Having built a button box with some rotary encoders for things like flaps, alt and VS it makes flying so much easier now...and now I've found this I just have to try and make one. This is just great, you've designed the 3d printed parts so well and the whole things works very simply, not using programs to handle the inputs. Oh look, I have a spare Arduino Micro :). My brain can cope with this, unlike many others I've seen. Thank you very much for making this available! Fab work!
Thank you so much for this fantastic project. Brilliant engineering, especially the trim wheel. Currently printing all the parts to make a 6 segment quadrant (Throttle, Mixture, Flaps, Gear, Trim Wheel & Prop). Look forward to seeing how it turns out.
Great project, I love it. Good job! I am using the doubled up throttles, mixtures and prop potentiometers with the trim wheel in MSFS. Works great with the P38, islander and any other twin engine aircraft. Thanks for your hard work and great engineering. Cheers!
5th sub! I was planning of making a trim wheel, and your design is brilliant. That's the one feature every hotas should come with but don't.... Trimming with buttons is the worst. I'll try with a rotary encoder for unlimited rotation to eliminate having to center the wheel Thanks for sharing.
Hi Frank, thanks for the feedback. I have used it on quite a few flights now and have found that I never have to turn the trim wheel more than 1/4 turn so recentering is no problem with the indicator.
I tried a rotary encoder, it is frustrating. Many many turns to get significant trim. Fine trim is good but initial trim is hard. I am going to try Mark's wheel. A potentiometer has specific positions unlike an encoder. Printing now.
Very generous and really well made. I did make the trim wheel and tested. It seems there is not enough range in the pot for accuracy. Using just a lever on the raw pot and setting values to 0,1023, as revealed in IDE gives substantially more precision and responsiveness. Scaling the value seems to kill accuracy. Even so, I love the way you have made it but I feel it needs to achieve full pot rotation. I will endeavor to modify your design for my use but I am not too good at engineering. Thanks so much for sharing your work.
Original comment cliff note: Trim was jumpy, added this to smooth it out a bit. Edit: I added a bit of code that averages 20 readings, while it might slow down the process a bit, it's still plenty fast for a throttle quadrant: int translateValue(int v, int f1, int f2){ // translates values to a 0 - 1023 range int result = 0; int start = 1023; float range = 0; int numReads = 20; //number of samples int senseSum = 0; // sum of sensor readings for(int k = 0; k < numReads; k++) {senseSum += v; delay(1); } int senseAve = senseSum / numReads;
if(f1 < f2){ start = f1; range = f2 - f1; } else{ start = f2; range = f1 - f2; }
result = (senseAve - start) * (1023 / range); if(result < 0) result = 0; if(result > 1023) result = 1023;
@@cspace1412 It's actually in my comment above; however... I actually ended up converting this arduino to mobiflight which has adjustable smoothing built in and it made life so much easier. It's free if you're not familiar with it and they do support analog inputs now quite nicely even on the pro micro.
Have you considered a Leo Bodnar board instead of an Arduino? The BU0836A can give 8 analogue channels and 32 buttons. The analogue channels are native 12-bit, not 10-bit/calculated, like the Arduino version. No coding involved - just plug in the pots and switches, then it's calibrated in Windows like any other joystick.
Great construction! Are you perhaps also thinking about a solution with hall effect sensors? I assume that the pot you use has a 270° angle of rotation. But with the angle of the lever the resolution is reduced from 1024 steps to only 350, which causes rough jumps in the deflections. I know, it is nearly impossible to find usable pots with only 90° angle of rotation to get the maximum resolution. With Hall effect sensors a full 1024 resolution would be possible.
Yes the rotary encoders are about 270° rotation, but even so, the resolution is sufficient to not cause rough jumps in the deflections. Although the rotation is limited to 90° and 350 steps, that still gives about 4 steps per degree and you would really have to want extra fine control to only move a throttle lever a 1/4 of a degree, about 0.4mm.
@@markb232 I like the idea to have max resolution. I have the Saitek Throttle Quadrant with its well-known cheapy pots. Cleaning them helps for a short time. I mostly play Elite Dangerous with it for now (until FS 2020 ;) ) and use the left lever for the vertical thrusters and it really needs very fine control to hover down to the landing pad. Or think about pitch control for helicopters. Depending on the application, most people don't even notice the lower resolution. But max 1024 res is a nice-to-have in a homebrew solution, where mass-production manufacturers can't afford more material costs to do it. Your modular design is very well thought out, but with hall effect sensors it would be even better! :)
Brilliant design and thorough explanation, thank you very much. Does the Arduino board voltage matter? I'm using a Pro Micro 3V3 with hall sensors and there're some problems with analogue reading
Hi there, Excellent design, and I built a throttle unit but the trim wheel just wont fit together well for me. The pin on which the idler wheel comes out far too large and is not easy to trim to size. Is it possible to get hold of the original design (preferably in Fusion) so that I can modify it to take a steel pin. Thanks.
The CAD files are all available on Arduino Projects and Thingieverse, links in the video description, in STEP and STL format. STEP files should import into Fusion just fine.
So cool, great project and a big thanks for the information. I'm currently researching this stuff as I hope to make a button box to help a gamer with limited mobility. I'm reading some guides saying it needs to be a controller with DFU mode - they flip the firmware. Did you need to do this? Can you recommend anywhere that's good for getting novice help with this?
No tricky stuff here, just use an Arduino Leonardo or Micro and use the joystick library to get up to 6 axes and 32 buttons, details of the library are widely available on the net
Elegant and simple design. I think I went overboard with mine - if it was in an actual plane it would be too heavy for the plane to fly. What was the range of rotation of the potentiometers you used?
Mark I just built one module. Thanks for including the step file, I had to make some changes to accomodate my pot. It's 5mm longer than yours, I couldn't find shorter so I had to make the module a bit wider. I just tested it in MSFS and it works nice but I get a lot of jerkiness on the throttle. What I mean is when I throttle it up, wherever I stop it, the throttle in the game moves slightly back and forth presumably with each reading of the pot. Any way to smooth it out? TKS!
Thanks, it feels good considering it is all 3D printed plastic, the wheel is my favourite bit, it is so much nicer than jabbing some buttons with no real feedback on the amount it has been moved or where the trim wheel is in its travel.
The trim wheel works so well and is very light to turn due I guess to the gear reduction. You can hardly feel that it's turning a potentiometer. A thousand times nicer then using buttons to trim.
I really like the design and actually printed it and built it. I can't get the joystick.h working though. When compiling the code IDE says: 'Joystick_' does not name a type; did you mean 'Joystick'?
@@markb232 hi, really appreciate your response! i am using your sketch yes, but have modified the design slightly to suit my need (really appreciate how open this whole project is) my values range from 0-1023, but I have a feeling this may be too large of a range maybe?
0-1023 is what the flight sim will be expecting so that should not be the issue. The only thing I can suggest without seeing the problem first hand is try to establish if it is a mechanical or control issue, try taking the pot out of the unit and just turning it manually, does it still move jerkily?
Thank you very much, it's what I was looking for! I'm printing all the quadrant in PLA! I've printed throttle and mixture, and I can see there is to low friction and doesn't stick, everytime is falling due to gravity. Do you think there is any solution? Thanks and greetings.
Hi, what friction plate are you using? there are 3 in the files. I think you just need to increase the friction between the friction plate and the lever, I would try adding a piece of rubber between them, a small piece of rubber sheet maybe 1mm thick should work, glue it to the friction plate and when it is thoroughly set put it in the assembly. If you do not have rubber sheet, you may be able to cut up a tap washer or pencil eraser to give you a suitable piece. Hope this helps. Mark
Hi Colin D, there are full instructions in the Arduino Projects link in the description, but one to the 5v, one to ground and the wiper to any of the analogue input pins, there is an Arduino sketch in the project as well.
Do you know if arduino would work for other sims like il2 GB. I plan on building a throttle quadrant for that sim but have very little knowledge of the electronics that are involved.
The arduino is seen by the PC as a game controller, so as long as the game works with standard Windows game controllers and you can control what is controlled by each axis it will work just fine. The arduino has to be a Micro or Leonardo, as they are the ones that can act as human interface devices. The electronics are really just connecting the potentiometers to the arduino so there is very little that can go wrong there.
Hi, what holes are coming out small? Can you open them up with hand tools? The full CAD file is included so you could make adjustments in any CAD package and print again.
@@markb232 I think it's a printing issue. All the holes comes out smaller in diameter in all my prints. Usually I need to enlarge by 103%. I cannot do it for parts that have to fit together. I was wondering who has any tips. It's seems a lot of people have this issue. Searching the web it's called hole shrinkage. It's due to circles are represented by vectors. If the holes are squared, it won't shrink.
@@csleeut I'm having the same issue, did you ever find a fix? I only have a problem with the pot shaft and slotted spindle holes being undersized. I am trying to figure out how to enlarge it, but this is a large learning curve not least of all which software is best to use.
@@markb232 funciona perfecto en X-Plane 11. Solo tengo un problema, cuando pasa unos segundo X-Plane se congela y deja de funcionar todo! No se a qué es debido...
They are often called "automatic wire strippers" but I don't think there is an official name for them. I got mine at a model engineering show a few years ago, they do not have any makers name on them but they work really well.
I think that would require an additional axis (or at least a switch) so that is not in the current design, it would be possible to redesign it with that funcion. The CAD files are available from the links in the description.
Having built a button box with some rotary encoders for things like flaps, alt and VS it makes flying so much easier now...and now I've found this I just have to try and make one. This is just great, you've designed the 3d printed parts so well and the whole things works very simply, not using programs to handle the inputs. Oh look, I have a spare Arduino Micro :). My brain can cope with this, unlike many others I've seen. Thank you very much for making this available! Fab work!
Hi James, thanks for the feedback, nice to be appreciated :)
This is incredibly well thought out, I have seen a lot of people try something similar and it never worked as well as it appears this does.
Thanks, always nice to get positive comments
"Well thought out" would have been wiring the pot BEFORE fitting it in the awkward place to solder. ;)
Thank you so much for this fantastic project. Brilliant engineering, especially the trim wheel. Currently printing all the parts to make a 6 segment quadrant (Throttle, Mixture, Flaps, Gear, Trim Wheel & Prop). Look forward to seeing how it turns out.
You are very welcome
Great project, I love it. Good job! I am using the doubled up throttles, mixtures and prop potentiometers with the trim wheel in MSFS. Works great with the P38, islander and any other twin engine aircraft. Thanks for your hard work and great engineering. Cheers!
Sounds great!
Thank you very much for sharing this. Just what I was looking for. Perfect!
Great to hear!
5th sub! I was planning of making a trim wheel, and your design is brilliant. That's the one feature every hotas should come with but don't.... Trimming with buttons is the worst.
I'll try with a rotary encoder for unlimited rotation to eliminate having to center the wheel
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Frank, thanks for the feedback.
I have used it on quite a few flights now and have found that I never have to turn the trim wheel more than 1/4 turn so recentering is no problem with the indicator.
I tried a rotary encoder, it is frustrating. Many many turns to get significant trim. Fine trim is good but initial trim is hard. I am going to try Mark's wheel. A potentiometer has specific positions unlike an encoder. Printing now.
Patrick Robinson
0 seconds ago
Awesome Possum !!!!😀😀😀
Great work Mark! I'm glad to see people dedicating their time and skills in to inventing and building things like this system.
Thanks, glad you appreciate it
Thank you SOOO Much. Really. You saved my day!!
Very generous and really well made. I did make the trim wheel and tested. It seems there is not enough range in the pot for accuracy. Using just a lever on the raw pot and setting values to 0,1023, as revealed in IDE gives substantially more precision and responsiveness. Scaling the value seems to kill accuracy. Even so, I love the way you have made it but I feel it needs to achieve full pot rotation. I will endeavor to modify your design for my use but I am not too good at engineering. Thanks so much for sharing your work.
What values did you end up with and did you use my sketch? What is the value of your pot? I did not suffer the same problem with a B50K pot.
Original comment cliff note: Trim was jumpy, added this to smooth it out a bit.
Edit: I added a bit of code that averages 20 readings, while it might slow down the process a bit, it's still plenty fast for a throttle quadrant:
int translateValue(int v, int f1, int f2){
// translates values to a 0 - 1023 range
int result = 0;
int start = 1023;
float range = 0;
int numReads = 20; //number of samples
int senseSum = 0; // sum of sensor readings
for(int k = 0; k < numReads; k++) {senseSum += v; delay(1);
}
int senseAve = senseSum / numReads;
if(f1 < f2){
start = f1;
range = f2 - f1;
}
else{
start = f2;
range = f1 - f2;
}
result = (senseAve - start) * (1023 / range);
if(result < 0) result = 0;
if(result > 1023) result = 1023;
return result;
}
Glad you got it working
could you share the code
@@cspace1412 It's actually in my comment above; however... I actually ended up converting this arduino to mobiflight which has adjustable smoothing built in and it made life so much easier. It's free if you're not familiar with it and they do support analog inputs now quite nicely even on the pro micro.
Very good project! thanks for sharing!
Thanks, it is good to be appreciated.
Nice build
Thanks!
wow!!! genius..
Absolutely fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Very nice! Lots of nifty ideas there.
You could 3d print a tool for the nuts. It would only take 10 - 20 mins.
Yes, good tip .. :)
Great design!
Glad you like it!
Good job friend
Thank you
Have you considered a Leo Bodnar board instead of an Arduino?
The BU0836A can give 8 analogue channels and 32 buttons. The analogue channels are native 12-bit, not 10-bit/calculated, like the Arduino version.
No coding involved - just plug in the pots and switches, then it's calibrated in Windows like any other joystick.
Yes, but I had an Arduino so I used that :) But seriously, thanks for making people aware that there is an alternative.
I'm not very arduino savvy but I was wondering if a Pro Micro could be used? I think the size would be so much better. Would that work fine?
@@guritche If it can act as a USB game controller then it should be fine, but I dont know anything about it so can't be sure.
@@markb232 yes I have used it for a button box it worked as a controller. Thanks Mark.
Great construction! Are you perhaps also thinking about a solution with hall effect sensors? I assume that the pot you use has a 270° angle of rotation. But with the angle of the lever the resolution is reduced from 1024 steps to only 350, which causes rough jumps in the deflections. I know, it is nearly impossible to find usable pots with only 90° angle of rotation to get the maximum resolution. With Hall effect sensors a full 1024 resolution would be possible.
Yes the rotary encoders are about 270° rotation, but even so, the resolution is sufficient to not cause rough jumps in the deflections. Although the rotation is limited to 90° and 350 steps, that still gives about 4 steps per degree and you would really have to want extra fine control to only move a throttle lever a 1/4 of a degree, about 0.4mm.
@@markb232 I like the idea to have max resolution. I have the Saitek Throttle Quadrant with its well-known cheapy pots. Cleaning them helps for a short time. I mostly play Elite Dangerous with it for now (until FS 2020 ;) ) and use the left lever for the vertical thrusters and it really needs very fine control to hover down to the landing pad. Or think about pitch control for helicopters. Depending on the application, most people don't even notice the lower resolution. But max 1024 res is a nice-to-have in a homebrew solution, where mass-production manufacturers can't afford more material costs to do it. Your modular design is very well thought out, but with hall effect sensors it would be even better! :)
Fantastic thanks for this.
My pleasure!
A very nice job. Thanks...
Thanks for watching!
Hey , nice job :) Which value and type (A,B...) of pot do you recommend for this kind of projects?
Thanks, the ones I used are B50K
@@markb232 thanks a lot :)
Brilliant design and thorough explanation, thank you very much.
Does the Arduino board voltage matter? I'm using a Pro Micro 3V3 with hall sensors and there're some problems with analogue reading
Sorry, I don't know, I have never used either ...
Hi there, Excellent design, and I built a throttle unit but the trim wheel just wont fit together well for me. The pin on which the idler wheel comes out far too large and is not easy to trim to size. Is it possible to get hold of the original design (preferably in Fusion) so that I can modify it to take a steel pin. Thanks.
The CAD files are all available on Arduino Projects and Thingieverse, links in the video description, in STEP and STL format. STEP files should import into Fusion just fine.
So cool, great project and a big thanks for the information. I'm currently researching this stuff as I hope to make a button box to help a gamer with limited mobility. I'm reading some guides saying it needs to be a controller with DFU mode - they flip the firmware. Did you need to do this? Can you recommend anywhere that's good for getting novice help with this?
No tricky stuff here, just use an Arduino Leonardo or Micro and use the joystick library to get up to 6 axes and 32 buttons, details of the library are widely available on the net
Elegant and simple design. I think I went overboard with mine - if it was in an actual plane it would be too heavy for the plane to fly. What was the range of rotation of the potentiometers you used?
They are about 3/4 of a turn.
Mark I just built one module. Thanks for including the step file, I had to make some changes to accomodate my pot. It's 5mm longer than yours, I couldn't find shorter so I had to make the module a bit wider. I just tested it in MSFS and it works nice but I get a lot of jerkiness on the throttle. What I mean is when I throttle it up, wherever I stop it, the throttle in the game moves slightly back and forth presumably with each reading of the pot. Any way to smooth it out? TKS!
Hi, are you using my sketch with the scaling? What values are you getting in the monitor?
Nice job. I´m curious to know how it feels.
Thanks, it feels good considering it is all 3D printed plastic, the wheel is my favourite bit, it is so much nicer than jabbing some buttons with no real feedback on the amount it has been moved or where the trim wheel is in its travel.
The trim wheel works so well and is very light to turn due I guess to the gear reduction. You can hardly feel that it's turning a potentiometer. A thousand times nicer then using buttons to trim.
I really like the design and actually printed it and built it.
I can't get the joystick.h working though. When compiling the code IDE says: 'Joystick_' does not name a type; did you mean 'Joystick'?
Hi, Do you have the line "#include " at the very top of the program?
If yes then you need to add the library to the IDE, it should show up in the menu "Sketch" option "Include library" list.
hi, for me the axis is incredibly jerky when I wind the potentiometer, anything I'm doing wrong here?
instead of a smooth up and down it seems to jump
Hi, are you using my sketch with the scaling? What values are you getting in the monitor?
@@markb232 hi, really appreciate your response!
i am using your sketch yes, but have modified the design slightly to suit my need (really appreciate how open this whole project is) my values range from 0-1023, but I have a feeling this may be too large of a range maybe?
0-1023 is what the flight sim will be expecting so that should not be the issue. The only thing I can suggest without seeing the problem first hand is try to establish if it is a mechanical or control issue, try taking the pot out of the unit and just turning it manually, does it still move jerkily?
Thank you very much, it's what I was looking for! I'm printing all the quadrant in PLA!
I've printed throttle and mixture, and I can see there is to low friction and doesn't stick, everytime is falling due to gravity.
Do you think there is any solution?
Thanks and greetings.
Hi, what friction plate are you using? there are 3 in the files. I think you just need to increase the friction between the friction plate and the lever, I would try adding a piece of rubber between them, a small piece of rubber sheet maybe 1mm thick should work, glue it to the friction plate and when it is thoroughly set put it in the assembly. If you do not have rubber sheet, you may be able to cut up a tap washer or pencil eraser to give you a suitable piece. Hope this helps. Mark
So how is the wiring to the arduino working? which pins should the 3 wires from the potentiometer go to?
Hi Colin D, there are full instructions in the Arduino Projects link in the description, but one to the 5v, one to ground and the wiper to any of the analogue input pins, there is an Arduino sketch in the project as well.
@@markb232 Oh I see. I was confused as to why one led to the A5. I see now. thanks for the speedy reply!
Do you know if arduino would work for other sims like il2 GB. I plan on building a throttle quadrant for that sim but have very little knowledge of the electronics that are involved.
The arduino is seen by the PC as a game controller, so as long as the game works with standard Windows game controllers and you can control what is controlled by each axis it will work just fine. The arduino has to be a Micro or Leonardo, as they are the ones that can act as human interface devices. The electronics are really just connecting the potentiometers to the arduino so there is very little that can go wrong there.
This is great. Do you mine doing a CAD tutorial? You are very talented.
Not enough time for that ... but thanks for the compliment.
I am having problem printing these as the holes are smaller than spec. Any tips?
Hi, what holes are coming out small?
Can you open them up with hand tools?
The full CAD file is included so you could make adjustments in any CAD package and print again.
@@markb232 I think it's a printing issue. All the holes comes out smaller in diameter in all my prints. Usually I need to enlarge by 103%. I cannot do it for parts that have to fit together. I was wondering who has any tips. It's seems a lot of people have this issue. Searching the web it's called hole shrinkage. It's due to circles are represented by vectors. If the holes are squared, it won't shrink.
@@csleeut I'm having the same issue, did you ever find a fix? I only have a problem with the pot shaft and slotted spindle holes being undersized. I am trying to figure out how to enlarge it, but this is a large learning curve not least of all which software is best to use.
@@Stanlee202 I heated up the pot shaft and pressed fit the part. For the other holes, I enlarge them slightly with a drill bit until it fits.
@@csleeut Many thanks.
Just make a flight stick from scratch in fusion 360
no funciona en X-Plane 11????? consigo que funciones durante unos segundo y luego se congela el simulador.....
Hi, Sorry that you are having trouble, I do not have x-plane so cannot comment on your problem. Hope you get it fixed
@@markb232 funciona perfecto en X-Plane 11. Solo tengo un problema, cuando pasa unos segundo X-Plane se congela y deja de funcionar todo! No se a qué es debido...
y en FS funciona perfecto, no se por qué en X-Plane no funciona bien
Maybe there is an x-plane forum or group you could ask for help
what is the name of this kind of wire stripper?
They are often called "automatic wire strippers" but I don't think there is an official name for them. I got mine at a model engineering show a few years ago, they do not have any makers name on them but they work really well.
Is there any way to get it to reverse trust
I think that would require an additional axis (or at least a switch) so that is not in the current design, it would be possible to redesign it with that funcion. The CAD files are available from the links in the description.
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