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F-16 Throttle Build


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Howdy everyone, I've had this F-16 throttle arm sitting around in my room the last few years, and I've finally decided to do something with it. 

bb9pmO3.png

 

I'd been trying to find an actual grip that I could use with it, so that I could just plug it into the existing wiring, but, I couldn't find one. I did however, find a nice 1:1 cad model of an F-16A grip here: http://www.seedling.org/The_Official_Hempstick_Site/F16_Throttle.html

 

I went ahead and got them all printed, minus the comm switch, since I'll need the 4-way hat instead, but aside from that, they are pretty nice. 

UJK9W1P.png

 

So far, I've only attached the grip to the arm, and gotten the pinky trigger on. 

t5yCpml.png

 

Now I'm just in the process of picking out what electronics I'm gonna use, and what board I'm gonna go with. I only have experience with Leo Bodnar boards, but I'm thinking of using an arduino this time around. I also went ahead and removed the wiring from the arm for the time being, as I'm not sure where I'd be able to find the connectors that it uses, but if I can find the throttle side connector, I might be able to use it, minus the canon plug.

 

That's all a bit secondary at the moment though until I can figure out the mechanical side of things. I'm thinking about how to add a bit of resistance to the throttle movement, since at the moment it just kind of flops around, and the friction wheel is kind of, all or nothing, so, not ideal. After seeing the hydraulic damper that mfg has got for their crosswinds, I'm thinking that might be a good way to go, and I think it could also be useful as a point to mount a magnet and hall effect sensor or GMR sensor to make the analog output for it.

 

Development is gonna be pretty slow, since so far the only diy project I've done is the Hornet UFC that Brun made, and obviously I didn't make anything for that, lol. So, trying to make plans and figure out stuff and troubleshooting and such is definitely gonna be a learning experience, but, I'm looking forward to it. 

 

Aside from all that though, does anyone happen to have a good 1:1 template for the throttle rail? My search has been coming up pretty dry, and the help would be much appreciated. 

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Owned Modules: F-16C, MiG-19P, CEII, F-14, Yak-52, F/A-18, SA342, UH-1H, AV8B, AJS-37, F-5E, MiG-21, Spitfire, M-2000C, F-86, MiG-15, 109 K-4, 190 D-9, P-51D, FC 3, Ka-50, A-10C

Owned Terrains: Persian Gulf, Normandy, Nevada

Owned Campaigns: Operation Piercing Fury, Operation Epsom Campaign

Controls: Warthog HOTAS, MFG Crosswind Pedals, TrackIR 5

Computer Build: ASRock AB350 K4 FATAL1TY, Ryzen 5 1600, EVGA Geforce GTX 1080 FTW, G.Skill Flare X 32GB 2400

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Well, finding a template for the throttle rail proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. Fortunately though, I came across measurements for the degree position of each throttle position on the information page for Aerotronics F-16 base. Using those as a reference, I was able to create a rough diagram of the throttle rail.

GBbjLub.jpg

To figure out how big the rail was going to be, I made a rough measurement from the center axle of the throttle arm, up to the button on the throttle grip, where it rests against the rail. This came out to be about 220mm, and after extending my degree marks out to match this, adding in a rough base for the rail, and some marks for the idle/cutoff gate and burner gate, I was able to make the first prototype of my new rail out of some cardboard I had laying around.

5P1LAdL.jpg

It seems to work quite well, so my next step is going to be to make a much more accurate diagram on the computer, print it out, and then I'm thinking that I'll make the rail out of acrylic sheets. Once I complete the rail and get it mounted, I'm gonna move on to working on the dampening system. And here I thought I was gonna be focusing on electronics to start out with.

  • Like 1

Owned Modules: F-16C, MiG-19P, CEII, F-14, Yak-52, F/A-18, SA342, UH-1H, AV8B, AJS-37, F-5E, MiG-21, Spitfire, M-2000C, F-86, MiG-15, 109 K-4, 190 D-9, P-51D, FC 3, Ka-50, A-10C

Owned Terrains: Persian Gulf, Normandy, Nevada

Owned Campaigns: Operation Piercing Fury, Operation Epsom Campaign

Controls: Warthog HOTAS, MFG Crosswind Pedals, TrackIR 5

Computer Build: ASRock AB350 K4 FATAL1TY, Ryzen 5 1600, EVGA Geforce GTX 1080 FTW, G.Skill Flare X 32GB 2400

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Haha, yea. It is certainly a shame that things had to go that way for the EU simmers, but, I can understand wanting to protest certain laws. 

 

I got them printed through shapeways. I've had good experience with them before, and I'm more then happy with the quality of these parts too. There were some minor fitting issues, mainly with the elevation knob, but it wasn't any thing a bit of sandpaper couldn't solve. 


Edited by Vikhrs

Owned Modules: F-16C, MiG-19P, CEII, F-14, Yak-52, F/A-18, SA342, UH-1H, AV8B, AJS-37, F-5E, MiG-21, Spitfire, M-2000C, F-86, MiG-15, 109 K-4, 190 D-9, P-51D, FC 3, Ka-50, A-10C

Owned Terrains: Persian Gulf, Normandy, Nevada

Owned Campaigns: Operation Piercing Fury, Operation Epsom Campaign

Controls: Warthog HOTAS, MFG Crosswind Pedals, TrackIR 5

Computer Build: ASRock AB350 K4 FATAL1TY, Ryzen 5 1600, EVGA Geforce GTX 1080 FTW, G.Skill Flare X 32GB 2400

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1 hour ago, 01G8R said:

This looks really good.  Will you share the material specs you used for the printing from Shapeways?

Thanks! I'd be more than happy to share them. 

 

The top cover, antenna elevation inner block, and the antenna elevation wheel are all their premium versatile plastic. All the other pieces are just the standard natural versatile plastic.

 

If I were to get them printed again, I'd skip the premium on the antenna elevation pieces, since they are so small that it isn't really worth it imo, on top of needing to be sanded down anyway to get them to fit together. I think I would also get the bottom half of the grip in the premium. I only skipped it since I figured I wouldn't have a whole lot of my hand on it as compared to the top half, so I wouldn't really notice the rough texture, but, it's a lot more noticeable than I expected.

Owned Modules: F-16C, MiG-19P, CEII, F-14, Yak-52, F/A-18, SA342, UH-1H, AV8B, AJS-37, F-5E, MiG-21, Spitfire, M-2000C, F-86, MiG-15, 109 K-4, 190 D-9, P-51D, FC 3, Ka-50, A-10C

Owned Terrains: Persian Gulf, Normandy, Nevada

Owned Campaigns: Operation Piercing Fury, Operation Epsom Campaign

Controls: Warthog HOTAS, MFG Crosswind Pedals, TrackIR 5

Computer Build: ASRock AB350 K4 FATAL1TY, Ryzen 5 1600, EVGA Geforce GTX 1080 FTW, G.Skill Flare X 32GB 2400

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Thanks for the info.  I've been using Freejoy for a helicopter collective project I'm working on.  If you decide to use Freejoy I'd be happy to help.  I have a good setup for a shift register board and hall effect sensor for rotation. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
13 hours ago, 01G8R said:

Just wanted to point out Hempstick has a model of the throttle rail on Github under the Throttle Arm section.

https://github.com/JonahTsai/F16/tree/master/ThrottleArm

 

 

Welp, I kinda wish I had looked a little harder through all his files. Definitely would have saved me some time, haha. Also, I had a look at that FreeJoy, and I think I might go with that. It looks very user friendly. I think I might go without anything fancy like shift registers and such, since the amount of inputs I'll have on this will be very low, but I would be interested in seeing the setup you mentioned.

 

Regardless though, progress has been made. After spending about a week or so learning some basics in Fusion360, I've been able to come up with a basic layout for how I want to setup the housing and throttle rail.

beJaiFs.jpg

AX397Tg.jpg

 

It's a very simple solution that will be made out of plexiglass. The rail itself will be 0.5 inches thick, while the other three panels will be just 0.25 inches. I'm still working out a mounting solution for it. I'd like to find a way to mount it directly to the plate on the TM Warthog, but I'm running into some issues related to the size difference between the two, as well as my Virpil mount taking up a lot of the space. On the bright side though, the steering/hydraulic damper idea is working out quite well. After receiving my upgrade for the MFGs, I did a quick mock up with it for the throttle, and it worked perfectly, so I'm gonna go ahead and find one that is similar in design for this. They seem to be pretty standard when it comes to sizing, so, shouldn't be to hard to find one that works.

Owned Modules: F-16C, MiG-19P, CEII, F-14, Yak-52, F/A-18, SA342, UH-1H, AV8B, AJS-37, F-5E, MiG-21, Spitfire, M-2000C, F-86, MiG-15, 109 K-4, 190 D-9, P-51D, FC 3, Ka-50, A-10C

Owned Terrains: Persian Gulf, Normandy, Nevada

Owned Campaigns: Operation Piercing Fury, Operation Epsom Campaign

Controls: Warthog HOTAS, MFG Crosswind Pedals, TrackIR 5

Computer Build: ASRock AB350 K4 FATAL1TY, Ryzen 5 1600, EVGA Geforce GTX 1080 FTW, G.Skill Flare X 32GB 2400

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