Rudder pedals

Hi, new to building, how do I go about making rudder pedals that would work with COD and ROF on WIN7 64. No knowledge and little money but lots of time. Thanks.

Pretty simple. Just get a cheap USB joystick, disassemble it, and use the potentiometers for the rudder axis and optionally the toe brakes, using longer wires if needed. You might even want to make a breakout box for the buttons.

The trickier part would be to design the physical rudder pedal structure itself and mounting all the electronic bits on it. I'll leave it up to you as to what design and approach you take there.

http://www.flightsim.com/main/howto/rudtoe.htm

One thing to consider when using that sort of slides for the mechanism as in the link posted by 531 Ghost is that they are not made to support large loads at the extreme of deflection in that direction. I know because I have used them the same way in my own design (here are some pics: http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y172/Brandano/DIY%20Rudder%20Pedals/ ), and had to modify them slightly later to avoid some binding with the screw heads. It would be better to have the rails on the sides of the pedals rather than underneath them, or to have some sort of wheel supporting the weight, with only one sliding bearing to keep the pedal aligned. Also, using two parallel linear bearings mean they must be very precisely aligned. If they are not perfectly parallel they will cause a lot of friction, and become loose over time as they deform.

This pedal in FlightSim is too ugly, and the use of pulleys is anti-KISS.

Look at plans for Baloo Pedal:



Build in parallelogram principle like most of commercial pedals: Simped, VKB, GS, discontinued TM RCS.


Animated .GIF of VKB pedal.

Look at Simped drawings, is very similar:
http://www.dhs-electronic.de/img/produkte/6_f16c_voll.jpg

The spring system to center pedal is similar to one used in above pedals too.

The only part in Baloo Pedal difficult do make is the foot rest, since original was built in metal by laser cut - JFA build one using manual methods, see in relative thread.
Simply adjust this part to material, ie. Alluminium, MDF, Plywood, Plastic... and tools available.

Similar project build with PVC tube and joints, bearings:
http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=38242

I'm not saying that this project is the best available, but it is practical to build.

For cheap USB controller, search for Logitech Attack 3 joystick, that have just 3 axis.

Sokol1

You can get some pedals very cheep on eBay

Thanks for the info guys, SOKOL1, can I find that info in english, BRADANO where can I find wiring diagrams as I'm not that hot at electrics.

My wiring diagrams won't be much use to you, because I am using the pedals port on my Thrustmaster Hotas Cougar, that emulates an old PC Gameport for compatibility with older pedals. This is a picture of the wiring diagram I followed: http://users.skynet.be/fb011080/images/Hotas/prog_ch/pix1.jpg
I replaced the rudder potentiometer with a homemade hall sensor later, which means that I had to tie the "free end" of the rudder potentiometer to ground like the two toebrake ones. This means that the potentiometer works as a voltage divider rather than a variable resistor. It's a bit of a subtle difference, but it essentially is an arrangement that is more stable, because it does not vary with temperature changes, and the Cougar seems happy with it. I think that even with the "variable resistor" arrangement the rudder axis potentiometer is just a portion of a resistor network.

Thanks, I understood about half of that but I'll plod on and see where I get.

Hi all!

Continuing the theme - http://avia-sim.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=210&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
There are a few drawings. - http://avia-sim.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=210&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=60

Hey Jerryboy, I built the pedals that Sokol1 recommends, they are still working great after a couple of years use.

OK, I've nearly finished some pedals with toe brakes (THOMMOS blog) and I've got a joystick to vandalise, does anyone know how I should be wiring it up. My PC does not have a gameport so I'll be using the joystck USB, how do I connect the two brake pedal pots to the joystick wiring or am I totally up the wrong tree.

If you are using the pots from a 3 axis joystick, just keep them wired to the same connection points that they were wired to inside the joystick controller. It would just be a matter of adding/extending wires.

If you are substituting other pots, then you need to figure out which leads are equivalent to the ones that were in the joystick controller.

If you only have a 2 axis joystick controller, then you have a problem. Go back to the earlier recommendation in this thread.

Thanks, time to get dangerous with a soldering iron.

OK, built and working in BOB2 and ROF but causing problems in IL2, either not recognised or telling the game my other joystick no longer exists. Any clues? I've also posted on SAS forum so sorry for any confusion.

Probably IL2 only sees Windows's "joystick one". Which input device is in the first slot will be decided by windows by the order they are plugged in or discovered by the system. I guess there's "virtual joystick" drivers that can capture inputs from several joysticks and show them to windows as a single one on the first slot to work around this issue. However, I am mainly a Linux user nowadays and can't come up with a software name for something like that off the top of my head.

Thanks for getting back Brandano, managed to sort it by unplugging everything, switching of the pc, plugging it all back in, firing up the pc and then testing all joystick inputs, it then said AHHHH,THAT joystick and it worked.

Just FYI - Il-2 recognize FOUR controllers (stick, pedal, gamepade, TrackIR...)
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3139352/Master_list_sims_with_multiple.html#Post3139352

Jerryboy,

Nice that all work.
Post some pictures.

Sokol1

Ta for all the help folks.

Nice work, looks simple but sturdy. I'd put a reference mark with some tape or a white marker on the pot and the rubber wheel to monitor any slippage that might creep in over time, though. It should not happen, since there's no big friction in the assembly. If you ever move over to a hall sensing device you might want to use a lower gearing rate, or eliminate it altogether like I did on mine.

How about some picture Brandano?

I did post a link in the 4th message in this thread. Here it is again: http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y172/Brandano/DIY%20Rudder%20Pedals/

Great pics and pedal. Thanks!

Hall Sensor??????????? What, how, where????

this is the one I ended up using on the rudder axis:

Ahhh, that looks like you know what you are doing as opposed to the what happens if method I tend to use.