3D Printed F-18 Hornet Throttle

[obious]

Hi All,

 

As I'm building my own Hornet VR rig, I thought I'd take a stab at modelling & 3D printing the throttle. Also, I don't really want to pay £700+ for Winging's unit (as great as it looks) and have no need for the left console switches that come with it (wink wink Winwing ;) )

 

From the pics, you can see that I still have a bit of work to do but I think its coming together nicely. I'm working mostly off of images online (surprisingly, there aren't that many) and a loose schematic that I think the original builders Mason somehow released.

 

The biggest challenge I think I'll have is finding the correct switches for the right throttle control (or even failing that, switches that'll fit inside the housing). If anyone know of the correct boat switches to use, please let me know!

 

As with my other work, I'll be sharing the STLs so it can be 3D printed once complete so please let me know what you think and I'll make improvements! :)

 

 

 

 

[Dreadwing]

Looks great man. I'm wanting to conceptualize a warthog to hornet throttle conversion do definitely following this one.

 

Sent from my SM-N975U1 using Tapatalk

[talmin]

Check out the Openhornet project. It has a 3d scan of a real throttle grip and I think it also has a part list for the switches used or are similar to the switches used in the real thing.

The discord of the project is also great for any questions you have regarding the f18 instruments they can give you a list of the switches used or cheaper solutions that will work fine.

 

Your grip looks really good for having to work with pictures only.

 

Also I would recommend to figure out a way to have the entire grip in 1 piece with a cover plate on the inside faces of the 2 grips. The openhornet versions are split down the middle leaving you with "ugly" split lines down the center of each grip.

Perhaps I will redo them in full aluminium in the future with some design tweaks to clean them up.

[obious]

Check out the Openhornet project. It has a 3d scan of a real throttle grip and I think it also has a part list for the switches used or are similar to the switches used in the real thing.

 

Yea, I tried to find the OpenHornet throttle but I was unable to in the repo. Also, I don’t know who’s they’re designing their models and the control freak in me wants ultimate control over what I print & build! :)

[VIXEN413]

I m on it too but I took the molding route.

 

I reversed engineered a lot and found some dimensions by trial and error and could get confirmation thanks to the forum support.

If you need some quotes or measurements, don't hesitate!

Good luck!

[obious]

I m on it too but I took the molding route.

 

I reversed engineered a lot and found some dimensions by trial and error and could get confirmation thanks to the forum support.

If you need some quotes or measurements, don't hesitate!

Good luck!

 

Thanks VIXEN413! To be honest, I was inspired by your thread a great deal, seems like you’re doing a great job; keep it up!

[Warthog4569]

looks great man, keep up the good work!!!

[VIXEN413]

Thanks VIXEN413! To be honest, I was inspired by your thread a great deal, seems like you’re doing a great job; keep it up!

 

Hey, no prob, I m glad if I helped....

 

With 3d printing, you gonna go faster as you have less process in the way and also, it s much less messy.... Hahahaha your throttles are gonna be much easyer to arrange too as you can make them void while the molded ones are plain solid... Will give you more room to fit any kind of electronics...

You plan to transplant the internals of a Warthog, right?

 

BR

[obious]

I think you’re partially right, I just 3D printed a prototype (basically as the model is in the images I attached) and I had a hard time slicing both the L & R throttles).

 

I don’t like printing with supports for a variety of reasons but was forced to use them and as such, parts of the model came out pretty horribly.

 

With regards to the electronics, I hadn’t really given it much thought until you mentioned it (sure, I thought about a few button placements but that’s about it). I don’t think I’m going to gut a TM Warthog throttle as it’ll just add to the cost so I’m probably going to but some small push buttons off of eBay and see if I can make it fit. I’m also going to see if I can buy a cheap game pad axis and also jam it in there somehow :)

Edited June 3, 2020 by obious

[obious]

VIXEN413, I’m going to have to take you up on your offer. As you can see from my designs, the throttles are positioned parallel to what will be the movement of travel and as you mention in your own post, I believe they should be angled around 18 degrees outwards.

 

With that being said, I’m having a tough time trying to figure out what the width of the right throttle unit should be (front and back when viewed from a bird’s eye position) once I include the 18 degree offset. Would you be able to measure yours/provide the measurements you’re working from?

 

Thanks in advance :)

[dobroDude]

Nice job! I've been designing my own as well.

Here are some of the real switches and buttons:

 

Cage/ATC/Scan RAID: Otto P1-11122 (picture is not accurate)

Speedbrake: Otto SL

Countermeasures: Otto T4

TDC: Otto J2

 

A you can see, a couple of Otto controls adds up into the thousands USD... I bought the pushbuttons since they're relatively cheap and I started designing alternatives for the others. Good luck!

[VIXEN413]

Hey there!

 

Sure thing!

 

Indeed, you found it that the throttles are angled to 18 deg compared to axis of motion.

This angle can be measured on the flat frontal face of the throttles.

So I turned my block upside down and cut at 18 deg for 1 inch up.

Then, I measured the plan where both throttle spilt on top, marked it and tried to mark some other points. I covered them with red electrical tape to use it as a cutting guide. First throttles were badly cut but I molded 3 pieces so I just tried again on the second. Worked great this time...

 

Here are more pics for you and my initial plan... Looks messy so if u need more infos, feel free. I used the official plans, completed some measurements with pics sent by a great gentleman here on those forums. Air bubbles in my molds will be filled with bondo and sanded while I will be at the finishing touches...

 

As for the switches, I went the OTTO way for the push buttons. The other switches will indeed be crazy and massively expansive....

I m just transferring all the electronics of my virpil cm2 throttle into this throttle set.

Amazingly, the right virpil throttle contains all the buttons and switches required for both f18 throttles.

So I ll mount another post, outboard of the throttles containing all the left throttle buttons and switches of the virpil throttle. And will use that for non hotas stuff like nvg and pilot salute etc etc and also as a PAL/vshi/vslo switch in the tomcat...

 

I was thinking to place the switches and the daughter board in the throttle but I changed my mind and will just enlong the wires to keep the daughter board in the base of the assembly. This solution forces me to de-solder the TDC ministick from that little board but hey, it's just the way it is...

Edited June 7, 2020 by VIXEN413

[ACME_WIdgets]

Has anyone tried any of these 5 way micro switches?

They are only 7.5mm per flat side, so could be epoxied into a handle pretty easisly.

Down side is they are surface mount, not through hole with pins. So soldering and running wires might be a pain.

 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/10PCS-Japan-5-Way-Direction-SMD-Push-Button-Tact-Switch-Joystick-ALPS-SKRHABE010/184240252826?hash=item2ae593279a:g:XkcAAOSw6rFeiYkb

[obious]

Does anyone know how far the throttle is rotated at the top of the stem? I have a feeling it’s ~15 degrees downward but I can’t find any documentation online about it

 

thanks 

[ImArchimedes]

Were the files for this grip ever shared? I'm working on one and would love to compare. This one looks much cleaner than mine. Is it possible to share the step files themselves?

[drepou38]

Hi i m looking for stl file ou CAD  too anyone can help me please  ?

 

i m not enough skilled to "draw it" on SW or fusion by my self and reworking the mesh file is just to hard ... @ImArchimedes can you send me yours ?

 

Edited May 10, 2021 by drepou38

[obious]

After leaving this project for a while (was waiting for my Elegoo Saturn to turn up more than anything else), I decided to start printing the throttle unit.  From the pictures you can see my progress so far but its pretty clear to see the print quality issues I’m struggling with; I keep running into problems where certain parts of a print are warping (towards the edges) and its super frustrating.

If anyone has any experience with 3D resin printing and/or Elegoo printers, I’d love to know how to tackle these print failures.

 

 

[slowmover]

Looks amazing!! I would like to test it if you share stl.

[Viper1970]

Looks amazing!

I have also problems with warping if I try to print some bigger parts with my Anycubic Photon. And the Photon even has a really small build space. I was not able to fix it until now, but I must admit that I'm not so often use my resin printer.

I have thought about a bigger resin printer also, but have decided to make my grips with FDM, cause for me it's much easier to do. I want to spray filler and paint the HOTAS parts anyway, so it should not make so much difference if finished. But the resin printer is much faster in printing bigger parts. The time it takes to finish only one half of a grip is actually the only thing that really bothers me about FDM.