Universal military aircraft homecockpit project

[Viper1970]

The whole TM Viper grip electronics part. I will do a description of all wires and where they are connected, which direction is which color at the hats and so on, at a later time.

There are already some pics on the web, but I never seen a complete seperate electronics anywhere. I think this way it is easier to do a research of all the wires if something is broken.

The Hornet grip will follow and also all other original TM HOTAS parts I disassemble during the project.

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Viper1970

[Thadiun Okona]

1 hour ago, Viper1970 said:

The whole TM Viper grip electronics part. I will do a description of all wires and where they are connected, which direction is which color at the hats and so on, at a later time.

There are already some pics on the web, but I never seen a complete seperate electronics anywhere. I think this way it is easier to do a research of all the wires if something is broken.

The Hornet grip will follow and also all other original TM HOTAS parts I disassemble during the project.

 

 

[Viper1970]

Thanks alot! That saves a whole lot of time.

Does anybody have something similar for the Hornet grip?

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

I just took an inventory (never did).

In the end there are now 15 sticks/cyclics (some can be used both - e.g. the B8 variants), 7 throttles and 5 collectives.

A Yoke, an Airbus like Sidestick and a 4-Engine throttle will be also available.

A few things are still floating around in my head (like e.g. an A-4 stick, an AH-64D TEDAC) and I also have already started with some of them, but first I want to continue building the cockpit.

[Viper1970]

Did a lot of sanding the last two days . I also printed the sockets for the three B8-variations, I made out of TM X-Fighter sticks and also a socket for the Suncom Talon, to be compatible with my own connection system to the base.

I already integrated the TM Viper POV's and buttons into the Suncom Talon but nothing is fix attached yet, cause all those modified grips have still to be fillered and primed. They will be painted in satin black, like all the other HOTAS, too.

The next prints will be the sockets for the two TM Viper and the two Hornet grips, also for my own connection system. After this I will remove the paddle switch on one Viper grip and also cut of the mount of the paddle, to replicate an A-10 grip.  The other one will stay original (except the socket) and get the F-16 lettering later.

One of the Hornet grips will also be modified slightly the next days, changing the castle and the trim POV, to replicate an AV-8B grip.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

All self printed HOTAS parts are painted in satin black now. Only exception are the F-14D throttle handles, which are light grey. The F-14D throttle seems to have a more grey color, instead of the satin white used on the A/B throttle, so I decided to make it light grey.

There is still some sanding work to do at the B8 grips and also at the F-15 grip, cause of the added top part of the socket for my special connection system to the base. The bottom parts of the sockets still missing here.

At the F-15 and B8 grips were some other changes necessary, to be able to seperate the shells despite the added sockets, which in case of the F-15 grip made one original screw and it's hole near the thumb-switch needless. I closed the hole with epoxy and fillered this section.

The "Cobra" B8 version will be completely fillered arround the thumb-switch and also on top at the additional added second button shape. All the B8 sticks, the Talon and also the VFX have to be partitially sanded again and will also get a satin black paint.

After all this is done I will grind the holes for the buttons, switches and POV's again, so that all fits nicely. The controls which have a lettering will get it after the rework of all the holes and all HOTAS will get a clear satin coat, regardless if they have a lettering or not.

P.S: Button and POV colors aren't right yet and will be changed also to match the originals as good as possible.

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

First tests with a cheap chinese 5way. I printed a mount for it and also a castle hat for my F-14D grip. All is still WIP, so the color at the trim switch (old TM FLCS trim switch) isn't matching, nothing screwed thight together and the trigger and the thumbwheel are still missing. The switch is printed with FDM and also nothing polished yet. I will do the other hats with SLA, but I didn't had the desire to fill resin in my SLA printer yet, just for one hat as a test.

The TM compatible digital thumbwheel mechanics are already constructed and work like a charme in my Virpil VFX grip, so no need to make anything new here. I only have to print them again. The trigger is also still missing here.

All looks still a very unfinshed and is of course, but I think you can already imagine what it will look like when it's finished.

At first I don't want to use those chinese 5way, but I have really no desire to also print tons of POV-mechanics for all my HOTAS.

The first ones I ordered had a tendency to also trigger the push function when pressed in one direction, the second set is now much better, although not perfect. Unfortunately they all look the same and I can't mix them up or I'll have to test each one individually before installation.

I put a photo of the real F-14D grip as comparision to the pics.

 

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

Just fillered and primered the original grips. As I modded a lot at them it was necessary to do. The textured rubber inlays of the X-Fighter grips are glued with super glue inside the grips cavities, so that they will never get loose again. The double sided duct tape was completely removed.

I just sprayed the primer over those inlays, too. I already did the same thing on an old Top Gun stick, I modded for my son many years ago, which also has those rubber inlays and neither the filler, nor the paint was flaking of. And if the paint is still on it after more than 10 years, and that even after years of use of a then still very young boy, I have no fear that there will be a problem now.

P.S: At the Virpil VFX there is still a lot of sanding to do, cause I closed the gap where the paddle mount was with epoxy and put a lot of filler at this section. Doesn't look very nice at the moment, but this will change.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

Getting the thumb-switch out of the TM Hornet grip is really a pain in the ass. Believe me, you never want to get anything wrong with this switch, like eg. a simple cable break near the soldering point (and most of them are already near a break at the solder point out of the box, despite securing with hot glue) or that one of the microswitches doesn't work anymore.

There is no way to get this POV out of the grip, cause there a two clips apart from the hotglue, that hold the POV in place. The upper one is easy to reach and to push in, so that the POV can slide out of it's mounting-hole, but the bottom one isn't reachable. There is really no way to push this clip in and you also can't rotate the whole POV to reach it, cause there is a nose that fixes the POV in the right direction. Don't know which big had planed this BS!!!

I removed it by drilling a small hole in the POV mechanism from the top, right where the second clip is, and then bending it back. But I had to close this hole now again with a drop of epoxy and must also sand it and put some paint on the mechanics to have it nice looking again.

If this thing gets broken, the only way other way besides the drilling method to get it out is, to completely damage it. Never seen anything more crazy on any HOTAS. And this isn't a cheap 80€ controller here. The whole upper part of the grip is plastic, not the same like the Warthog/Viper grip. The buttons are also very cheap and plastics, but the thumb-POV's cap is made out of metal.

Don't know what all this is good for, cause for me it really makes no sense. Even the cheap buttons I use for my selfprinted HOTAS are of better quality as the ones used here. Since many here always praise the Viper or the Hornet handle, quite honestly the old Cougar grip plays there in another league. The Cougar grip is really full metal (zamak), even the buttons and the POV caps. Looks like the only thing that counts on the new versions, is the weight of a grip.

But I was never the fan of those heavy metal handles anyway and only just too lazy to also make these handles myself, but if they are out of metal (zamak) then please consistent and especially not these cheap buttons and POV mechanics. Even the old POV's of the FLCS and F22Pro are more stable as those POV's here. 

Anyway I will still continue to use them, but the clips will all be removed and all buttons and POV's will only be fixed with a drop of hot glue to make them easy to remove and repair in case of a defect. By the way, hot glue is very easy to remove if you paint it with a brush full of spirit.

At the head of the Hornet grip, I already milled out the hole where the trim-switch was, for the castle hat to fit. I will also do an extra printed frame here to have the castle hat a little bit deeper inside the grip, but not much (thats the reason the hole is a lot bigger now). The trim-switch also needs a printed mounting frame cause the hole of the castle switch is too big for it. The paddle-switch and the mount of it will also be removed as far as possible and a special socket attached to be compatible with my own connection system. This Hornet grip will be the AV-8B grip if done.

 

[Viper1970]

Removed the paddle-switch mount and attached the socket. The hole at the paddle-switch place will be filled with epoxy on both halfs of the shell and after this sanded. The remaining rest of the mount will also be scattered to have a smooth surface. The grip will be normally demountable, of course. 

I will also removed this little clamp on top of the trigger mechanism, which makes this odd click in the second stage of the trigger. I don't like it. I have also reworked the whole POV's a bit, cause many of them tend to hang at some directions. Sometimes a drop of oil does the trick or loosen the srews a very, very small bit.

The cables of all my HOTAS will come out at the front of the socket and simply go outside to the plug at the base. I know thats not nice looking, but very practically. All wires will go directly to the base with the integrated grip PCB, so none of the grips has own electronics. Inside the cable there will be arround a max of 25 wires. 24 functions and a common ground (TM only has a max of 23 functions at the moment). All will be connected with the use of a SUB-D 25pol plug to the base.

I will mostly even not use those 23 functions, cause I removed the paddle switches on most grips (only the F-16 sidestick will still have it) and also this ugly, not really useful little 3 function thumb-wheel at the Hornet grips. The hole for this switch will also be closed with epoxy and the whole grip will be fillered and satin black painted again after all the other work on it is finished. The paddle switch function will be seperatly connected to the base, comming from my jet extension.

Here at the photos I also did a direct comparision between the F/A-18 & AV-8B grip and the F-15C/E grip.

 

 

[Viper1970]

The changed POV layout for the AV-8B. Still WIP. The whole stick will also be sanded, fillered and painted again. Printed some frames to raise the trim switch 2mm and lower the castle hat 2mm.

 

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

A-10C and AV-8B grips now ready to apply the filler. Holes are closed with epoxy, only a slight sanding has just to be done to ensure the filler has a good adhesion to the surface. I'm not so happy with the shape of the A-10C grip from the front, cause there is still a lot remaining of the paddle switch mount, but removing more material to fully look like the original would decrease the stability of the grip.

After this I will do the same thing, removing the paddle switch, on my last Hornet grip. The second Viper grip will only get also a new satin black painting, but the rest will stay original. Later I will put the F-16 lettering on it.

My cougar throttle handle will also be reworked, cause I bought the Cougar used and it's not in the best condition. I think I will do a new lettering at it also, cause the original one has a lot of scratches on it.

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

I am currently making documentation of the pinouts of all the Thrustmaster devices in their original state that I will be using on my project.

This is useful because after the rebuild, there is no way to accurately recreate the original state.

Maybe this is also useful for anyone else here.

More will follow.

This is the grip pinout of the TM Hornet grip. I used mostly the same kind of term here, like TM used for the old FLCS, F22Pro and the Cougar. I found this a more practical way as the real button designations. It's easier to note H2D=brn, as Castle Switch down=brown .

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

And the Viper grip. It seems like they used different colors here also, cause on other photos at the web I've seen totally different colors for all the buttons. POV's look the same as mine. My four Warthog/Viper grips that I own (two out of a Warthog throttle/stick combo and two seperate Viper grips) have all the same color coding.

It's also a bit confusing that black at the buttons is not the common ground (except at the S3 button). I measured all with a multimeter. Always the bottom pin is ground (except S3). Normally it doesn't matter for connecting a simple switch, but I want to place those grip PCB's inside my base and do the connection to the grip with a 25pol sub-d plug. So I want to use a common GND pin for all inputs and in this case it does matter which pin is the GND-pin.

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

Just fillered the A-10C TM Viper grip and the AV-8B TM Hornet grip. The F-15C/E Suncom Talon and the F-14B VirpiL VFX are already painted satin black.

While those grips are curing I will start to remove the paddle switch at the last Hornet grip and also disassemble the second Viper grip for priming and satin black painting. All grips should have the same black color at the end with exception of the F-14 throttle, which is light grey.

If possible I will also prepare the Cougar throttle grip for a paint rework the next days. If all those done, maybe already until the end of this week, all HOTAS grrip parts are painted in black and ready for doing the lettering on those which have one.

The last part will be, to coat them with a satin clear paint and Integrate all the buttons, switches and POV's. This will also be a time consuming work, cause they must also be painted. For the smaller parts I will do this with a brush and model color, the bigger parts will also be spray painted. I will also seal the color here afterwards with clear varnish.

If nothing comes up and everything continues to go so well, I'll be done with all the HOTAS grip-parts much faster than I thought.

I will post pics again, if some more work is done.

[Viper1970]

A-10C Warthog grip first paint stage is ready. I still have to remove and disassemble all once again, cause of the satin clear coating. I only did a quick test and milled out the button/pov-holes again to remove a bit of the layer from the filler and the paint inside them, so that the buttons nicely fit again.

Next will be the AV-8B grip. The F-14B and the F-15C/E still missing the right colors on some inputs. I will do this tomorrow.

I personally like the satin black look much more as it was in the original state. But this will also change a bit again after the satin clear coat. I have also made those POV's and buttons with that anthracite gray metallic look more metalic black and only leave the indicated ring directly arround the buttons anthracite. At the trim button there was anyway no other solution for this, cause of the lettering.

P.S: The Socket is still not finished. There is only filler from the first filler job on it. But it will be made grey at the end.

 

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

and the AV-8B grip ....

 

[Viper1970]

I'm currently at the F/A-18C-E grip, removing the paddle mount and scattering the surface. This one is a bit less work, cause the hats can stay as they are and so I do not have to rework the head also, except the remaining slot of this little trigger-wheel, the original doesn't have.

I hope this time I will do a better job filling the hole with epoxy and reworking the surface at the trigger wheel section of the head, cause on the AV-8B grip it's still slightly visible after the painting. I'm not so satisfied with this result, but also have no desire now to rework this again and repeat the whole paint job at the grips head once again. Aside from that the original grips in the real pits mostly don't look perfect either. I know it's only a excuse for being lazy.

After the Hornet grip only three input-grips are left to paint black. The Cougar TQS's handle, the Warthog throttle handles I convert to F-15 and the Warthog that stays in its original condition for the A-10, but should also be painted satin black. But I think I will not accomplish all of this until the end of this week, as I thought. But mid to end of next week all this should be done.

Then the whole lettering, painting the POV's, switches and  buttons and rework all the holes for them has to be done. This will take another huge affort of time. Last step is the satin clear coating of all grips. For the whole rest, like the bases, the consoles of the pit etc. I use waterbased colors with a foam paint roller or at very tiny parts also a brush.

This works surprisingly good. I already did this at the housing of my HOTAS for the command unit. You have to sand it, use a primer before the paint, let it dry one day, sand it again and apply the color in many very thin layers to prevent bubbles. After the curing the surface looks nearly the same as if you had spray painted it. Only applying the clear coat is always a problem, if you can't spray it, especially a satin clear coat. I think I will leave it at those parts, cause there isn't so much stress on them from touching the surface, as compared to the grips.

Compared to spray painting, this makes much less dirt especially at big parts, where spray painting produces a lot of dry overspray, nearly doesn't smell if you use waterbased colors and cause of this waterbased varnish you can easily clean your painting-tools. It's also possible to do it the whole year, cause it can be done inside a apartment, too.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

Now in correct colors, comparision between AV-8B (F/A-18) grip and F-15C-E grip.  They look very similar but they have some greater differences in shape. The F/A-18 stick im just making, looks a little bit closer to the F-15 stick, cause of the same POV-hat arrangement.

At the end they will be identical in height. The bottom cover of the socket (which is still not screwed to the stick), which holds the cable in place, is missing here.

All sockets of all HOTAS will be painted in the same grey as my extensions.

 

 

[Viper1970]

The F-14D grip. Still WIP. Second pic is the original for comparision.

 

 

[Viper1970]

Just doing the different B8-type versions. Triggers still missing.

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

The triple-pack. From left to right - AV-8B, F/A-18C-E, F-15C-E

Now the sockets have to be finished and a label attached to them, with the corresponding aircraft type(s).

 

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

A-10C and F-16C grips. The Viper grip will finally get the right "castle" DMS hat, 45° rotated to what it is now. But I have to print this hat with resin first. I will add the original lettering at the F-16 grip also. The Sockets aren't ready yet. All grips, even if not much has changed, like it is at the F-16C grip, are fillered, primed and new painted.

 

 

 

and the two F-14 grips. First F-14D second F-14A-B. All triggers at the selfprinted grips still missing, cause I do them all with the SLA printer in one session.

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

First part of the F-16 throttle Idle/AB detent. The frame with the different steps at the base is still missing (must be printed now ) and also the idle-lever.

The whole base and the throttle-lever will be painted in the same grey as the sockets and the whole pit, only the handle itself and the idle-lever will stay black.

The mechanics can be seen as 3D schematic in my thread.

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Viper1970

[Viper1970]

It's done! After endless hours of grinding, sanding and anything else, the mechanics are working!

Nothing was optimal directly after the print. I had to recorrect and adjust many, many things manually, but I got it functional.

It's still WIP and far away from finish. All has to be polished again, sanded and painted (except the metal cougar grip itself). The grip will get a lot of new switches and also one pot (antenna), cause I bought this thing used and it wasn't in the best condition.

At first I wanted to paint the throttle grip black, but a closer look showed me that the lettering at the throttle was still ok. Only the lettering on the original stick was scratched. I didn't use the Cougar stick, cause I use a Viper grip for the F-16, so only the throttle had to be reworked. I decided to leave the original black paint to still have the lettering, but coat it with satin clear coat.

Now the rest has to be done, like painting the base and the lever grey until the first printed part of the handle with the cut-off lever. This printed part with the little lever will be painted black to look similar like the handle itself. I will also add a plate to the base, between those two curved shapes, which will have very few switches and buttons. Mostly engine stuff. Should be a bit like a slimed warthog throttle at the end.

Here are the pics, which do show how the AB/idle detent works. First two pics are in cut-off position. The little lever must be pulled and the handle moved up until it reaches the mechanical stop, to get into it. The next three pics shows the normal idle to mil-power position. To get out of cutt-off only a move forward is necesarry and the throttle automatically moves down and the springloaded lever snaps back. To get into the AB a slight move up of the handle is necessary, but not as much as for the cut-off position (last three pics). Not all is like it is originally, but it's close and I'm fine with it.

For me it was important that the basic function is there and the throttle still remains relatively slick and small, so that it does not need much space and can easily chnged with my other throttles. For the electronics, I will use canibalized TWCS electronics to make it standalone and nonetheless fully TARGET compatible.