I am Sooo copying this thing! Peter, thanks for the inspiration. I nearly ripped my speaker box apart. Then I went to IKEA and picked up this wooden box for 99 Krona, (15 dollars). I am looking for suitable legs to raise them up with. The idea is to make two "consoles" like cockpit sides. The dressing on the shaft came from Bauhaus for a few cents a meter. Its in the garden hose department.
My Warthog is sick and I decided not to tear up my X-52 yet. The Joystick X/Y action I hate the most is CH. THey make such beautiful hardware but that X and Y is aweful. So here it is. I am not by far the first to do this but damn it feels good. Still working on adding the rest of the components and I am looking at counter weights.
Box will need sides to keep little hands out Should be done soon.

DSC00863 by marklopez996, on Flickr

Ok, here is a showstoper, When I plug in the FF2 the stick goes stiff against the back. I can move it but it still goes to the back and stays there. I have removed the wiring for the original handle. Does that need to be reinstalled? Do I need the IR sensor?


Thanks

Do I need the IR sensor?

YES!! I have played with taking one of these apart, and the IR sensor is tied to a defeat mechanism to keep the motors from being active when a human hand is not on it, to avoid it thrashing itself to pieces with no load. For my own project, I was trying to tap the signals to reroute to bigger motors that operated via my own control loading feedback servo scheme, and the IR wires got borked while it was plugged in while taken apart and the stick immediately ceased to work. You can likely electronically bypass this sensor/deadman circuit, but it's not a bad feature to retain if you can incorporate it similarly.

Hey, thanks for the reply. I found a bad main PCB. Lucky for me that I had another MSFF2 and was able to isolate the fault. My project is now over a week behind. I will try to get it done this week. My girl is taking off for the weekend and I will be home alone next week. So it will be crunch time.

Yeah!

Success! My Franken Stick Box is working! Flew in today with FFB and landed in a field. Sweet!

No sensor was needed to make it work. However! I worry that the stick or some hardware will get damaged while not using the hand sensor. I will have to incorporate this into my design.

Super THANKS again to Peter P for the great inspiration.

And now failure My box lost all feedback. There is a little left. Seems like the box is too much and the motors cant shake nothing. My other ffb stick feels way better.
And then... depression set in... :'(

Oh well. Back to the drawing board!