My DIY gimbal prototype

Since Sokol so kindly asked I thought I'd share my latest addition to my simming gear. The reason why I made this is I was getting sick of my old Saitek X45 hotas, especially the joystick gimbal which is prone to sticking and obviously has 0% axis separation, making exercises like A2A refueling a nightmare.

Wiser from my previous DIY adventures I wanted to use a better material for prototyping and settled for acrylic plastic sheets that can be had for cheap and are easy* to work on. Since a friend of mine has a CNC machine I figured I could prototype on the cheap. I elected to use 6mm thick Acrylic, and generally feel ok with that decision.

(* While easy on the tools, the acrylic goes FUBAR pretty fast if you let the heat get out of hand. As such, you need to take your good old time while machining it or use ample cooling.)

The basic design is far from my own, I have looked heavily at designs by Baur and others. I also wanted to make provisions to add steering dampers for both axis so it can be used as a non-centering version for helicopters.

I currently have the Saitek stick on the gimbal, waiting on some D-SUB connectors to make the connection a bit cleaner. Eventually I will replace the saitek stick with a Suncom F-15E Talon stick upgraded with Debolestis PCB.

Regarding function, I must say I am surprised at how well it works. The TLE5010 sensors give really nice and stable readings without filtering. As i side note i needed to remove the pre-soldered resistors on the PCB that were connected to VCC and MISO lines, and added a 10kohm resistor on a wire near the Arduino. The springs on the cam arms that center the mechanism are currently too weak so they need to be upgraded.

There are many things I would improve on a second production version but so far I am surprised at the positive outcome!

Very nice!

I have been toying with the idea of adding dampers to my BRD-N stick.

Where did you get your dampers?

I got them off eBay, they are pretty cheap motorcycle steering dampers. They are a bit too stiff for my liking and "stick" in place, so I am thinking about trying to open one up and see if they can be tweaked.

subscribing, cool stuff OP!

Very nice!

I have been toying with the idea of adding dampers to my BRD-N stick.

Where did you get your dampers?

Works an absolute treat especially if you take out the center detent, these are RC shock/spring assembles with the spring removed.

There is enough "resistance" to movement to hold the cyclic where I leave it which allows me to use mouse or keyboard if I need to and I don't ever use trim.

My prototype cyclic

@OP nice to see other solutions at work. :thumbup:

Thanks all for your kind words!

This gentleman down under has uploaded a video where he services this type of universal steering damper. Following his guidelines I might first try to just have less oil in the system to get a lesser damping force, and if that does not work ill take it further apart and see if there are some holes you can enlarge to lessen damping.

For the gimbal I looking at using larger dampers from RC 10 Scale.

like these ones here.

There are adjustable ones as well.

Those look cool, but I am not at all familiar with this kind of damper, is the damping linear?

I was also thinking about RC car dampers...

I was also thinking about RC car dampers...

It's not my original idea there are some posts on this mod even on this forum I just adapted the concept to suit. :thumbup:

Those look cool, but I am not at all familiar with this kind of damper, is the damping linear?

As far as I can tell they are just linear dampers in use for RC service they are paired with springs which can be linear or progressive for the non-linear suspension function.

In RC Car circles high end damper kits can have adjustable restrictors even bidirectional adjustment as well as a range of oil grades to allow users to setup their car just the way they want.