What bolt size for the HOTAS Warthog plates?

[Ranma13]

Hello, I'm looking to mount the HOTAS Warthog throttle and joystick to a metal plate using bolts and nuts. What size bolt and nut would be the most optimal for this kind of mounting?

[Cookie]

Well, according to my caliper (which is about a million years old) the holes have a diameter of 5.75mm. Therefore your best bet would probably be M5 size nuts and bolts.

[cichlidfan]

I used #10 hardware for mine.

[Cookie]

#10 hardware? Is that one of those weird imperial measures?

[Ranma13]

Thanks, I'll pick up some M4 and M5 bolts and see how they fit.

[cichlidfan]

#10 hardware? Is that one of those weird imperial measures?

 

Sure is. I don't even know why, I just know how big they are. :P

[metalnwood]

Depends, are you taking the joystick off the square plate it comes with? If so then you need metric M4 bolts, nothing else will do.

 

If you are bolting the stick down using the plate it already has then whatever fits, looks like m5 from a previous post.

[Ranma13]

To give a little background, I recently picked up the Volair Sim gaming chair, which has 2 plates on either side of the seat specifically for joystick/throttle mounting. I've already mounted the joystick and throttle onto the 2 plates, reusing the screws from both, but now I'm trying to do a hackish thing that's hard to describe in words. I'll add some pictures tonight once I pick up those nuts and bolts.

[cichlidfan]

To give a little background, I recently picked up the Volair Sim gaming chair, which has 2 plates on either side of the seat specifically for joystick/throttle mounting. I've already mounted the joystick and throttle onto the 2 plates, reusing the screws from both, but now I'm trying to do a hackish thing that's hard to describe in words. I'll add some pictures tonight once I pick up those nuts and bolts.

 

I have that same chair. I am always interested in mounting ideas. Mine is rather crude at the moment but still serviceable. I am currently working on a way to move the stick to the center between my knees.

 

I'll be looking for your post later.

[metalnwood]

I see, in that case you probably dont want the large base of the stick bolted on to the small plate on your right side.

 

It should be easy to take off the plate from the hog. The plate will then have the four holes matching the bolt pattern. Use this as a template to drill some holes on your sim chair plate and with some new m4 bolts, screw in from the underside. I dont believe you can reuse the bolts from other plate as they are countersunk and possibly not long enough.

[Ranma13]

I have that same chair. I am always interested in mounting ideas. Mine is rather crude at the moment but still serviceable. I am currently working on a way to move the stick to the center between my knees.

 

I'll be looking for your post later.

 

I wouldn't hold your breath :).

 

What I did was I removed the joystick from the base plate by unscrewing the 4 screws, then reattached it to the Volair's right plate using the same 4 screws. The Volair's plate is pre-drilled for the Warthog joystick, so this was a cinch, essentially swapping one base plate for the other.

 

The throttle was a little more tricky. The throttle actually has 2 plates on its underside; one to cover the bottom, and another plate over that to presumably add more weight. The Volair's plate actually has 2 sets of drill holes that are compatible with the throttle; one is intended to be used with the edge of the throttle where the provided mounting holes are, and another set on the underside that's normally used to hold the second plate in. I removed the extra base plate and 'replaced' it with the Volair's plate by using this set of screw holes.

 

What I'm trying to do now though is extend the Volair's base plate a bit so that I can mount a Saitek throttle quadrant on it to act as a ghetto fabulous collective. I'm looking to reuse the Warthog's extra base plate by attaching it back onto the throttle, but backwards so that it forms an extra platform for me to mount the throttle quadrant on.

 

Like I said, hard to describe in words, so I'll post some pics to explain how it's set up :).

[cichlidfan]

??? My plates don't have a hole pattern to match the Warthog stick, though it did not matter since my stick is rotated 18 deg CW and I also wanted it closer to the chair.

[Ranma13]

The newest batch of Volair Sim chairs has drill holes for the Warthog. They added that into the recent batch that just shipped.