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TPR versus Crosswinds


Dragon1-1

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I've started looking at various pedal options to buy somewhere down the road, and I couldn't help but notice it boils down to basically two choices: pendular vs. pantograph, with the latter greatly overrepresented (as in, only one example of the former). Not much wiggle room on the price, either, particularly when taking EU taxes into account.

So, I want to ask anyone who used both: which ones should I choose? I heard Crosswinds are said to be pretty much the best pantograph pedals, so let's use those for comparison. How does TPR measure up to them? I fly both helos and fixed wing, although with emphasis on the latter. I like the idea behind the pendular mechanism, and the fact it's used in quite a few aircraft, but I also want decent pedal and toe brake forces. I've got a pair of motorcycle dampers lying around, so let's assume that Crosswinds are outfitted with one of these.

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I have the MFG V3 pedals and love them, have them set for very low centering force and bought all the available cams/springs so I would have a lot of choices for setup. Smooth as silk, toe brakes are great. My main deciding factor was the small width of my Next Level Racing stand had available, these (with the width kit) fit perfectly, all others (beside my original CH) were too wide to fit.. I also have the damper kit installed.


Edited by =LD=Icer

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41 minutes ago, Guppy said:

You can buy an easy mod to add a dampner to the TPRs

Don't they already have adequate damping? This looks like something I could rig up myself with a 3D printer and that damper I've got.

I don't know about Slaw, that one, aside from lead times that beat even Winwing, are an inverted pendular configuration mostly found in helos. I mostly fly fixed wing.

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Well I don’t have both but I can tell that the TPR are fantastic and solid. I don’t always like flying with my feet on the pedals so that was the main thing a pick them over the MFG’s I have heard and seen that the MFG have to be bolted Support somehow that s also the case with the TPR pedals. The MFG looks alittle to wide also imo.

 

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MFG’s are awesome, very smooth and precise and multiple choices of footrests. They are a little tippy by design when you start putting your feet on them. Once your feet are in position they stay and don’t feel tippy even when going to full deflection. If you are the type that doesn’t keep your feet on the rudders all the time, then making a wider base( at least at the rear of them) or having them mounted solid to a stand or pit is the way. Mine sit on carpet under my desk and I just used sticky back Velcro on the bottom ( non-fuzzy, male side…not sure what the proper Velcro term is) and they stay put just fine without being supported against the wall. Never used the tpr’s but I would for certain buy the crosswinds over and over. Just one mans opinion.


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I'd really love to hear from someone who used both. I know they're both pretty great, but I need to know, which is better. 🙂 It's a hard choice, especially given the price (TPR is a lot easier to get locally, but a good deal more expensive).

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Thanks, that's just what I needed. I'll look at TPR, then, I'm currently in process of trying to finish my DIY pedals and outfit them with a damper, see how they feel, but after I get money saved up (if things go well, around Xmas), I think I'll treat myself to a set of TPR pedals, unless the DIY set turns out really well.

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OK, one last question, this time to everyone who owns TPR. One thing I love about the Winwing stick is the progressive feel of the spring. When you pull, the force is proportional to stick deflection, so the further out from the center you are, the more force you need to apply. This is great, because human skin has pressure sensors that provide you direct feedback on the exact force you're applying, while TM Warthog gimbal (and my old CH) has more or less the same force through its entire range and thus relies purely on positional feedback, which is somewhat less precise and harder to do consistently.

So, on to the question: are TPR pedals progressive in a similar way, or positional like TM Warthog? I know with Crosswinds, if they're not like that out of the box, a modded cam can make them so. TPR seems to use a scissor mechanism, and I have no experience with how that behaves.

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18 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

OK, one last question, this time to everyone who owns TPR. One thing I love about the Winwing stick is the progressive feel of the spring. When you pull, the force is proportional to stick deflection, so the further out from the center you are, the more force you need to apply. This is great, because human skin has pressure sensors that provide you direct feedback on the exact force you're applying, while TM Warthog gimbal (and my old CH) has more or less the same force through its entire range and thus relies purely on positional feedback, which is somewhat less precise and harder to do consistently.

So, on to the question: are TPR pedals progressive in a similar way, or positional like TM Warthog? I know with Crosswinds, if they're not like that out of the box, a modded cam can make them so. TPR seems to use a scissor mechanism, and I have no experience with how that behaves.

TPR has pretty much a linear force response curve. It's basically a parallelogram design with half of the parallelogram folded to sit in the back of the tower. It still has a central torsion spring reacting to rotation of a pivot bar. So, linear to the rotational angle. 

 

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19 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

OK, as long as the string is strong enough that I can clearly feel the force ramp up. Also, how good it is for really small adjustments close to the center? 

Center is pretty good. I haven't opened it yet. But AFAIK, they still advertise the H.E.A.R.T system, i.e. MLX90316/MLX90333 run under a 3-wire SPI mode. So is the TFRP. The toe brakes look like some linear sensor. Don't know what they are. Could be just some simple linear POTs, could be some linear Hall sensors, could be magnetic linear POTs. Don't know. Anyway, the main response curve is linear, no dead center, no sticktion I can detect (shouldn't have much as it's pretty much a parallelogram mechanism, so only poor bearing/sleeve quality could mess that up). At center, fine adjustment is only limited by the centering force generated by two springs with an adjustable mechanism. If you are flying choppers, you really don't want too much centering force. So, unless you add damper(s), there should be no sticktion to hamper your fine adjustment (the main reason I ditched TFRP).

You can use one spring, or two springs. And the fine adjustment can be done with thumb screws (IMHO, superfluous, as I can't feel the difference with the bottom of my bare feet with the range of the adjustment, but some might like it). One spring vs two spring, however, makes a huge difference. Since the two springs are exposed outside of the "casing", you can easily replace them. 

 

 

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IMO the springs of the TPR are too weak for fixed wings. I put a few rubber bands around the springs and that realy made a difference. Now they feel pretty good. However, the rubber bands need to be replaced from time to time, but it is a 50 cent mod and absolutely worth it.

 

 

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Edited by VpR81
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Try Lee Spring online.... tons of in stock springs... but, for small quantity, the markups is quite high, and the s/h is another killer.

Or you can just make some springs with piano wires. This type of tension spring is very easy to make... a mandrel plus a cordless drill, and some simple wooden jig will do just fine.

 

 

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I can probably get a spring on Aliexpress that would fit, for a lot less money. There's a ton of that stuff there, and while I didn't always have good experiences with it, simple things like springs and screws are usually OK. 

Unfortunately, it's quite possible to overdo spring tension. Leaving aside the chair rolling backwards (easily solved, though it's a bit of a pain), I currently don't have a good way to mount the pedals. They do seem like a hefty piece of gear, but even that has its limits.


Edited by Dragon1-1
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I use two pieces of marble slabs. You know, those ones used for making pie crust (not cheap, mind you!). One on the front to weight down the front metal lip and prevent it from sliding forward. One on the rear (in reference to the aircrafts) to weigh down the rear metal lip to prevent it from tipping over and to boost the floor height by about 1" for my heels.

After I praised the TPR, I feel obliged to tell you what I think the two solvable problems with TPR.

The trouble is that the TPR pedal height is about 3.5" center to floor (the axel center height). F16 has about 2.5".  So, TPR is slightly too high, even for a reclined sitting situation. It's good for if you were lying down in a pit with a highly reclined ejection seat a foot from the floor, with a pair of USAF issued boots which boosts your heel height... but if you are sitting in an office chair... your leg angle is way too steep, and you are bare footed on carpet.... both factors reduce the effective height of your heels and makes it quite uncomfortable. So, that extra 1" thick of marble slab made a huge difference for me. Plus, this kind of marble slab is very smooth but not mirror slick, great for sliding the heels on it when maneuvering aggressively, much better than carpet. Moreover, I don't want my carpet to have two bare threaded "pedal tracks."

Even though TPR has the provision to adjust the angle of the pedals to suit office chair sitting situation, it's, nevertheless, not very good. The trouble here is that at that angle, you would have to lift your heels off the floor in order to reach for the toe brakes and press down (our feet have surprisingly little range of motion for tiling up and down, about 45 to 50 degree only), but there is no provision for heel support. So, your feet are kind of dangling half in the air with no reference, making centering very difficult unless you have strong springs to center it for you. And the dangling half is where the gravity is pulling down on your whole lower leg. Not good ergonomics. I prefer to fly with my heels on the floor, thus giving me a relative location reference for fine adjustments. So, I usually fly with my toes on the pedals and heels on the floor. 3.5" is way too high for that when sitting on a high office chair (awkward foot angle). When making large movement, I move my heels. But for fine adjustment, I tilt my feet without moving my heels. And I only put my heel off the floor and reach for the toe brakes when I am landing or taxiing. Hey, 99% of time I am in the air, not on the ground. So, I favor the solution that give me better in the air performance. After all... most of the aircrafts are like swans... they only waddle badly on the ground, particularly the F16s with its narrow wheel base.

I am sure somebody could easily design and print a heel support for it. I, myself, don't want heel supports. I want my heels on the floor, a boosted floor, or the pedal height should have been lower, much lower. If I had to guess... I would guess the heel support was cut for cost saving. Things like that are always tempting targets for cost saving measures. Moreover, if you look at the aluminum arms where the pedals axels are attached to, you would see some casted features that currently have no function.... but they look like stops and notches for attaching some kind of heel support option.

These... probably some would argue that it's a personal taste... kind of... but they really are ergonomic design issues that aren't solved. The reason I said that is that for an office chair sitting, you need to tilt the pedal angle down to fit the range of motion of our feet (TM did that), and either design in heel support, or lower the pedal height (probably to about 1" for heel on floor). But if you want your pedals to support both reclined sitting and office chair situations, you probably would be wise to make the height adjustable (say make it 1" high, but supply a couple of cheap booster blocks), and make the heel support a detachable option. TM did neither. So, IMHO, it's a design miss, but also possibly a business decision miss.

But they can be easily redheck'd. So, not a big problem. You know, if I can't easily cut the pedal height down... I can boost the floor height for my heels! 

 

 

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