GRG's Miscellany

The next update on the joystick I started a few weeks ago . The horizontal axis was way too loose, which meant the gears had too much play and started skipping when you moved the stick quickly.  So I had to re-make the end support.  Now it is ridiculously stiff instead.  Hey ho. Another thing I've made is a module for an analogue hat to go on top.  I stripped out the components from a knock-off XBox 360 controller I got ages ago on ebay and attached one of the joysticks to a piece of matrix-board.  I'm still not entirely sure how I want it wired up to the Arduino, so I bought some right-angle header pins that I can attach jumper leads to later on. The joystick had four mounting tabs, which poke through the board so they can be bent and soldered to provide a strong physical bond between the component and the board.  I had to enlarge the holes with a twist-drill, but they lined up pretty well so it wasn't too troublesome. The microswitch for the press-button wa

Over the past many years, I've scribbled and sketched countless ideas for a home-made joystick.  Yesterday and today, I've managed to turn one of those ideas into a working skeleton of a joystick. I'd wanted to make one to replace my aging Saitek X-52 , which never worked as well as I had wanted it to.  I still had good use out of it, but trying to fly a Huey just required too much precise control. So my design had precision as a priority, meant to be achieved by: a large range of motion for the stick. gears making the potentiometer turn further than the joystick (e.g. 45 degrees on the joystick would make the potentiometer rotate through 90 degrees.  The basic design is a long box-section which rotates left-right, with the stick itself attached to its centre (rotating backwards-forwards). I made the box section out of 4mm plywood, cut with a scrollsaw and glue-gunned together.  PVA would've been stronger, but I want at least a chance of dismantling it witho