DIY Throttle Quadrant Help

[cakequest 4]

Thanks so much guys!!!

This is exactly what I needed!!! If the prices are similar to what Chock listed, I'll be saving quite a lot of money!

One more question Chock, would it work to use plywood instead of metal? I assume it would, but since I haven't built anything like this before, I am just double-checking with the experts ;)

[Lionel Mandrake 7]

Hello Chock, roger your drawing, this is very like what I made except that in my case the angle steel is a piece of ready-made slotted angle and the pot. is driven by a parallel motion made of two pieces of plastic cut from a paint can's handle. This prevents damage to the pot from overtravel. The handle arm is a piece of aluminium 1/2" x 1/4" from an old 19" rack and the throttle handle a redundant forward grip from an electric drill. There is also a mixture lever but I haven't rigged that up to a pot. yet as I need rudder pedals more than anything.

[flyforever 267]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

Okay, here you go, knocked up this drawing for you which should get you started, including costing. Couple of bits of mild steel bent in a vice and cut out with a hacksaw then filed off/cleaned up with emery cloth and a hole drilled in the lever so it'll slide over the pot shaft and bob's yer uncle. Knock up a box to put it in, connect the board to the circuit USB connector and to your PC, calibrate it in FSx or P3D etc and you're in business. That board will support up to eight potentiometers and thirty two buttons, and they just connect to the pins, so just rinse and repeat for dual/quad throttles, flap levers, trim wheels, buttons, switches etc. Easy. You could bang that out in a weekend no problem.

 

 

[flyforever 267]

Not so fast. Without gearing the pot and the lever, you end up with a very long lever movement. The pot rotates 290 degrees. A lever will rotate 70-90 degrees. It can't be done without gears or pulleys.

tony

[cakequest 4]

Just now, flyforever said:

Not so fast. Without gearing the pot and the lever, you end up with a very long lever movement. The pot rotates 290 degrees. A lever will rotate 70-90 degrees. It can't be done without gears or pulleys.

tony

So how would you go about building this then? Couldn't you build some sort of stopper or something?

[Lionel Mandrake 7]

Hello flyforever; you are right, but it doesn't matter. You can and ideally would alter the ratio using gearing or levers to use as much of the pot.'s travel as possible, but I have found using X-plane 11 that the internal calibration routine can handle more or less anything and will automatically allow for the amount of pot. travel in use.

[flyforever 267]

the pot must rotate 290 degrees in order to provide the 0-100% electrical input. The lever usually moves 80 degrees. The lever is then equipped with either a pulley or gear so that the ratio is 3 to 1 or so. There's no other way to do this, unless you can find pots that rotate only 90 degrees, like the ones found in a Saitek quadrant.

[flyforever 267]

1 minute ago, Lionel Mandrake said:

Hello flyforever; you are right, but it doesn't matter. You can and ideally would alter the ratio using gearing or levers to use as much of the pot.'s travel as possible, but I have found using X-plane 11 that the internal calibration routine can handle more or less anything and will automatically allow for the amount of pot. travel in use.

That's good to know.

[Lionel Mandrake 7]

Hello all; further to my last, am I allowed to post photos here? I believe there is a size limit but can't immediately find out what it is. My two photos are about 650K and about 450K; will I get away with it?

[Chock 17,769]

13 minutes ago, flyforever said:

Not so fast. Without gearing the pot and the lever, you end up with a very long lever movement. The pot rotates 290 degrees. A lever will rotate 70-90 degrees. It can't be done without gears or pulleys.

tony

Yup, but this is why I said calibrate it in the sim and did not suggest only one resistance setting but a choice of them, moreover, it was something to help with getting the ball rolling for the OP rather than a high precision diagram, as you can probably tell from the silly name I gave it. You can indeed gear it for smoother movement over a wider range of resistance, feel free to draw that if you like, I couldn't be bothered lol.

[Chock 17,769]

59 minutes ago, cakequest said:

Thanks so much guys!!!

This is exactly what I needed!!! If the prices are similar to what Chock listed, I'll be saving quite a lot of money!

One more question Chock, would it work to use plywood instead of metal? I assume it would, but since I haven't built anything like this before, I am just double-checking with the experts ;)

Yup, that drawing was really only to illustrate that it isn't rocket science and not exactly particularly complicated from a wiring standpoint either. Note that you could make it even simpler by using slider potentiometers such as these linked below (these are the sort which you find on stereos for the EQ and balance); they are exactly the same as a rotary one in terms of what they do, and would probably make building a throttle really easy, since you'd only need a box with an angled top and a slot cut in it for the sliding bit. note that you do get what you pay for with potentiometers, so if there's one which is two quid and one which is four quid, the four quid one is probably more durable in terms of how many cycles it can withstand before wearing out. Also note that you can help to reduce the wear on pots by giving them a tiny squirt of WD-40 on the contacts, which will help to lubricate the contact strip and reduce the friction wear.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/products/7377795/?grossPrice=Y&cm_mmc=UK-PLA-DS3A-_-google-_-PLA_UK_EN_Passive_Components-_-Variable_Resistors-_-PRODUCT+GROUP&matchtype=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwvb487-M1wIVsgrTCh3NaQUbEAQYASABEgLTBvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Plywood or thick plastic or whatever you like would work, you could make simple butt-joins and brace them with a wooden strip inside to keep it tidy. Any old decent glue such as two-part epoxy (i.e. Araldite) would hold that sort of thing together. One thing you probably would want to do however, is either use sanding sealer or high build primer paint (can get that from auto part stores etc) on the wood so that when you painted it, the grain didn't show, as that kind of thing fills in the grain, as you'd presumably want it to look like metal, and that would do the trick, or you could laminate it with plastic card, which would also work I guess.

You will find that those Dollar stores/Pound shops are a useful source for all kinds of bits and pieces if you want to keep the budget small, and stuff around your house works too, for example, if you look at the tops of bottles and toothpaste tubes etc, they make pretty good control knobs with a bit of ingenuity and some glue, so keep an eye out for those. You can of course buy knobs and such, but why waste money when a bit of inventiveness will get you them for nothing? You can reinforce those things with filler and that will also work to have them fit snugly over the sliders and rotary bits of pots and switches.

Doing all that stuff will make it way cheaper than buying a throttle, and it'll probably look better too, and not only that, if it ever breaks, you'll know how to fix it for a couple of quid.

[flyforever 267]

Wd 40 and carbon don't do well. Electronic contact cleaner is the right chemical.

The fact is that building a multilever quadrant that is functional is a bit more difficult than simply putting a few parts together.

In theory, it can be done. In practice, after all the money and time has been spent, the Saitek looks like a bargain.

As i said earlier, building one would be more a question of the fun and pleasure that one derives from building one according to his or her fantasies than the money saved. I am all for it, but not because one thinks money will be saved.

When I built mine, I went through several prototypes before it felt and worked right.

 

 

 

 

[Chock 17,769]

11 minutes ago, flyforever said:

Wd 40 and carbon don't do well. Electronic contact cleaner is the right chemical.

The fact is that building a multilever quadrant that is functional is a bit more difficult than simply putting a few parts together.

In theory, it can be done. In practice, after all the money and time has been spent, the Saitek looks like a bargain.

As i said earlier, building one would be more a question of the fun and pleasure that one derives from building one according to his or her fantasies than the money saved. I am all for it, but not because one thinks money will be saved.

When I built mine, I went through several prototypes before it felt and worked right.

Yup, true enough in theory, but in practice I've used it loads of times for that with no issues on loads of my electric guitars and such. and if I'll cheerfully use it on my Telecasters, then there you go.

You are of course correct in saying that it requires a bit of thought to make stuff, but actually that is part of the fun with doing that kind of thing. Normally if I'm ever making anything like that, I'll kind of 'build stuff in my head' for a couple of weeks and figure things out that way rather than immediately reaching for the toolbox and ending up needing to rethink stuff then. Measure twice and cut once as they say.

For many people who aren't into that kind of thing, going buying something off the shelf is a hassle-free option, but if you are handy at making stuff, and as you say you enjoy it too, then it adds another aspect of enjoyment to the hobby. I guess it's like model aeroplanes, you can buy nice completed models, or you can make them and modify and create bits to have something unique, and enjoy a process of getting there too.

[flyforever 267]

we agree to agree.

[Bob Scott 7,712]

If you're going to the trouble of building your own quadrant, don't use pots...use Hall sensors.  Pots--all of them--wear out over time because they involve a wiper sliding over a resistive surface.  A Hall sensor measures the strength of a magnetic field from a nearby magnet...they only wear out when the bearings in them do, typically after tens of millions of cycles.  They also generally provide more accurate, precise and repeatable measurements.  I use both Hall Effect IC packages (typically about $2 each) with a rare earth magnet , and sometimes a Honeywell HE rotary transducer (about $45) to replace rotary pots.  The HE replacements I did on my 15-year-old PFC yoke and throttle quad have not only pretty much indefinitely extended their lives, but they are far smoother and low-maintenance--in the 6 years since I replaced the electronics I have yet to have to touch one of the HE sensors, as opposed to yearly cleaning and/or replacements of the pots that came installed in them.

The Leo Bodnar boards handle 3-wire Hall modules just as easily as pots.

Regards