Trigger stick mod for Ultimarc U360

[Chris]

I am instaling bat-handle U360's from Ultimarc in my control panel, but there are some games that just require a trigger stick.  I have seen a lot of the threads about trying to modify the sticks to support a top-fire or trigger, but even if these were successfu, I would not want one there all the time.

The solution I had come up with was to put a stereo phono jack in a discreet place on the CP and create a trigger-fire "topper" that could be temporarily added to a stick, with its buttons connected to a short pigtail.  Trying to figure out how to build such a topper, I looked into my scrap box and found a handle from a CH Flightstick.  The hole in the Flightstick base fits over the threaded part of the shaft but not the shaft itself.  I figure if I can widen the shaft hole slightly and secure an appropriate nut inside, I can have a topper that I can screw on to temporarily replace the bat handle.

I wonder if I can cram the guts of a wireless mouse, stick, or keypad in there so I don't have to have a pigtail with a jack on the keyboard?  Hmm...

[Bender]

also you need to find a way to prevent the stick from spinning or it would have a really odd feeling to it and you pigtail might get ripped out

neat idea though, might be a way to do it

I made a top fire with  balltop so is is there all the time but I don't even notice it when I'm playing games that don't use it

[Chris]

also you need to find a way to prevent the stick from spinning or it would have a really odd feeling to it and you pigtail might get ripped out

I think that comes down to a simple "don't do that".    With the hard spring and the magnetized shaft base the shaft does not spin easily on its own, you have to go out of your way to twist it.

But that is another reason to see if the guts of something wireless can fit in there.  I'm thinking a cheap tiny wireless travel mouse.

[Chris]

This smells about right...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826193040

Wonder how small the circuit board in the mouse is?

[Bender]

yeah, that just might work

wonder how long the battery lasts on those, and how easy it would be to change?

Can't wait to see it!

[Chris]

yeah, that just might work

wonder how long the battery lasts on those, and how easy it would be to change?

The handle is held together by five #10 Torx screws, so changing the battery won't be a killer, just an annoyance.  Finding room for the bateries to fit though will be a pain.  I wonder if I can get it to run off Lithium coin cells or type N photo batteries or something similar?

I suppose I could install a jack into the handle, install rechargable batteries, and use the jack to connect to a battery charger....

I just realized I'm gonna need a second handle like this for Assault! :O

[drventure]

This is a very cool idea.

Keep the pics and progress coming!

[Chris]

I ordered the mouse, so we'll see what happens. It uses two AAA batteries, so they should fit.  Removing five screws to open it to change the batteries isn't a huge catastophe, and I should be able to make a little battery holder from Sculpey or find one at Radio Shack.

I wonder, if I cut the traces to the mouse's optical sensor... would it draw less power or stop working altogether?

Next step: Figure out the diameter and thread size of the U360 shaft and find a matching nut and a way to secure it in the shaft.

[Chris]

OK, here's the inside of the stick with a AAA battery laying in it.  There is no other room for a second batery so it is going to have to extend into the other half of the handle, meaning either taping the batteries together or going with a Radio Shack battery holder like this one for 99 cents:

[Chris]

The hole at the bottom needs to be reamed just a hair to allow the shaft to fit.  If the nut is mounded just below the second shaft support (or in the middle of it) the fit is perfect.  It's as if the CH Flightstick was made for this.

[drventure]

Wish I'd thought of this when I started my build.

I ended up grafting a logitech extreme USB stick to a Happ Super mounting plate. It actually worked out better than I thought it would, but it's not removable and it makes my control panel quite tall. When it's getting stuffed into a buffet, that's not a good thing<sigh>. It's made getting everything else to fit tough.

MAybe it's time to reevaluate that part of my cp....


Grrr, I hate you now! 

[Endaar]

Love the idea...can't wait to see the finished product.

[Chris]

OK, the appropriate nut size is a Metric nut... M10-1.50.  The nut needs to be epoxied to the upper shaft brace, but I'm almost certain that the torque of applying the handle to the shaft will break the nut loose fairly quickly.  I am thinking of filling the bottom of the shaft with polymer clay (Sculpey or Fimo).  Polymer clay will shrink slightly when baked to cure it; I wonder if I can bake it with the nuts inside?

The battery holder adds just enough size to the batteries to make them problematic.  The only place they can really go is flat in the middle of the handle with the buttons, and the only way to do that is to remove one of the screw posts, the one right above the top of the handle.  Will this weaken the stick too much?  I don't think so, but only testing will tell.  I will leave the screw post in the other half; it should press against the batteries and help keep them in place.

This wil leave precious little room for a circut board!  I need to see that mouse circuit board; it's gonna be close, but if it all comes together it will be worth the effort!

[severdhed]

i can't wait to see this completed....awesome project

[Bender]

I've tried stuff like that with sculpy and femo and the heat will warp the plastic handle and the shrinking is always an issue too
I think an epoxy would work better
they make epoxy puddy that is a similar consistency to clay, it's a two part epoxy that you cut of what you need and knead it to active it
I've used it to bind rocks to metal for a door handle and it's a very strong much stronger than the clay


Can't wait to see this!
had another idea for you
if you drill a small hole in the shaft just below where both handles meet the shaft you could have a use slide a rod in there to hold the shaft still while you screwed the different handles on and off so you don't have to take the whole thing apart each time you want to change the handle, and just keep the rod on top of the cab or somewhere near by

[Chris]

My Sculpey nut bracket is coming out of the oven now... if it cures successfully, I'll epoxy it into one of the joystick halves and we'll see what happens.

The U360 has a flattened part of the shaft to hold it in place while you screw and unscrew.

[Chris]

That epoxy putty does look like it is a perfect solution, actually.  Hmm.  Maybe I'll go straight to that.  As it is I've been worried about how an epoxied Sculpey bracket would hold up over time.  Is that stuff readily available at Home Depot?

[Chris]

The Sculpey didn't shrink; in fact it feels like it's expanded.  I'm guessing it stretched slightly as it was pulled out of the joystick body, so I will have to sand or file it down to get the handle to close again.

[Chris]

After some trimming and sanding, the Sculpey worked perfectly; it is so solid that it doesn't even need to be epoxied in!  Once screwed on there is absolutely no play between the handle and shaft at all.

[Bender]

SWEET!

so did you pull the sculpy out then bake it so the handle didn't warp?

now we really need to come up with a quick disconnect mechanism,  hummmm?

[Chris]

SWEET!

so did you pull the sculpy out then bake it so the handle didn't warp?

Yes, baking the handle would have destroyed it!   Here is the Sculpey I used.  The Sculpey breaks into four bars; I used a total of one bar.




Since I had to get the Sculpey out to bake it, I dusted the joystick with cornstarch first as a mold release.  Then I took half a bar of Sculpey and crammed it between the front and back shaft supports:




Then I crammed two nuts into the Sculpey pushed up against the upper support.  The rear nut is really just a spacer as I don't think the shaft goes past the first nut:




I took the other half of the Sculpey and molded it over the top of the nuts:




I carefully cleaned Sculpey out of the shaft path and checked the alignment:




Then I put the other half of the handle on to complete the molding, dusting the interior with cornstarch first:




I ran a pencil through the nuts and carefully lifted out the Sculpey:




And put it in the oven to bake at 275^o for an hour.

[Chris]

now we really need to come up with a quick disconnect mechanism,  hummmm?

The handle connects with a few simple twists to screw it onto the shaft; can't imagine how it would need to be faster!

[drventure]

Very nice. That stuff is EXACTLY what I need to get this helicopter flight stick I have mounted to the stickshift in my volkswagen. In an unrelated project, I swapping out all the instrumentation for aircraft gauges. It's a bit of an odd bug

[Chris]

Suffered a setback.  The mouse arrived and although the mouse is small, the mouse's motherboard takes up the ENTIRE mouse case.  I was hoping it would just be a small piece at the front and not extend into the battery area, but i goes under the battery area.  There are surface mount components all along the bottom so I can't see wheree I can cut the board down.  And as I have been laid off recently, I can't keep buying mice and riipping them apart looking for a tiny one.

I can still complete this using my original plan of having a small cable with a phono plug coming out to plug into a jack on the motherboard but that reduces the coolness factor by several orders of magnitude.

[drventure]

And as I have been laid off recently, I can't keep buying mice and riipping them apart looking for a tiny one.

That sucks. Sorry to hear it. Good luck and keep us posted. I might have to take a stab at this as well.

[Chris]

With all the open space in the middle, I'm looking to see if there is a way to cut the board in half and jumper the cut traces together, allowing it to fold back on itself.  That will depend on the butons still working if the LED and optical sensor are removed, as they bridge the center.

[Bender]

ahhh man that sucks!

all you need to work are the two buttons and the bluetooth right? so does it matter if you kill the optical sensor?

hope you figure something out I love this mod!

[Chris]

Disconnecting something could leave a hanging input on a chip or something.

There is one spot in the middle where I am having a hard time finding a place to cut, and if I find one it's going to have to be a VERY precise cut because of the surface mount components there

[Chris]

I hacked the mouse board in half and set about gingerly soldering the traces back together using individual lines tirn from ribbon cable... but after a couple of connections, adding a new one would break a trace that I had soldered previously.  After seveal broken traces I finally realized that just wasn't going to work.

I think I may have voided the warranty on the mouse.

Anyway, it looks like this is going to have to connect via a small pigtail cable after all.  If I ever do find a wireless mouse with a microscopic motherboard I can give wireless another try.

[Bender]

 

I want to see this work!

here are a couple more that might work if they are ever available, and the price comes down
 
http://usb.brando.com.hk/prod_detail.php?prod_id=00511

http://dreamsmania.com/index.php/topic,9978.0.html

here is another one that's not too pricy

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tiny-Bluetooth-Wireless-Cordless-Optical-Mouse-Mini-NEW_W0QQitemZ200347553698QQihZ010QQcategoryZ23160QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and another super cheap one though it looks pretty similar to the one you tried, but for $6.50 with shipping might be worth a shot

http://cgi.ebay.com/Small-Wireless-USB-RF-Wheel-Optical-Mouse-PC-Laptop-C77_W0QQitemZ220370769877QQihZ012QQcategoryZ23160QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


what is the inside width available in the handle?

[Endaar]

Did this ever get finished, and if so, how did it turn out?

Thanks,
Endaar

[Le Chuck]

Been lurking for oh... about 7 years now.  I have been enchanted by the idea of a removable flight stick for DOT.  I have ordered a presentation pointer to act as the guts.  From the looks it should fit in my flight stick once I get rid of the laser and housing.  Then it should be a simple matter to wire the switches on the yolk to those of the pointer, which sends by BT a pg up and pg down signal.  Here's a link is anyone is still working on this and wants to give it a go as well.  I will post results in early DEC.  -VJ

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004I4LYRC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=AL7LHK6Q9LVTS