Ok it's vacation time. My goal is to make a setup that is sturdy, cheap and reasonably easy to build. I chose to use y-bearings and stuff I found whilst dumpster diving at work. Used an old conveyor roller with broken bearings, pulled the axle out and presto. A nice straight piece of 20 mm roundsteel. Got me some mul204 y-bearing units for the movement. A couple of strips, a father in law with a welding machine. Some sweat and a little swearing.



On the to do list further are getting some bolts nuts and washers. Disassemble 1 or 2 joy sticks from my stash. Link it all up to a bodnar board. Do some testing. Ad springs. Make an enclosure. Do some painting.

Want to use different grips on the unit. So I'm thinking of making a quick exchange sleeve or such.

I know it's not as sleek or super engineered as some of the great projects shown. But I wanted something mechanically bomb proof.

Great stuff.I made a racing sim steering wheel out of pillow blocks yrs back Super sturdy! A big hurdle now is adding in springs,do you have any ideas for that?

Got some ideas Wolf. The ends of the axle has m12 thread on both sides. I used the ends for the moving axes. I want to connect a 20 X 5 strip with a bolt to the rod end. The strip I want to use as an arm that holds a spring, the spring other end connected to the pillow block mounting surface/object. I'm thinking of using one really sturdy stiff spring per axes. The same arm I also want to use to move my pot meters.
Hall sensors are planned for sequal future project.
Also have an idea using rubber damper units, used in a axial or radial dampening position.
The setup in the current state is really movable in X and y direction. Those damn bearings really work

I like the idea of rubber dampers.Would give a really progressive feel to the stick which is lacking in all PC joysticks I have tried.Would really mimic the wind resistance better than normal springs.Good luck man!

i used pillow block bearings for my cyclic X-axis... THOSE THINGS WEIGH A TON