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We have a new web address now! And a new logo!!!!
I guess it’s official. Were moving up the food chain!!! Tell all your friends! Post it on your wall! Make a mural! It has arrived!
X45
It’s time for an upgrade.
Well what do you do when you break your throttle? Well, you can roll up into a ball and cry. You can shell out a $100 or more for another. Or you can grab opportunity by the neck and do what you’ve always wanted to do, build a new one!!! Yes folks I have built a helicopter throttle out of my Saitek X45 throttle. For about $25 you can experiment with your joystick and see what you can do with it. I would recommend going to Micro Center and buying a cheep ps2 type controller and trying to mod it or just build one from scratch after doing this. There were so many wires because they seperated each component and soldered a small bread board to each section. So everything was linked together basically. It was time consuming, but worth it in the end. No risk no reward. I still have to build a set of pedals for the rudder control. There was a slide potentiometer on the bottom of the throttle, originally, hooked up to a little paddle. I got to thinking about when I did car stereo’s and I would use a big cable with about 12 wires in it to run to the back of the car to hook up to the amplifier. I said to myself, why don’t you just use cat5 cable? Well I did 2 6ft runs to the board and tested it and it worked just fine. I initially was worried about latency, but it didn’t show up when I tested it. Here is a pict of the first test.
As you can see it was a big jumble of wires. Now the buttons were attached to the other side of the rudder control so I had to do 2 more runs of cat5 cable back up to where I would put the buttons on the throttle. So lets shift gears for a minute and talk about cost. I used stuff I had laying around mostly. Some guy gave me a bag of old cables, that’s where the cat 5 came from. I also had most of the tools. Here is a pict of all the tools I used.
So cost was minimal for me. I say for me because I hate when people say you can do this for XX dollars and they had half the crap there and it would really cost you 2 times that much. So I won’t say it would be cheep for you. But really I could have got by with a solider gun, hot glue gun, soldier, tape, wire and pvc pipe. It don’t have to be pretty, it just has to work. You can make the pvc bend by cutting it and heating it. Then you can form it. I had to make the base connector by doing that because the 3/4 inch pipe was about a 1/8 inch too big to attach it securely. 1 5ft stick of pvc could do it all. My total cost was about $22 actually.
This is kind of an informal post so i’ve been babbling but I do want to talk about one of the highlights. The Dymo Letratag was a nice addition for this proj. If your going to build a big sim pit and you want a way to label the switches and make it look good for cheep, then this is the way to go. Here is a pict of the switch box up close. Not all the labels are on there yet.
When you figure how much it would cost to CNC machine the labels onto the plates this is a good alternative. Also it is a thermal printer so there is no ink and the labels are plastic so they are pretty resilient to wear and tear too.
Well there’s more to come. Stay tuned.
Stop controlling me!!!
One thing we haven’t talked about yet is controls. The type of flight stick you use and/or throttle can definitely impact you’re experience. Personally, I use a Saitek X45, but there are many other types of sticks that can do the job. Don’t think just because I have an X 45 that you should use that stick. The saying goes poor men have poor ways. If you want some suggestions for different types of stick / throttle setups then I would recommend the Thrustmaster HOTAS warthog , Thrustmaster T-flight HOTAS, Saitek X55 or 65f, and any Logitech stick. Of course the most economical of these will be the Thrustmaster T flight and the Logitech sticks. The Thrustmaster T-flight will probably give you the best experience for the price. Thrustmaster has long been known for its joysticks. This setup will give you a throttle and flight stick for around $50. The stick has over 10 different buttons that you can assign two different things and the throttle and stick can be separated or locked together. There are 2 different rudder controls, a paddle on the throttle and the flight stick will twist. With all these features and the fact it is very it’s smooth to control, I have made it my beginners top choice and a definite top choice for the game War Thunder.
The Thrustmaster HOTAS warthog is probably the most expensive, but it is the Cadillac of flight sticks and my overall top choice. Over 30 programmable buttons, multiple hat switches and the fact it is also an authentic reproduction of a A10 warthog flight stick give this setup it’s top ratings. Now these systems are mainly fighter jet setups, for a Cessna or a 747 type plane you would want a flight yoke from Microsoft or Siatek.
Overall you must review the type of plane you will simulate most and try to find something accommodating. There are many choices, but remember, you will get what you pay for when it comes to flight sticks. Hope this helps. Happy flying.
Sonic Boom Simulations 