Extended Joystick Pictures (Saitek ST290)

Well after I zip tied a piece of PVC pipe to my joystick to make it about 10" taller and then flying the KA-50 for a while, I decided this was a must-do mod. I could make much finer inputs and fly much more precisely. I should of done this when I first bought the game!

I took the handle apart, cut the wires, and extended them. It is connected with a piece of 1/2" electrical conduit, a few screws, and a small random piece of pipe I had laying around.

No in progress pics, sorry. If anyone actually wants to do this to another ST290 just email me at drew182@me.com and I'll do what I can to help you.

I had already removed the centering spring and added dampers to the stick previously. I will be adding two more, possible with small springs, to counteract the added weight due to the pipe and extra leverage. Currently, the dampers will only hold the same position approximately 1 inch from center in any direction. I'll post again with my fix for this. (However, most of the movements for normal flying are close to the center anyways, so this isn't too bad)

Also, I purposely rotated the handle counter-clockwise for a more natural feel.

Here are some pics:

And my lovely wife :)

Nice equipment there :)

(Pretty) Girls always liked pilots. No exception here ;)

She looks pretty in your cockpit.

By now she should be able to fly the Blackshark pretty well:joystick:

Very cool mod :thumbup: I always wanted to try something like that, and now i just might!

Update 1/5/11:

I recently added two more dampers to the joystick. I totally changed the way everything is mounted also.

To connect the dampers to the shaft, I used a rubber o-ring that the dampers fit perfectly on. I then cut the o-ring to the right diameter and used wire to hold it tight around the shaft.

To connect the dampers to the outer "ring", I used heat-shrink over the existing holes, then made a small hole and inserted a "j-hook" through the new hole in the heat shrink plastic. The j-hook then screws into the wooden "ring".

I also soldered all of the wires inside the joystick handle to a 34 pin IDE ribbon cable. This cable comes out of the bottom of the handle then connects to the base of the joystick via a connector I mounted on a project board. I soldered the existing 20-pin connector to the board. I removed the twist pot and the throttle pot and they will be mounted remotely via a cat 5 cable coming off of a pigtail on the IDE connector.

With all that, I am able to remove the handle and simply unplug it. It also gives my the opportunity to totally change handles if needed in the future.