HowTo: Thrustmaster Cougar Throttle USB standalone MOD

[JayRoc]

What you will need:

 

Atmega32u4 Micro Pro Board

Soldering skills(easy) and tools

Jumper Wires - male to female

Micro USB cable in the desired length

 

Lastest Version of MMjoy2 which you can find here.

There are also the instruction on how to flash the firmware onto the micro pro.

 

When you successfully flashed the firmware you can upload the configuration file which attached below.

 

1. (green) load the set from my provided config file (Cougar Thrustlever.mmjoy)

If you desire you can change the name of the device from mmjoy to whatever suits you (red circle)

2. (purple) save the config to the micro pro

The 3rd step will be done after finishing everything else.

 

 

Now you will have to solder the jumper wires accordingly to the pin names below.

The female sides fits on the original board and the male side can be soldered on the micro pro.

If you desire you can solder pins to the micro and use female to female jumper wires.

The first one is a little more compact and saved some space.

 

 

 

Once youre it should like this. The two unused pins have wires on here, but they are not needed.

 

I then put the micro usb cable in and taped it to the micro pro.

 

Before you go on - Test the functionality! If you plug in the USB cable the device should come up in Windows Joysticks

 

Test if all Buttons and Axis are working.

 

The whole controller should be isolated. To hold the controller in place i used a velco which i slid under the green board.

An axtra layer of tape to protect the cable and holding it in place with two cable ties are an good addition.

 

 

When you have put the Thrustlever back together you will have to calibrate all axis.

You can find the calibration tool in the picture above. Its step 3.

Watch for the min and max values on the Z-axis.

Put in the center values for each axis according to your device specific numbers.

For the Z-axis the center has to be between the Afterburner detents!

 

 

 

The Radar Cursor is set to automatic center. If it wanders around just wiggle it in all directions and it 

stay centered.

 

Save the calibration and upload the config on the micro pro again as you already did (see above).

Now you just have to edit the settings in DCS and no problems with the not 100% working Windows 10 drivers.

 

Have a good one

Cougar Thrustlever.mmjoy

[Cigar Bear]

AWESOME!  Much thanks - now I can use that old throttle again.

 

CB

[mrwell]

Hi Jay,
First of all, a big thank you.
Second, I cannot believe you only have one answer for this awesome tutorial.

I was searching for a fast an reliable way to use this throttle with a hall sensor and a better accuracy.

In the past I did Uri_Ba's approach, it was good but not so clean. I gave that one to a friend.
I found another one from Giovanni Medici that looks good but I don't have any Teensy at this time.
I have two ATMs with MMJOY from another project so I just searched for "MMJOY+cougar throttle" and voilá! The perfect manual!

Thanks again :)
Cheers

[uri_ba]

You can always try the same approach as this. only use FreeJoy and a BluePill STM32 board. that would also be very flexible.

[mrwell]

Hi Uri!
Nice to read you.
I also have a pair of STM32 but the Pro Micro approach was already here and faster, I thought. Your initial one required a protoboard and more soldering, but it works pretty good.

Nevertheless, Jay, the mmjoy file attached gives me an error when I try to upload it: "The specified files was not found" and I don't know the configuration for the matrix to make it manually. I did the axis one according to the snapshot in your post.

Someone has an snapshot of the matrix in MMjoy to show me, please?

Cheers,
MrWell

[mrwell]

Ok, I figure it out by myself:



It works perfect now.
Cheers

[LR.Jpatty]

Hello @JayRoc   I wonder if you are still around after years!   what is button 1 + 2 in your scheme... mine are :

1, 2, 3 Enable, 4 Uncage, 5 SPeed Brk In, 6 SPeed break out, 7 DG 8 DM, 9 - 12 Comms hat. 

looking at old cougar documentation there are only 10 buttons?     

[PutiPlot]

Coming late to the party, but thank you for this good guide.
I was able to convert my Cougar Throttle to USB with ease. 

I was not able to use the attached mmjoy file, so had to set up everything manually, but that wasn't too difficult when using the pictures. The picture from mrWell above also helped to map the buttons correctly. (And helped me identify that I had mixed up some of the cables)

The only issue I had was with MMJoy itself.
I didn't select the correct "Auto calibration". You need to use the "Auto w/centering" or else you will only have half the effect on the axis.

And you actually don't need to do any soldering at all. You can buy a pre-soldered Atmega32u4 Micro, and then use dupont-cables for connecting the Arduino (-clone) to the Throttle PCB.