Building toe-brakes with loadcells?

[Jyge]

I have made myself toebrakes for my Simped pedals. They use Hall sensors and do not work that well. I made few mistakes, for example using a round disk magnet and stuff like that. I am now think about modding the whole thing to a loadcell configuration and taking out the movement or reducing it dramatically. I see that there are several chinese offers for loadcells for scales but I am rather uncertain how to connect them to the board.

 

 

 

I did not google exclusively so far. A quick glance revealed that a singular cell has half a bridge. If I was to have too axis for them I would probably need a second HX711 amplifier.

 

 

 

Or can I plug in the loadcell directly to this and plug it in as I would plug in a potentiometer?:

 

 

http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=199

 

 

At the moment I use teensy board and programmed the resolution and stuff myself, but I guess I could go for another board and configure it with MMJoy2?

[bohemond]

I have made myself toebrakes for my Simped pedals. They use Hall sensors and do not work that well. I made few mistakes, for example using a round disk magnet and stuff like that. I am now think about modding the whole thing to a loadcell configuration and taking out the movement or reducing it dramatically. I see that there are several chinese offers for loadcells for scales but I am rather uncertain how to connect them to the board.

 

 

 

I did not google exclusively so far. A quick glance revealed that a singular cell has half a bridge. If I was to have too axis for them I would probably need a second HX711 amplifier.

 

 

 

Or can I plug in the loadcell directly to this and plug it in as I would plug in a potentiometer?:

 

 

http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=199

 

 

At the moment I use teensy board and programmed the resolution and stuff myself, but I guess I could go for another board and configure it with MMJoy2?

 

Check out Leo’s website, I believe the info u need is on there.

[FragBum]

I run a leo bodnar USB and it works fine.

 

What was the issue with the Hall and magnet, I found if the axis of the magnet rotated over the Hall device I got a reasonable range from it. The rest I could sort out in DCS settings.

 

I'm not so sure I needed to use 2 magnets but it is what it is.

 

Here is my sensor for anti-torque (rudder) pedals.

 

[Jyge]

Check out Leo’s website, I believe the info u need is on there.

 

 

Well it does not exactly say what happens if I connect half a bridge instead of a full bridge. I thought that I would be easier to design the mounting with a simple one like this:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/4tlg-50KG-Scale-Load-Cell-Weighing-Sensor-Arduino-Wagesensor-HX711-AD-Modul-XS/333242993205?hash=item4d96d48a35:g:q9EAAOSwVCldDdqC

 

 

But they have all three wires and you would probably need to plug two of those together.

 

 

The rest are more or less in this format, but at least it would be a full bridge and with four cables:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/20KG-Scale-Load-Cell-Weight-Weighing-Sensor-HX711-Weighing-Sensors-AD-Module/362762795795?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131003132420%26meid%3D9168ebb55fe54b3b92bd5c0c72df482e%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dpf%26sd%3D182382390549%26itm%3D362762795795%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

[Sokol1_br]

On 11/2/2019 at 9:41 AM, Jyge said:

Or can I plug in the loadcell directly to this and plug it in as I would plug in a potentiometer?:

http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=199

Yes: "Standalone amplifier to connect load cells to any standard analogue input"

 

You need one of these amplifier for each load cell, their output goes for an analog input of you USB controller.

 

Probable find these amplifiers in Aliexpress.

 

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Sokol1_br

[doright]

I just thought I would mention load-cell vs spring is what are you trying to emulate? A light aircraft or WW2 aircraft the toe brakes will feel more like the brake pedal in your car, some travel then fairly solid and you are modulating pedal pressure to change deceleration. A modern jet, however, feels more like the accelerator pedal in your car.  The pedal position controls deceleration (up until anti-skid works it magic) and springs provide feedback.
As with all things aircraft related: your model may vary, any blanket statements I made are true. Until the counter-examples are revealed.

[Sokol1_br]

Quote

I have made myself toebrakes for my Simped pedals.

One thing you may can consider is upgrade Simped USB controller - eg. with Bu0836A, MMJoy2, FreeJoy... the original controller is from end of 1990's and has only 4 bits (128 points) resolution.

[Sacarino111]

Hi.

I used a load cell for the Mig29 brake, as well as the KA50, the Spit and the Mi8. Not exactly a load cell, but a force sensing resistor, wich has two cables, not three, so the setup is as follows: 

1 Cable red for VCC in (5 volts)

2 Cable 2 (whatever color) goes into the analog pin

3 from that cable 2 and befor it goes to analog pin, put another cable, cable 3 (black) to the GRD pin in the board.

 

 

Saludos. 

Saca111

P.S. It is a bit sensitive, so some tweaking in DCS setup would be requiered, but no big deal.

[Sacarino111]

Hi.

Little correction, I made a mistake. Sorry. 

I added a resistor (220Homs) to the signal cable to the ground.

Salkudos.

Sca111