Topic: Developing home-made Azimuth Control unit (Read 14239 times)

ekto · « **Reply #25 on:** September 25, 2008, 16:55:14 »

Plates and cylinders. Material is going to be some basic hard black plastic. Some parts are also going to be turned in lathe, before milling to assure they are round and the holes are center...

pigdog · « **Reply #26 on:** October 12, 2008, 15:22:05 »

hi all, I have posted my progress of my build on the 'how to build' topic in general discussions as I've rebuilt my other controls.

ekto · « **Reply #27 on:** October 12, 2008, 19:06:45 »

Nice going pig dog. I think you will finish before me

Do you have a stearing wheel also?

I too have made some progress, altough I've been really busy at my work and next week will be quote full.

I finally bough the second gear and ordered 3 more gears. With the two gears I was able to measure the length between axis lines. Here is some pics of the design:

It's 16cm wide and 13 cm in height. The base is 9 cm in heigth.

The untangler is not yet in the model since I need to think what is the best model. It will be positioned under the gear.

Here you can see how the gears work. with the gear idea, I can ofset the pot from the center line, so the wire can go trough.

The base is made from 3 different plates. The upper space is for the horizontal potentiometer. The wire comes out from the back of the pot and then goes trough a hole in the center line.
The center space is for the gears. It's pretty since it has only few holes.
The bottom space is for wires and the vertical pot. There is a small hole in the "up" side where the wire goes out.

Next step is to search correct srews and the control stick.

Because the accuracy of the gear holes, CNC-machine is needded. After that decision, I made the design knowing I will use a CNC-machine. So this is now designed so that you cannot make it with out a CNC, but the plus side is that there is less parts, so the price might be less that 50 euros...

pigdog · « **Reply #28 on:** October 13, 2008, 05:39:55 »

looking good, I'm having to go with 3 gear wheels to offset the 360 pot but it gives it a good bit of resistance when turning.
Still waiting for my untanglers to turn up, once they're here I can solder up and start using it.

I haven't gone with a seperate wheel I'll just use the azimuth controls for conventional ship steering.
The beauty is they will work well with things like red jet 4 etc.

ekto · « **Reply #29 on:** October 13, 2008, 06:32:43 »

One thing that I've been thinking is that, with a normal leaver, how much you can turn it? Because when I put my fist in a horizontal direction, I can turn it left or right about 50 decrees. When I put my fist in vertical direction, I can turn it inwards about 90 decrees and outwards 60 decrees. How much can you (pig dog) turn your leaver wih out changing grip?

The only reason that I'm thinking about sticks is that I think it might be easyer to handle. Altough with a stick, I think it's harder to turn the direction, when throtle is 0%. I might need to turn the base with my palm, and then turn the throtle.

pigdog · « **Reply #30 on:** October 13, 2008, 07:17:20 »

I can set the throttles and turn the units by holding the sides but I've found that I can move them very easily I don't have to move them too much and they feel like the real thing.

ekto · « **Reply #31 on:** October 20, 2008, 19:54:02 »

Things has moved forward. After cracking the main problems of the controller, I've been thinking about the small details. Now I have finnished all.

The first thing that I'm going to build is this connection box:

This will connect both controllers to the chip. Here's an outside picture:

I have ordered the box and the connectors. It seams that the chip has standard holes, so it should fit the box perfectly. The model of the box is from the company that makes the boxes. When I moved the chip inside the box, I noticed that the holes mached

The connectors are MiniDin 6 pin. Same's as you have in your keyboard:

The controller has had some changes. I changed the throtle pot to the Vishey 248-model, cause it's cheaper and has more friction. This way the stick might not fall down on it's own:

Here's the new pot:

This is what it should look around my lap top:

After I have build the connection box, I can take accurate mesurements from the female MiniDin connector. Then I can order the plastics for the controller. I think this could hapen some time next week...

pigdog · « **Reply #32 on:** October 20, 2008, 20:34:24 »

Nice work ekto, I didn't think about using the plugs good idea, I had trouble with the phone untanglers and have been at work since no time to continue my build but I managed to get the testing of the throttles done they work really well, just got to rig up and mount the steering pots.

ekto · « **Reply #33 on:** October 21, 2008, 06:25:32 »

Quote from: pigdog on October 20, 2008, 20:34:24

Nice work ekto, I didn't think about using the plugs good idea, I had trouble with the phone untanglers and have been at work since no time to continue my build but I managed to get the testing of the throttles done they work really well, just got to rig up and mount the steering pots.

If you strip the untangler, it will go weak. But if you connect a telepfone cord to the untangler and then do the soldering on the cord, it should be stronger. The telephone cords connector keeps the untangler's contactors in place. So do not do like I did in the prototype...

I had one of those in my work phone for years and it never failed...

ekto · « **Reply #34 on:** October 22, 2008, 06:55:48 »

Since I'm pretty close of ordering the plastics, I would like to know next.

Have any of you heard anything from the devs about making the controls work? I know that we need to make the first step, by building the devices, but it would be nice to know that they have even noticed this. I'm going to build mine anyway, but it would be nice to know, that this thing would not just sit on the shelf of my closet for the coming years...

ekto · « **Reply #35 on:** November 12, 2008, 09:28:22 »

Here's a litle update of the situation. The plastics have been ordered a week ago, but I heard that the lathe is busted, so the delivery time is at least two weeks. Everything else I already have.

I put some more information after the plastics have arrived.

Still no word from the devs

Penguin · « **Reply #36 on:** December 04, 2008, 22:54:20 »

Enclosed two pictures showing how I try to fix two conduit boxes to let them work together as one single drive controller (click > here < to see how it could look like when finished).

It's quite tricky to let the whole thing work (I hope it will work).
The next step to do will be fixing some polystyrene within conduit box #2 so it can hold the potentiometer. The screw nut has to be brought into box #2 and will be tightened through the box' neck on the top.

All this stuff just as an idea.

pigdog · « **Reply #37 on:** December 06, 2008, 11:37:57 »

Hi Penguin,

Thats the same way I mounted the throttle pot, I used some wire mesh and just made the hole bigger to take the pot and bridged the conduit box as you have, it works fine.
One piece of advice though, when you fix the other conduit box you may have to put something in between the two boxes to give a little more resistance as I found when you push the throttle lever fwd a little it falls down there was not enough physical resistance in the pot itself. I've used some window and door draught excluder that has a sticky tape on one side and a soft rubber on the other gives a nice resistance.

Apart from that it works ok, it's just the in game controls for the azipod ships that need to change for the next release or soon hopefully so we can use these controls.
If nothing changes within the game we might have to rethink the whole potentiometer idea and go with switches instead, but another thought I had whilst testing was if the developers could split and seperate the precission steering into 3 seperate check boxesso you would have precission steering, throttles and thrusters so you can turn either one on or off or any combination of the 3 that would help when using joysticks and switches and buttons.

I went with extra long throttle cables and done away with the telephone untangler I didn't follow ekto's advice and went straight in and cut part off now it keeps coming apart and you can't solder the wires together too well as the space is limited, so now I have enough slack in the cable to allow at least two 360 degree turns.

Good luck with it keep us up to date with your progress.

pigdog

ekto · « **Reply #38 on:** December 15, 2008, 09:01:10 »

It's been a while since my last post, but now there has been some progress. The machine thay decided to use for these parts is brand new and quote complicated. This is an example pic of he machine:

It's a lathe that can also mill. After some hard learning, they have produced first parts of the controller:

That is the part that keeps the 248-pot in place. You can see it in this picture:

These are all practise parts. in these parts there is a small (+- 0.1 mm) errors in the center hole. I've been told that they have made also a perfect pair of that part and other as well. I will get some pics from the machinist soon so I can post them here.

Here is a pic of all the parts that needs to be produced:

I think that I can start assembly early next month, or I hope so

But there is no rush as I haven't heard any news that there is going to be any changes to the game...

Edit: I found a video of the same machine as they are using: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbjW9okW_GE

ekto · « **Reply #39 on:** December 22, 2008, 13:41:10 »

Here is the proof that I've been nice this year:

Santa Claus came early this year

Here's a pic of the size. I just stacked the pieces:

Merry cristmas to you all !

Sam · « **Reply #40 on:** December 22, 2008, 18:13:07 »

Wow, that is looking great!

I see you have some open room at the bottom.
Maybe you can put some lead in it so that your units don't move on your desk when you turn them.

ekto · « **Reply #41 on:** December 22, 2008, 20:18:10 »

At this moment they weight roughly one Kg. I'l need to do some drilling etc before things will fit, but it looks good. Wheels sit perfeclty and the pot holes are very tight. The center of the bases are done wrong. The hole is couple of mm too small and the island is too high. But I got manual mill and a Lathe on my disposal, so it can be fixed. There is no idea to make new ones, since the material (200mm diameter pole) is 450 euros per meter

I still think it will take a month or so, before everything is ready.

Sam · « **Reply #42 on:** December 22, 2008, 20:29:40 »

Well, when they are finished, I am shure they will be great.

Suddenly my control unit looks horrible when I see this

pigdog · « **Reply #43 on:** January 22, 2009, 10:51:31 »

Hi All,

I've been doing some testing incase the controls for azimuth driven vessels isn't changed in the next release of SS.

Instead of pots i've been testing with buttons and the combined steering/throttle units I built for azimuth vessels and they work ok but the main problem I had was keeping the control lever at a desired position, i've still yet to try fixing springs to them to see if they will only push the button when pressure is applied to the throttle or steering control.

Someone did mention about using parts from a mouse, does anyone know how this would work? what are the signals given off a mouse?

ekto · « **Reply #44 on:** January 23, 2009, 19:07:40 »

If they don't change it, we just need to figure out, how to out put the pot location information so that it's similar to the X and Y-axis joystick. Some kind of software...

pigdog · « **Reply #45 on:** January 23, 2009, 20:12:44 »

I've been doing some testing with different versions of that as well and i think it will be difficult to get right as you would still need precission steering enabled but that reads the pots as either full on or off no inbetween.
One idea that may work is if the developers could seperate the controls so you could have precission steering, engines and thrusters all in seperate check boxes then you could set it up how you like so you can use a combination of pots and buttons.

Author Topic: Developing home-made Azimuth Control unit (Read 14239 times)