molevitch

#Doveman, Surely, the best stick for the DCS choppers is the one being discussed in this very thread, the PeterP Frankenschtick! That's why we are all here discussing it.:smartass: But seriously, it is a great mod to do and fun to learn how to do it too. It gives great results for control and feedback as well. The off the shelf sticks are all good, but there is a great satisfaction in implementing your own improvements. Building out of second hand components, and other bits and pieces is challenging but rewarding. That's why we are all here chatting and helping each other out. Have you looked right through this thread from Peter P's first posts, it is a great journey!

I got mine on ebay, £40.00. Out of an old MG, still on its rails, adjustable etc, with headrest, and some leather-look panels. Perfect! You have to scour ebay, and the search terms are crucial else you're looking at tons of baby seats! search "front drivers seat", there are loads, from £0.99 to £150+. There are some great ones on right now in UK.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/grey-leather-front-seats

Yes, stirring the soup makes sense!! I will try changing selected FFB in dcs options. That sounds like a good solution if it works.

I think the Shark is inherently more stable with all the damper effects. I have tried it with my improved wiring mod, (ie corrected and now I can trim), but not in depth. For the past year or so since I made the mod, the Shark has been great, I just did not trim.... Tiring but not dreadful. I am going to check all aspects of my modded cyclic, physical and calibration settings too. As I said, it feels a bit loose in the centre and seems to luck punch currently. The Huey is definitely much more sensitive, and it will take a while to get those tiny movements and reflexive responses tuned. Having flown a helicopter once, and only once, I know how sensitive these beasts are. They are not jet fighters nor stunt planes. I found myself doing something strange with the Huey last night. I began to sort of stir the cyclic, like was stirring cup of coffee with a spoon.... Bizarrely this gave me better control. I am going to try an unmodded MSFFB stick again for comparison, and will report back.

Last night I tried the external cargo mission for UH1, Dallas Training by Diveplane. 1 hour without any success taught me that I still have a lot to learn! Getting fine hover control is still a huge challenge. I am also finding that I still have a lot of wobble in the stick once trimmed. It does not hold in a convincing way. I may need to add weight to the counterweight, or look at some other kind of stiffening to the stick. Its like there is a weak deadzone which is spoiling the fine control needed for precise hover manoeuvres. I am wondering if parts of the FFB mechanisms need tightening up.... Its great when barrelling around the airfield or battlefield. I can dive and swoop and do dangerous turns without piling into the ground, but holding the chopper in one place at one height is really hard. I know it is in real life too, (I have once had controls of a Robinson), but I am asking myself whether my controls are letting me down, or whether I am just a rubbish pilot! Interesting to hear about the result in RoF from Viper-Lupi. It is the only other Sim I still have on my hard-drive, but I have not run it for months.

I had a quick tour for 2 hours on friday night with DCSW open beta 1.2.8. I seem to have much better fine control, and great responsiveness to perform some dramatic manoeuvres in the Huey and the Mi8. Have to try the Ka50 tonight. I must also try the sling load routine in Huey, see how that feels. Are you flying yet Artman?

Hi Artman, and everyone here, I think i might have used a Hall sensor in my collective build, scavenged from my CH flightstick cannibalisation.... Try here, http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/productListing.jsp?SKUS=2314588,2314589,2314590,2319659,2319660,2319661,2319662,2319663,2319665,2319666,2319667,2319668,2319669,2319670,2319671,2319672,2319673,2319674,2319675,2319677,2319678,2319679,2319680,2319681,2319682 Prices seem reasonable? what gpu did you get and how is it? I thinking of upgrading to the 780ti.... Re: compatibility of dual ffb stick with other sims.... I for one don't have time or headspace for other sims any more. DCS gives me three great helos, A10, Su25, P51, and the catalogue is growing. That's enough for me!

Hi Artman, I am away in Morocco with my wife and son for Easter holiday. I have been keeping an eye on dcs forum of course! Your English is very correct, better than my Dutch.... The build is looking very professional. Very wise to paint the interior! I do wonder if you will want to have a longer "throw" on the stick? Not a criticism, but I started with a 20 cm extension on my WH grip, but now find the 40cm or more (from memory) gives me some fine control, especially for the Huey/Ka50/Mi8. I will probably do second build of FFB stick when I have time. I want to build my own grips next time, and have them plug on to the stick head. Bodnar board in the base for all the switch and hat functions for each. And maybe hook a collective up to that too. Pedals build....? Hmmmm. Keep up the good work, and the great pics of your progress. I look forward to hearing about your first flying impressions of the stick. M.:pilotfly:

Hi Arthur, I envy your lathe access! I used this as a counterweight,by cutting the handle down and then epoxy gluing the shaft into the lower FFB shaft. Its a little over 1kg, but I am not using the Cougar, but the CHFlightstick. Its handy too, as the handle is centred and screws off. Got it through Amazon needless to say. £7.65/€8.00 or so. Your build is going to be very neat and professional I think. I look forward to seeing the final result. Good work! M:thumbup:

Hi Artman, Yes, I have used the Bodnar board in my Collective stick. I originally planned to use boards out of a Xbox type controller, 2 mini joystix, but they proved less useful thana load of switches connected to the bodnar board. All choppers are now a joy to fly and control. I cannot believe I wrestled with faulty wiring foe almost a year! I had double reversed the pots.... When I extended the cabling I forgot that I had already swapped over near the pots. I must have had a couple of nights separation between the wiring stages, and not checked what I had done. Anyway, its solved now!

I just ordered a doorstop with handle from amazon, declared weight 1.2 kg or so. I ordered it because it has a centre drilled hole in top and a screw in handle. I figure it will be about 8-9cm high. I currently have a homemade weight which is about 7cm high. It for the overall height of the assembly, you have to work it out according to what you get to complete your build. My build has been an ongoing project for about 12 months to date. And still not finished. It's not like buying a stick and saying "oh, that's it then?". We can adapt and add and customise and upgrade as we can. But we need to be flexible, adaptable and creative! So you have to assemble your core components, and measure up and build a case to suit. As a designer, I was taught "Form Follows Function". Which is to say, the finished article is driven by what it has to do, and what you need to make it do it. And you have to coerce it to your will!

AAAAhhh hahahah, no wonder I cannot fit the FFbs in my case.... :lol: Thank you for that. I spend too much time too tired recently. Good thing I am not a surgeon! Anyway, after you have done your Cyclic Constructor Manual, and we have a crew of well equipped Helo Pilots, I will show you all my Collective Build in detail. Fun with wiring matrix, use up your left over potentiometers from your cut up MSFFBs. I want to suggest swappable Cyclic grips and Collective Switch-Boxes, with a round plug at the top of the cyclic stick.... Am looking at multi-pin plugs which do this, with a screw together collar or bayonet! And of course we should fly together! I am English, you are Dutch, I think there are French here, and others. It will be like the Russian Foreign Legion!

Made my casing from 9mm mdf. Make your internal measures 25mm x 25mm x 28mm high. Extra room is helpful when fitting it all in! Am looking at casting a lead weight for a nw counter weight.

ALL GOOD!!! WOOHOO! Thank you Artman for your help with this.

Turns out the only fried pcb is in my head. Forgot to plug in the usb....Doh! So anyhow, the top stick is fine, trim works fine, stick moves in sync with moving arrow keys. Thumbs up!

Very good! I was doing tests, re-soldered my lower motors again, all going well, BUT... now my upper FFB power connector pcb seems to have died!!! AAAAgh. I am lucky, though. I have 2 spare MSFFBs. So.... The story continues....

Hi Artman, Looks like you are doing a thorough instruction manual! Most important will be a complete re-wiring diagram for lower FFB, to show motors and pots. I re-did my wiring last night, and you were right, my pots were wrongly wired. But, bizarrely, this only became a problem recently, with the stick pulling to the corners. The trim function is still screwy though, and I need a heavier counterweight to keep the stick from wobbling once trimmed. I may redo the stick extension to keep the grip less offset from centre. Right now, the weight of the grip is enough to move it off trim. Have you tried SimFFB? I have just been experimenting with it, and it does give a cleaner feel to the ffb. I also feel I am not getting much "punch" to the ffb in DCS. Feels a bit lame. Do you know of any way to increase that from within DCS? In SimFFb you have sliders to increase and decrease the forces.

Same as mine! I am considering returning my lower ffb to its original wiring set up, and then putting plug connectors on ALL wires so I dont have to keep unsoldering them to test and retest!

Checking back over PeterP's original specification and images, found and highlighted his lower motor s wiring method. Yellow to red, white to black, which is different to his later "from memory" sketch So now I am going to check my wiring again! Both my lower pots have been reversed as described by PeterP. I have also tested my FFB settings with a single stick on all 3 helos, UH-1, KA-50 and Mi-8, and all work with the same settings, Swap Axis[o], Invert X [ ], Invert Y [ ]. The story continues....:huh:

Still working it out.... Hi Gentlemen of the MSFFB2 MOD! Hi Arthur, Yes I am in London, UK. I have tried some stuff tonight. I plugged in a spare MSFFB2 to reduce confusion, and to have a virgin stick(!). It started off with the same trim problem. So then I experimented with the FFB settings and the one that works is: Swap Axis [o], Invert X [ ], Invert Y [ ] . Which is not what I expected.... So now I have plugged back in the Modded Cyclic, with just the top stick usb plugged in, and it works fine with those settings. But without the extra force of the lower stick, it struggles to stay in position when trimmed, the weight of the grip pulls it back as it is offset from centre towards the pilot position. But when I plug in my lower ffb, it seems to now have the motors pulling the wrong way, because it wants to pull the stick as far from centre as is possible, rather than force it to upright. And no variety of FFB settings helped with that. Which means those motors will have to be re-reversed! All counter intuitive and counter to the Guru PeterP's guidance.... So anyways, I am still working on it. Will keep you informed of what I discover. G'night all!:helpsmilie:

I have a spare un modded msffb2 stick. I will see whether this stick has different or same problems. I have looked for fftest.exe and it is no longer in DCS. Found another ff test program FS Test I think. I also find that when I start DCS my modded stick will not centre properly, it is leaning to the right. Outside of DCS it is correct. So something weird there too. Perhaps need to clear all record of the sticks in Dcs first?

Hi Clyber, Because I cannot trim properly. If I, say, push the nose down and trim, the cyclic jumps back to mirrored position to pull the nose up. If push left and trim, the cyclic jumps to the right. Right ow I am starting to wonder what's gone wrong. So I have unplugged the lower ffb for now to test the top on.....

I have a CH Fighterstick grip on it. I want to keep the WH HOTAS for use as an A10 stick if I ever get back into that. Checking my rewire and tidy up later on tonight. Still not sure about the lower FFB working right....

Ooooooh, YEAH! Have fun, it is a really good result you get. I just took mine to bits again for a tidy up and tweak. Sad thing though, my WH stick is getting no use at all these days.... And I seem to do more stick building than flying too. Looking forward to your finished images. Nice to see your parts all laid out like that. I am not that tidy....