Making a FFB Yoke

[Guest 71_vw]

I have made my own flight yoke for my pit. And I would love to add FFB to it. I do not own a FFB joystick to take apart to see how the internals work. So does anybody know what kind of signal the computer outputs to the controler to control the motors in the FFB control? I also would assume there are some position feed back pots that feed back to the computer as well to tell the the controls current position. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

[dbrucem 0]

I have made my own flight yoke for my pit. And I would love to add FFB to it. I do not own a FFB joystick to take apart to see how the internals work. So does anybody know what kind of signal the computer outputs to the controler to control the motors in the FFB control? I also would assume there are some position feed back pots that feed back to the computer as well to tell the the controls current position. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

I recently added FFB to my CH Flight yoke by using components from a Pegasus FFB joystick mfg by AVB. This joystick can be purchased on line, I got mine at www.geeks.com, for $5 plus shipping. While it was designed for Win 98 you can download a driver for XP at www.avbusa.com. I utilized the motor assemblies and circuit boards which interface to the computer via an USB cable. I choose to retain the CH Yoke follow pots and just connected them to the Pegasus FFB control PCB to simplify the mechanical interfacing. I also was able to interface the CH yoke switches and two of the three lever action pots which I use for flaps and spoiler controls. I mounted the pitch motor and circuit boards in a Radio Shack project box which I sandwitched to the front left corner of the CH housing. The roll motor assembly was mounted on the other side of the CH housing and extends out of the CH housing.I was able to connect the motor asseblies to the cH yoke using pushrods. I would recommend obtaining the joystick and installing it to make sure you will be happy with its performance. It is easy to dissasemble and you can use it to investigate FFB. It might be possible to mechanically connect the motor gear assemblies to your homemade yoke. I found the AVB joystick to be comparible to the Saitek Evo FFB joystick. When it was initailly released it was sold for around $80 so the current $5 price is pretty awesome. I also have a MS Sidewinder FFB2 stick but there was no way I was going to gut it for parts so the Pegasus is a good compromise between price and performance. I have logged about fifty hours primarily on my CitationX and RealAir SF260 and I am very happy with the hybrid's performance. There is some slight mechanical play that I would like to eliminate but overall it works very well. I also use an addon FFB utility called FSForce which is a definite improvement over the default FFB since it adds realistic pitch trim action to the simulator. I would have liked to upload some pictures but I haven't figured out how to do this with this new forum. Good luck with your project. It would be nice if a commercail version would become available but for now DIY is the only option.

[Guest baman]

Hi Bruce,I am planning a similar modification to a CH Pro Yoke. Any guidance (photos) etc., would be very welcome.Thanks in advance.Dave