Well, today I finally installed the USB108 and wired the rudder pot to it (Z axis) and connected the brake switches to it... and it works!! Woohoo!

A bit of a hassle getting the 108, the KEAD6, the USB trackball, the USB keypad, and the USB keyboard playing nice together on the buss, though... Windows sees the 108 as several devices, and the damn (useless) wizard kept popping up...    Also, it took several attempts to just get info flowing smoothly with most of these devices on a single (cheap) 4-port USB hub.

Some minor mechanical issues with the throttle quadrant, but that will be easy to resolve.

How lovely to taxi the DC3 as one should- with differential power and brakes!! 

The trim box, with its spoilers/slats handle (the only part of that adding machine I've used) and the tailwheel lock switch is done, also... next step is to hack one of my ST290s for the pot and switches. One more device on the serial buss, I know... but the last. The joystick will get wired to the 108, along with all the remaining switches.

I'll be updating the site soon, with pix, etc... just wanted to crow a little here first.... wish I could just keep working on it, but I have to head out for a bit. Maybe tonight I'll get the trim box online.

Yaarrghh... the damn trim mechanism required several rebuilds... let's just say it was one of those brilliantly simple ideas that turned out to be very complicated. 

It's hard to explain, maybe a picture will help:



Having one lever to both move the pot and provide trim indication was very tricky, even after getting it all sussed out on paper.
There's a spiral groove on the face of the wheel; a littlle spike cut and bent out of the lever fits in there, so as the wheel is turned, the lever swings. Very tricky shaping and sizing the lever just right, especially the spike. And the first two (aluminum) ones broke, so today I fabbed one out of steel. Should hold up much better. Took this pic after first fitting it; it got cleaned up a little, and of course this mech shown here is now mounted in a box, with the air brake lever and the tail wheel lock... I'll be posting pics of that on the website.





Now it's time to integrate the guts of the joystick I just ripped apart, then get it to work with the sim.

Maybe tomorrow...

Rotty,

you know damn well, it's never finished

BuggsK100RS wrote on Jul 7^th, 2008 at 2:58pm:


Sure. It'll probably be in some nursing home in Florida...