Hi,
Here is the second part of my build.
After testing the throttles and finding they worked I headed back to the yacht chandlery to look for thruster and steering controls.
After searching for hours I couldn't find any dedicated steering controls but did find some real thruster controls Fig.1
Feeling disheartened at not finding anything to steer my ship with and not knowing if the thruster controls would work I turned to the playstation controls that I had started to rob bits from and used a bit of creativity to construct my steering controls Fig.2
I used the face plate from the playstation as a template to cut out another one to mount the controls on, I used two sets of plastic pipe joint from toilet plumbing I had lying in my toolbox to make a collar for the controls to sit in, then I realised that I needed some steering handles or wheels, so I used two speaker mounting brackets that were also lying at the bottom of the toolbox as well as a load of washers and nuts to get the correct amount of resistance for the steering Fig.3
I then marked out and mounted the controls to a piece of wood and then began the mammoth task of getting all the wires in the right place and the right length (measure twice cut once, I should have listened to my own advice)
After another email to Leo Bodnar to check on the suitability of the switches for the thrusters they could be mounted too this gave me engines, two steering controls and two thruster controls all working and mounted on my piece of wood. Fig.4
I was planning on using the rest of the wood to make a box to house it all in but I am no carpenter, it was at this point I looked at my toolbox and thought why don't I use that, eureka! a ready made box, so out came the tools all over the floor and after a little rethink I moved the thruster controls so they were side by side, cut the end off the wood and she fitted perfectly into the old toobox (the lid even closes) yes I even suprised myself with my genius or lazyness whichever way you look at it Fig.5
I then mounted the BU0836 inside the box cut a hole in the back so I can attatch the usb lead plugged it all in and hey presto! it all worked fine.
All thats left to do now is tidy it up a bit and I need to rethink the brackets for the left steering control, somehow it worked loose and keeps turning without moving the pot so a little more work to do on it and maybe a coat of paint and some rudder angle indicators just to finish it off but I'm really pleased with it.
The one downside is you have to have precision steering disabled when your in multiplayer to enable the controls to work correctly and this in turn means whenever you text talk to another player your engines and steering shut down whilst you type as soon as you click out of the text box it springs to life again, I don't suppose anyone knows away around this do they?
I've tried Teamspeak but not that many people seem to use it.
I will post some more pics when it's all complete but I've really enjoyed doing this little project and now I can enjoy it in the sim.
Pigdog
