Hi there, totally vanilla, need some help please

[matsher]

So I am trying to make a joystick - of the pc flight stick variety  - I am putting it together from the parts of my old Logitech 3d extreme pro.
I hope one or many of you fine folks can help me figure out some things.

I want to create a joystick for myself that has a much broader z axis (twist/yaw). All joysticks with a twist axis offer far too little turn angle
making it really difficult to make fine inputs. I hope I am explaining myself clearly... currently the deflection angle is roughly 15 degrees
left and right. I want to make it much larger - say to about 30 degrees left and right.

So the part that I need to create/adapt/buy is the spring loaded cylinder mounted to the central stem. I can't find any info on the web
about them or how they work or how they are made... I don't even know what that part is named or what people refer to them as.

If anyone can help steer me in the right direction or show me different ways to tackle the design and build of that component, I would be
in their debt.

Thanks Matty

[PL1]

Welcome aboard, Matsher.   

Check out this thread for some ideas.


Scott

[matsher]

Thanks Scott. will check it out.

[BadMouth]

The first thing to do is measure the range of resistance of the potentiometer on that axis.

Let's say it's 10k ohm.
If it goes from 0-10km in only 15 degrees of movement and doesn't go any higher when turned farther, then you will need a different potentiometer with a wider range of movement (referred to as deflection).

The problem is that it's difficult to find potentiometers with limited deflection.  Most off the shelf stuff is 270 degrees or more.
If you're just using it with MAME, you could probably get away with using a pot that turns that far and then windows and in-game calibration will correct for it.

[PL1]

Good point on limited deflection.

If you can't get things to work with windows/game calibration or find a limited deflection pot, you can make one like Le Chuck did here on his SW Micro build.


Scott