Honey, I developed FFB joystick (DIY)

[dstar]

RRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr nice

 

 

[skunk160]

Just got mine, beautiful bit of kit!! 

gladly accepting any DCS or ILtwo profiles 

[Winger]

Does anyone sell these Sticks?
Yould you point me int he right direction please?

[VirusAM]

Does anyone sell these Sticks?
Yould you point me int he right direction please?

You need to check the VPforce discord

[Winger]

thanks

[slimheli]

Hopefully this isn't a thread hijack but I feel like this is a very niche subject and would probably be buried in the "For Sale" section of the forums. So I'll roll the dice and give this a shot. If this is bad form, please let me know and I'll humbly remove my post.

I printed and assembled 90% of the open source project but have just run out of time in life and I feel immense guilt whenever I see this sitting in the corner. Therefore I've decided to sell it to someone who can take it across the finish line. Included is the following:

• A 3D printed enclosure complete with bearings, pulleys, etc. I had ordered the wrong belts so those need to be purchased.
• 24V ODrive 3.6 board with brake resistor
• 2x D5065 270kv motors (already mounted into the enclosure)
• Mean Well 24V/25A power supply

Located in Canada. There is probably $600 USD worth of parts here. I'll let it all go for $400 USD (you pay shipping). 

Huge shoutout to everyone here who has worked on this project. It's be a game changer.

[tassotasso]

Hello good evening, I discovered this thread through Google, is there a discord to get more information about this project? I would like to build an ffb joystick.

[propeler]

On 6/29/2024 at 4:52 AM, tassotasso said:

Hello good evening, I discovered this thread through Google, is there a discord to get more information about this project? I would like to build an ffb joystick.

Yes. And not only discord  https://ffbeast.github.io/ and discord is https://discord.gg/Gt6rnvrZKu

 

[Hiob]

On 6/29/2024 at 4:52 AM, tassotasso said:

Hello good evening, I discovered this thread through Google, is there a discord to get more information about this project? I would like to build an ffb joystick.

Are you more into metal-work or more into 3D-printing?

you can look here too vpforce.eu. You can buy motor-kits there that work out of the box with very advanced free ffb-software. There is a link to the discord their too with a community of engaged DIYers.

[propeler]

26 minutes ago, Hiob said:

Are you more into metal-work or more into 3D-printing?

Fully 3d printed version. No metal work.

[Hiob]

10 hours ago, propeler said:

Fully 3d printed version. No metal work.

That looks like an interesting gimbal! 

You have plans for it?

How does it cope with the strength of the Beast?

Edited June 30, 2024 by Hiob

[tassotasso]

14 hours ago, Hiob said:

Are you more into metal-work or more into 3D-printing?

you can look here too vpforce.eu. You can buy motor-kits there that work oco

cool, which board does this software work with?

[Hiob]

5 hours ago, tassotasso said:

cool, which board does this software work with?

It‘s part of the motor-kits. 

[propeler]

 

[TheTaker]

Hi, I wanted to share my version of FFB stick and rudder build.

Here are more photos:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12bpjwd_FC87fGMXIHv5ax6Qkvx2cuK4a

And description:

1. Electronics.

Everything is based on Gigawipf's OpenFFBoard.

He shared the electronic hardware and firmware but left the mechanical design to the builder's imagination. I just uploaded his PCB gerber file from Github to JLCPCB and ordered it with SMT assembly (important note: when you order electronic parts from JLCPCB for your boards they don't send them to you. They are only used for assembly and are just reserved for you in stock untill you order SMT assembly.) 

https://github.com/Ultrawipf/OpenFFBoard

Everything worked properly first time. OpenFFBoard connects with PC via USB and sends control signals to Makerbase ODrive 3.6 dual motor controller via CAN. OpenFFBoard can use also different motor controllers like VESC or a Gigawipf's own board. I decided to use MakerBase ODrive clone because it's cheap and somewhat reliable. 

2. Motors.

6,5" cheap hoverboard motors rated for 250W at 36V. I power them with 48V, and set current limit to 13A which gives around 600W per motor. They are not even warm. And for rudder motor it's 16A.

3. Encoders.

I use CUI AMT103 incremental encoders + endstops for homing. With ODrive you can program startup homing procedure, when after finding encoder indexes the axis move towards one endstop limit switch, and then move back set amount of turns. Effectively making stick always center itself at startup. When using incremental encoders the motor controller always needs to find index at startup. And with this kind of design where rotation is limited to narrow angle it has some serious drawbacks: ODrive can move to search index (that is one specific point of full 360° rotation of encoder) just in one set direction. If the axis meets mechanical endstop and cannot move more it still tries to rotate until it finds it and cannot change direction on its own. I don't need to tell what happens next if you don't turn it off. So I set that indexes mechanically somewhere before endstop, and then put on the drive belts. This way I'm making shure it "always" finds the index. But that makes another drawback - I need to put the stick in specific region/area before indexes. (for example fwd-left quadrant) If I put it somewhere else, where gears are close to specific endstop but AFTER indexes it will never find them and try to snap the belts. I will probably change to absolute magnetic encoders that don't need to search for index signal. For the rudder pedals i bought even cheaper Makerbase-MINI with integrated absolute encoder (AS5047P) and it don't need to calibrate each startup, but it still doesn't remember the center position after power loss, so a homing procedure with endstop is needed. Another weird thing with ODrive: endstops are active all the time, and not only when homing. If I move the stick to the limit of any axis it recognizes limit switch and turns itself off. You can tell that touching a limit in a stick is nothing bad, but ODrive is just programmed that way and there no workarounds inside software configuration. But I found a workaround. Very stupid but it works . I connected both limit switches GND pin to programmable timer relay switch. It disconnects them roughly after time the startup procedure is done, and reconnects after power restart - so after next startup when homing needs endstops it can have them for a while. 

4. Mechanical design.

For the stick mechanics I decided to make something like lazerwing FFB project with 2 actuators parallel to each other. This design idea is probably taken from FWD cars gear change lever where 2 parallel cables move perpendicular axes. I used 10mm ball end rods from aliexpress for linkages. Bearings are 72x50x12mm. Left motor moves Y axis, right motor moves X axis. There is some drawback im this design, because at high deflection the stick moves a bit in X axis when moved only in Y (hard to describe it). But it's very little in my case, totally not noticable. For rudder pedals mechanics it's simple, just 2 parallel axis on bearings. I don't have access to CNC machines but I have manual mill and lathe so I made everything what I can with 2,3,4,5,6mm aluminium sheet metal, and for other parts, like bearing housings or belt pulleys I use 3D printing. Motors drive the 25mm wide HTD 3M belts, gear ratio is around 1:6,5. Motor gears are 23mm diameter and are made of steel, bought from CNC shop. Big axis pulleys are 147mm diameter and are 3D printed with PLA, with high 50% infill and 8 perimeter outer walls. I think it's enough for this torque. For connecting stick with base I made part similar to Virpil or thrustmaster but thicker. I just put it in each other and secure with large nut. There's round electronic connector inside for buttons. OpenFFBoard works with shift registers up to 64 or 128 buttons if i remember, so in the stick there is another Gigawipf's board with few shift registers and SPI protocol (5-pin). Also belts and pulleys will be hidden below 3D printed covers, that are not ready yet. And the rubber boot is from some old car gear lever cover. 

I think that's all. 

Edited August 13, 2024 by TheTaker

[Hiob]

Awesome! 

[Dogmanbird]

@TheTaker

thank you for sharing that 

the grip descrambling info in the video was interesting also

[rafalg78]

Please check out my post if you are interested in FFB and VP Force Rhino.