Oh man, so sorry. I kept mine. Almost gave it away but when I started seeing modding projects, decided to keep it and some day mod it. Well, that never happened so I decided to keep it as a museum piece. It’s a nice piece of hardware.
It was about 20 years ago, so who would’ve thought I’d have the skills to rebuild something like that 20 years down the line? Way too young to be thinking about that sort of thing!
Here is mine Talon
I thought about some DIY but as the ergonomics imo is not that great (it is little smaller than RL grip I guess) I think I will also keep it just as museum piece
The set up is kinda hard to get rid of, isn’t it?
I have the SFS Hawk, bottom-of-the-range, 4-button stick, found on Ebay for £8 a couple of years ago & have similar ideas. I was going to turn it into a replica Hornet/Harrier handle to attach to my Virpil base, but have since aquired the Mongoose T50-CM2 grip that does everything the TM handles do, and more. Since I usually fly in VR, the look of the handle isn’t as important as the layout of the buttons & I can successfully emulate the F-16, F-18, AV-8B & A-10 button layouts all on 1 grip.
So I have the Suncom handle lying idle & a yearning for a collective controller. The grip feels OK in the left hand so I plan to add a couple of ‘real’ 4 or 5-way hats in place of the fake moulded ones there already, then connect them and the original pots & switches to a pro-micro board, then add an axis lock & damper.
saw that extension on ebay lately but after quick search didnt find anything on thingyverse
anyway, in my scrapyard I have stick from Hughes 269. Would like to use only the stick pipe with X55 grip. But there are some technical challenges.
So my X55 is assembled back and I can start to think about the modifications needed. Dont know if it will lead to any final solution though
and here is the cyclic without grip already
as you can see, IRL it is not mounted to the floor but rather it is mounted underneath the seat. So I will have to figure out some ‘knee’ to mount it to the joystick base which will be on the floor.
Because I am afraid that the joystick dont sport such stiff spring to hold it in place in case I will mount the base in angle.
That is my experience, don’t forget that the springs will also slowly give way and the new center becomes more towards the weighted part.
we talked mental health in other thread and obviously I needed some kind of therapy.
my orig X55 was used as side stick and from time to time as center stick. so I did cut the base plastic to fit.
wasnt really happy with the position in centre (too high) so I got out the tools and extended my diy desk mount a bit. realised that there is still something missing and with the tools already in my hands I just went full diy and made extension
its aluminium pipe 20mm in diameter, 200mm long. the outside diameter fits inside the grip and also the connector base-grip part diameter fits inside the pipe. I used hose connectors to screw and hold the pipe with the base connector.
extended length is really nice for the fine control.
but still its plastic on plastic in many places and with the added plastic parts I introduced few more little dead zones (X55/56 doesnt have any dead zone around center what is really great).
I should look into some 3D printed services or push forward with the diy attempts…
Talk about DIY…
EDIT: it did cost in eccess of 400$ to print it but…
tell me about it
perfect that you added also the price, that can be big factor with printers imo.
but its amazing that one can print almost anything. and thats probably the appeal. one can design and easily build something what is not available on the market.
for me, the journey is the destination. I like to cut, saw, drill and mount things together (and if I dont screw things up thats a bonus).
it can look terrible, but as the saying goes purpose bless the means
Amen brother. Nothing’s as good for your soul as making stuff.
That was including the price of the printer.
Well, if you buy a 3D printer just for this throttle, then the price of the printer is relevant!
there is actually coincidence as I was looking (at that time I did diy the extension) at the AuthentiKit controls like the Spit stick as the ‘ultimate’ solution.
was considering 3D print services or even the 3D printer.
but somehow I still lean towards my ‘kiss’ solutions
maybe in the future…
Been doing some DIY on a Helicopter collective… Quite a fun journey in last 2 weeks learning fusion 360 and playing around with Hall Sensors and Pots. This is 100% my design.with inspiration from many people on here…still work in progress but getting closer.
Gah this new user limit of one picture is doing my head in…Would share more design pics but its such a hassle. How long before you’re not a new user ?
Nice job there! Is that a twist grip?
I bumped you up to basic user so we can see more pics…