@Phantoms, PFC, Yoko and now Fulcrum are all using Hall-effect sensors having previously used pots. That fact that none have switched to laser tells me that it's not a viable alternative. You are the first person who has suggested laser. Clearly there is a good reason why it's not suitable for yokes etc.

There's no wear with Hall-effect sensors.

Wow this has gone off topic! Well, I can continue to lead it further afield! 🙂

Hall sensors are a great alternative to pots as they, like pots, have a discreet range that can be translated onto a set physical movement range. You could make a mechanism that uses optical sensors to but it would be very hard to have it recognise where it is as it is primarily design to detect movement only and not position.

For example, if you plug our yoke in with it is not centred then it still knows its position and will show the correct position in the joystick screen and if you then centre it, it will show as centred. With an optical system it would be off centre. Think of how moving an optical mouse while it is unplugged and then connecting it does not move the pointer to the new mouse position.

Nearly all joystick controllers of whatever shape use pots or hall type sensors for this reason. Hall sensors are so convenient because of the above reason but without some of the drawbacks of pots. They offer a high degree of resolution (providing you are measuring a decent amount of bits), they do not have contacts that slide on each other which can be noisy and get dirty and in some cases can wear out and they are not huge amounts of money (definitely more than pots and to do it properly are not cheap) when compared to more exotic solutions like optical development. You probably could come up with an optical solution but it would take development costs and probably would not give you a functional advantage over a Hall sensor. I'm not an expert on this though so I will stick with our solution!

I hope this rather clumsy explanation makes sense!

Chris

Edited September 26, 20205 yr by tutmeister

Thank you Chris, just wondered why it had never been done.

Hi Charles,

If you can afford it I would recommend the Brunner force feedback yoke, have been using it for over a year and it feels like the real thing.

Robert

1 hour ago, HUSSAR said:

Hi Charles,

If you can afford it I would recommend the Brunner force feedback yoke, have been using it for over a year and it feels like the real thing.

Robert

Thanks, I saw a youtube vid with Austin from XP and they were comparing that one, the Yoko, the Honeycomb, and the Saitek.  Was pretty interesting.  I did end up getting a Honeycomb though and it delivered a week ago. Been loving it so far, can't wait to add the throttle to it (using my X52's throttle for now).  My next project before even that though is to get a hold of some rudder pedals somehow.  Oddly, taxiing airliners in MSFS 2020 isn't too bad with loss of the twist rudder for steering, but small aircraft like the TBM 930 in it are nearly impossible to get a tight turn with anymore.  I might try making a second controller profile for the yoke that binds roll to the rudder instead to get that back, then swap profiles after lineup.

Edited September 28, 20205 yr by flyinion