Hello everyone, I am BS8th_Jaw and I come from IL2-Sturmovik, I currently run a squadron and fly quite often.

I am slowly progressing my "sim pit" and I need some assistance - I would like to create a trim panel... since the only joystick that currently utilizes one is the CH products yoke (im not a ch fan, im a saitek fan) and besides that it costs too much money for their yoke that has a single trim axis.

My current setup is track IR with Saitek X52 joystick (soon I will be switching from the normal throttle that comes with the X52 to a Saitek throttle quadrant for better control), CH rudder pedals (the only CH gear I actually own, because they are more reliable than the Saitek ones). So far - as a simpit I have built myself an extension on my desk to hold my joystick and my keyboard a bit better. Thats as far as I have gone towards it.

The one thing that irks me in IL2 is its so hard to control trim surfaces... yes with my X52 I can control two surfaces quite easily with the built in rotary wheels on the throttle - however I still have to trim my rudder either on a hat switch or on my keyboard which is plainly a nuisance as the extra key on my joystick could be used towards something more important and the keyboard is just plain too tough to get too when you need quick rudder trim. Not to mention the fact that when I get my new Saitek Throttle quadrant that I will lose my two rotary wheels that I currently use for aileron and elevator trim.

What I want to do is build a USB compatible trim quadrant with the three trim axis, forgive me for having to do these in Paint but at the time of the sketches it was convenient 
- Thats with all three surfaces on the top of the quadrant.

- Thats with the elevator control on the left side of the quadrant.

What would I need to do to do the proposed sketch? I was planning on building it with a wooden base, because my desk is a wooden base (the one I built). I have good experience with tools so thats not an issue.

I just need some direction about how to do this correctly the first time so it works.

BS8th_jaw,

First of all....... welcome to SimV and the "Homebuild Cockpits" forum section. 

Are these functions "mapable" in IL2-Sturmovik?  Meaning are there standard Windows joystick assignments possible?

The workhorse for simpit use is FSUIPC that allows lots of stuff to be set up "outside" the MS simulation series...... but I don't know of any equivalent for other flight sims.  So if there are no joystrick assignments... you'll be stuck or you'll haveto write custom code.

best,

......................john

Seems like a BU0836 joystick controller would be good for your setup. It allows you to have 8 analog inputs, plus you could always add more controls using the same controller over time, when you upgrade your setup.

It comes with the header pins so you would need some 18 gauge wire  connected to the headers you have 3 wires which go to the potentiometer

5v
signal
ground

They recommend using shielded cable, but if your connections are good it will work ok.

I hooked my old Thrustmaster rudder pedals to analog input 8 on the BU0836. The pot was a 100 kohm but you can use anything from 10k to 100k linear taper--important

As far as buttons you will need to hook up a button matrix, they have the schematic on the site.  They say you can use switches but I would stick to momentary push buttons.

Here is a link to my rudder pedals:
http://flight-simulator-cockpits.com/Homebuilt+Cockpit+Part+1

Its a bit sloppy right now and I used hot glue to hold the wires in

SilverFox441 wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2007 at 1:05pm:


Well I already know that Il2 supports multiple joystick axis use... several people within the Il2 community currently utilize simpits of this fassion. I believe the most I would want to use is the three trim wheels and about 5 extra buttons for various things.

its really that easy ? I hope so...

Thanks and ill give it my  best.

ok... so I have my controller... I have successfully built my box out of some light weight wood, had to piece it together with glue but I got it to work.

Now my question is... what kind of input switches/buttons do I use? For example... I took one of my old ps2 controllers apart and took the buttons out of it but will those work? And how exactly does this controller hook up? I have a ton of 18 gauge wire from one of my old computers... computers are full of 18 gauge wire.

So some more input is needed please, possibly some pictures? Am I able to get supplies from radio shack?

phew, well I spent most of my night putting it together, but I finally got my extra three axi's working great!

I was able to hook up three of them with a little work, only lost one solder connector in the process. I have several pics which I will get to uploading tomorrow night after work as I am bushed from working on this all afternoon.

My next question(s) is what kind of buttons do I have to have to use it with the controller? Also where do I hook the buttons up at? I would take a gander and say that the 6 pin solder connectors are for buttons?

I am planning to add at least 10 more buttons, if those 6 pin connectors are for buttons then I will just go ahead and add the full 12 buttons, I believe I will have the space and heck... you never have enough buttons anyhow

Well, what I did was when I was at Radio Shack I got an assortment of buttons. I bought a few toggle buttons (push on, push off) then I bought quite a few single press buttons. All of the buttons have only 2 contact points to hook wires to, but the solder connectors have three contacts, is this an issue?

I have the diagrams but ... they are a little confusing.

I found an image from John's cockpit construction log that shows this technique in practice:



The switches are different due to the different controller and purpose, but if you look at the left side of the six switches on the left side of the panel... one wire is looped from the centre contact of each switch and is in common with all the other switches. That wire is then routed (not visible, or at least untraceable in the image) to the common ground of the KE72 unit that John is using in his 'pit.

Looking closely, this might actual be a lighting function that is being hooked up... but it's the same thing in practice.

Forget about your 6 pin connectors for a moment... that will become clear once you understand the basics of what you are trying to accomplish. For example, I can't answer you question about what you hooked up because I don't know where you put the 6 pin connector when you installed it on the board. There are a bunch of ways you might have put that 6 pin on... and about half won't do any good.

There are two ways of hooking that controller up...

Method one is the Matrix method. In a Matrix you would hook up one side of the switch to one of the connections in the COLUMNS section and the other side of the switch gets hooked to a connection in the ROWS section. 36 switches can be hooked up this way and each pin will have 6 different connections to it from 6 separate switches.

The simplified method is what you will use for 12 switches.

Take another look at this diagram:



Each switch is hooked via one wire to one pin in the COLUMNS section. The other side of the switch is hooked via one wire to any of the GND connections in the ANALOG INPUTS section.

I'll provide explicit hookup instructions to get your first switch working.

1. one wire is hooked to the first pin of a 6-pin connector.
2. the other end of that wire is hooked to one side of your chosen switch.
3. one wire is hooked to one end pin of a 3-pin connector.
4. the other end of that wire is hooked to the open connection of the switch from step 2.
5. attach the 3-pin connector so that the pin with the wire connected is closest to the edge of the board at ANALOG INPUT 8.
6. attach you 6-pin connector along the COLUMNS section so that the pin with the wire attached is at position 1.

For hooking up your other switches the connection to ANALOG INPUT 8 will be common to them all. The next five switches you hook up will have one side hooked to the remaining unused pins on that first 6-pin connector. The second bank of 6 switches will mirror the first six with the exception that the 6-pin connector will be hooked to the ROWS section instead of COLUMNS.

Try that.

Alright, after talking to the guy at radio shack when I went back to buy some turn knobs I now understand the philosophy behind this entire project. With that, I was able to accelerate with great speed and finished my box in no time at all. Had a little trouble soldering but thats only because my solder gun sucks terribly...



Anyway, here are the pictures, I shrunk them to 1280x960 so hopefully they aren't too large. Enjoy
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The workstation, before I began you can see the box on the lower left corner of the pic, I forgot to take a picture of the box alone before anything went inside it.
http://www.blacksheep8th.com/JJR%20004.jpg
the mounting of the board, I used 4 very tiny screws and secured it to the bottom block inside the box. The block was meant to raise the chip to the correct height so I could make the hole to connect the wire.
http://www.blacksheep8th.com/JJR%20002.jpg
http://www.blacksheep8th.com/JJR%20001.jpg
The lid with the pre-aligned holes drilled
http://www.blacksheep8th.com/JJR%20005.jpg
The lid after the potentiometers were added. Radio Shack was out of the smaller potentiometers with the smaller shafts so I got stuck with these - no problem tho, look further down to see my solution.
http://www.blacksheep8th.com/JJR%20006.jpg
The alignment of the three buttons I added, I realized that adding the full 12 was a bit unrealistic at this point, although I might add more in the future.
http://www.blacksheep8th.com/JJR%20008.jpg
The wonderful mess of wires inside the box before sealing her up. Aint it beautiful?
http://www.blacksheep8th.com/JJR%20007.jpg
The box, finished and sealed with the famous Hot Glue Gun, I did this so it would be easy to take the cover off in the future in case I want to add something to it. My solution for the tall potentiometers was to take a hack saw and saw them off just slightly higher than my knobs, after that the knobs mounted rather easily.
http://www.blacksheep8th.com/JJR%20009.jpg



I think I did fairly well for my first build. It only took me two days to put it together so thats not bad. I soldered all points together and then used the hot glue gun to add a protective layer on them to keep them from accidentally touching inside the box. All points have been volt tested to assure all points are getting the voltage required. The other thing I might add is the hole that I put in the front of my box for my cord was perfect - the cool thing is, the wood I used was just thick enough to provide just the right amount of space between the board inside the box and it connects snuggly, this will keep anything from pulling down from the weight of the cord so it turned out nicely. The wood I chose was some old trim board we had laying around our house, actually the finish on the board was rather nice, although with the addition of my brownish wood glue to hold it together it kind of ruined the effect.

Oh well its not like it has to look all that pretty, as long as it does its job correctly

Thank you one and all for the help and assistance, it was much appreciated and I would not have gotten through this on my own.

S~ To everyone.

Well done... but take heed: fly the sim now, while you can!!

For once the 'pit-building disease takes root, you will never fly again.... building... always buiiiiilllldiiing....never flyyyyiiinnnggg..... woooooooo... (fade out w/reverb and rattling chains)

wow... that is all I can say is wow. That is amazing - yet this gives me more ambition to do even more. The chair is very nice, I would be interested in seeing more detail on how you did that chair. Btw, how awkward is it to have a joystick centered on your body? I usually fly with mine off to the side and its respectably comfortable - I did however have a chance to go to the flight sim center at the Mall of America in Minnesota recently where I flew one of their "simpits", so to speak, they were pretty awesome; they had center mounted joysticks in them, after a hour of flight however I found that my wrist was feeling a little awkward from the extreme angle I had to put it at to  use the joystick; Any input on this matter?

I am actually now planning to create a separate box for separate engine control, instead of having to buy a CH throttle quad which would cost me like 70-100 bucks or more. The idea I had was to make a simple box, like I did before and have it control only the prop pitch. Of course I would add more to it, such as more buttons and whatnot.

Actually now that I think of it, I should redo my trim box design into a grand master design, a bigger box, with maybe even more than one controller on the inside possibly connected by using a USB hub? On that box I could add several buttons, switches, potentiometers and such until my hearts content. Of course, then it comes down to how much room I have for this thing and if it will fit on my desk... lol.

This idea really makes me wish that IL2 supported separate engine control (separate throttles for each engine) instead of all on the same one. The possibilities with this controller is pretty much endless.