DIY Convert a cheap Joystick to precise one

[Marcq]

Interesting concept, I'm going to try this on my Suncom stick mod project

 

 

Marc..

Edited November 27, 2019 by Marcq

[Sokol1_br]

Bad news, Suncon F-15 joystick "Saturn ring" gimbal don't allow this of X,Y axes use.

 

Neither this "mod" address the play of cheap joystick plastic gimbals.

 

This 3D printed gimbal, with bearings and contactless sensor is good and not much expensive upgrade.

[Marcq]

Bad news, Suncon F-15 joystick "Saturn ring" gimbal don't allow this of X,Y axes use.

 

Neither this "mod" address the play of cheap joystick plastic gimbals.

 

This 3D printed gimbal, with bearings and contactless sensor is good and not much expensive upgrade.

Actually, I'm not using the Suncom gimbal but one from a Saitek Pacific AV8R Flight Stick, I have used that joystick in the pass for mods and it worked pretty good for a el cheapo

 

Marc..

[Ranma13]

To be honest, I'm not sure why anyone would do this aside from novelty's sake. Light falls off based on the inverse cube law, so unless the light detecting resistor accounts for that, you'll have to adapt the curve back to a linear one, which will lose a lot of fidelity at the extremes. The LDR will also have a lot of noise in it and the readings must be smoothed out for it to be somewhat stable, which means that the joystick update rate will be rather low (in the video his update rate is only 8 FPS). The LED will also get dimmer over time and can vary slightly in brightness depending on how stable the power source is, which will need frequent calibrations to keep it calibrated.

 

If you have the time and energy to do all this, you might as well just get pots and replace them whenever they wear out, or pick up hall sensors that are orders of magnitude more accurate than a light-based setup. They even make laser-based contactless potentiometers that have the benefits of both regular potentiometers (not affected by magnetic fields) and hall sensors (doesn't wear out).

 

Bottom line is, if you're trying to do this because you want to turn a cheap joystick into a usable one that will last you a long time, don't. There are much, much better solutions out there. If you're doing it just for fun because you have nothing better to do, then it's up to you if you want to or not, but I feel like your time would be better spent doing something like building a button box or something rather than pursuing this extremely odd mod.

[Marcq]

To be honest, I'm not sure why anyone would do this aside from novelty's sake. Light falls off based on the inverse cube law, so unless the light detecting resistor accounts for that, you'll have to adapt the curve back to a linear one, which will lose a lot of fidelity at the extremes. The LDR will also have a lot of noise in it and the readings must be smoothed out for it to be somewhat stable, which means that the joystick update rate will be rather low (in the video his update rate is only 8 FPS). The LED will also get dimmer over time and can vary slightly in brightness depending on how stable the power source is, which will need frequent calibrations to keep it calibrated.

 

If you have the time and energy to do all this, you might as well just get pots and replace them whenever they wear out, or pick up hall sensors that are orders of magnitude more accurate than a light-based setup. They even make laser-based contactless potentiometers that have the benefits of both regular potentiometers (not affected by magnetic fields) and hall sensors (doesn't wear out).

 

Bottom line is, if you're trying to do this because you want to turn a cheap joystick into a usable one that will last you a long time, don't. There are much, much better solutions out there. If you're doing it just for fun because you have nothing better to do, then it's up to you if you want to or not, but I feel like your time would be better spent doing something like building a button box or something rather than pursuing this extremely odd mod.

 

Yeah, good point Ran, after reading more about it, it makes more sense to do a hall sensors mod

Thanks, Marc..