the programing features, so I'm not certain I want to go that route. Do I understand that correctly?

 

And would I have to replace the three sensors in the FS to install the mainboard upgrade? Do you have any idea when you will have more sensors available?

 

Last question: Is there any replacement available for the CH Pro Throttle ministick? Centering on mine is very bad and always has been. And the press function really can't be done without moving the axes at the same time I've found.

 

 

I have made a ball bearing upgrade for the CH sticks, similiar to the UBER NXT gimbal design, some time ago. Though I never really finished that project. The CAM design you are talking about looks really good, though I am no fan of 3d printed cams.

 

The CH control manager wont work together with the CH upgrade mainboard, but you dont need to replace the CH pots. The CH sensors are a completely separate upgrade, but go well together. New CH sensors will probably be available next weekend.

 

The Throttle Ministick is problematic to replace as it is soldered to the same mainboard as the three hatswitches. I can easily make a new PCB, but then you would need to desolder the hatswitches from the old PCB and solder them to the new one. Not many people are able to do that, so I did not follow up with the idea.

[lethal205]

I'd love to hear more details about the ball bearing gimbal upgrade, I'd really like to improve the stock CH gimbal.