I'm tired of flying the PMDG 737 with only a joystick, so I've decided to splurge and build a whole cockpit.  My budget isn't bad, but it isn't great either (let's say maybe... a few thousand dollars over the course of one year).

 

Anyways, I want to begin my project by making the throttle quadrant first.  There are two ways I can go about this (that I know of):
 

• Buy two saitek throttle quadrants and merge them together, which would give me six slots - 2 Throttle, 2 Reversers, 1 Spoiler and 1 Flap, plus six switches that I have yet to decide a purpose for

      < OR >

• Buy an Arduino chipset and Make my own throttle box, which might give me more room to customize, but I need to know: can Arduino chipsets support incremental controls like throttles, or do they only support simple on/off states?

Do fellow simmers here have a preference over these two options for custom cockpits?  Are there any other recommendations?

 

Thanks,
Leif

Leif -- check out mycockpit.org , you should be able to get help there. 

Leif -- check out mycockpit.org , you should be able to get help there. 

Thanks, I'll check it out.

This might be in your price range:

 

http://jetmax.ca/

If you want to go the Arduino route, incremental inputs are simply potmeters they create a variable resistance for an analog input in the microcontroller. I've used this to build for instance a Lego flap lever connected to an Arduino and interfaced via FSUIPC to P3D.

 

You could easily build a throttle using this, but with my skill set I would be more worried about getting the mechanics right than dealing with the inputs which is relatively easy ;-)