3D printed HOTAS (Hiatus)

Communities Science, Engineering, & Security
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Hello!

Allow me to tell you a bit about myself, my name is Chase I'm in high school, I primarily play RTS and Flight sims last year I built my first computer and I'm currently studying what I can about 3D printing in preparation to try to design and build a 3D printed flight-stick, what does that have to do with you??? I... Honestly don't know, but what I do know is that I could use some help with my idea for a 3D printable HOTAS

Here is what I need (ill mark this out or add to it as I get the info and help I need)

  1. If someone with a HOTAS system could provide me with the measurements that I've outlined in the lines at the bottom, then that will allow me to scale my design the match what's commonly in use (as many different makes and models would be best for averaging purposes)

  2. Ive included a sketch of my general design and would like some suggestions on how I could improve the ergonomics and streamline it for 3D printing (I'll be getting some clay in a little while to model it by hand (unfortunately I'm no good at cad so clay for me)

I'll also need some electrical and mechanical advice from people with more expertise than I have

I intend to get my 3D printer at the beginning of next year and am still deciding which to buy (I'm still deciding which to buy, however, as I'm trying to find a part-time job so ill have some cash to spend on stuff like this I'm trying to keep the price down to less than 500 (preferably less than 300) so I can get plenty of filament and any other parts I end up needing.

Lastly, any advice about 3D printing filaments and methods is welcome I'm doing what research I can but balancing school, getting the necessary hours to get my license and the fact that Christmas is just around the corner does not help things

1 the measurements that I need are as follows

  1. The length of the flight-sticks grip (from the connection to the base to just under the trigger)

  2. The circumference of the grip at its thickest and thinnest points

  3. The travel distance and width of your throttle as well as how many buttons are on it

PS. if anyone knows a way to calculate the strength of a printed part besides trial and error, then please link me as that would be useful when designing the base
PPS. I'll check back as often as I can but I might have periods of a day or two where I'm just to busy or don't want to deal with the world so you might not hear from me.

Thank-you for your time and help.

~Chase

Flight stick design sketch

flight stick.jpg2544x1784 342 KB

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Update 01#
I found some time today to work on the design for the base and here is what I came up with, the questions I had about them and the problems that I could foresee when building each.

I stared with around ten ideas (four gimbal designs a couple ball in socket designs and some impractical designs I came up with for fun) here are the two that made the most sense.

Idea 02: This was the simplest of my gimbal designs and the most practical.

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Idea: 04: the two "ball in socket" designs ended up being more or less identical except this one used a hollow shaft(and my drawing was cleaner :P).

Okay so pros and cons, well lets break this down one at a time shall we?
the pros of the gimbal design are as follows:

  1. Its easy to print and build, all of the parts in this design are either strait horizontal or vertical which should help with the printing process as well as allow some room for error when putting everything together.
  2. the fact that it uses multiple springs allows me to customize the pressure required to pull the stick in each direction (for instance id like it to require less pressure to roll then pitch).

Cons:
1. Strength, although I'm sure that with the right materials the actual the hub will withstand plenty of wear and tear the parts that connect the bolts to the balancing springs might wear down over time and break off.
2. Size, now I know they say size doesn't matter but in this case it does this is going to be a sim-desk setup so the stick should be as unintrusive as possible and to keep the construction at a reasonable strength I think that it might end up being bigger then I want.

Now for the ball in socket
Pros:
1. strong, my local hardware store sells "ball in socket" connectors that I could modify to work the same way as my design, the upside of this being that I don't have to worry about a breakage occurring in the axis assembly, although I will nee to figure out how to attach it to A 3D printed base (I think an epoxy should work)

Cons:
1. Tracking, I have a few ideas in how I can track the gimbal style if axis but with my admittedly limited knowledge of servos and electronics I'm afraid that I've drawn a stop as far as this design is concerned.
2. Although using a single spring simplifies the assembly process it means that I cant have different pressures for roll and pitch.

any input or criticism of the designs is welcome, also if anyone has any ideas on how to track the ball in socket style axis pleas let me know.

On a side note I've dropped this on the LTT forum and was looking at dropping it on the Robert Space Industries forum aswell (a friend mentioned that there is a guy on there working on a similar project) anyone have any suggestions as-to where else I should drop it?
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Update 2#
Okay so its been a while since I made an update and in all honesty between the short vacation my family took and the sickness, I caught while we where away I haven't had as much time as I would like to work on the project however I've reached A point where It seems prudent to make an update for you all so here it is

So what have I managed to accomplish in the month or so since my last update?
Well, I ended up both simplifying and expanding my project, how you ask? Well, allow me to explain what my original goal was:

Stick: so the goal for the stick was simple: a primary and secondary trigger, hat-switch and a thumb button for bombs/Rockets

Throttle: so the throttle was supposed to be the simple part of this equation, it was supposed to have maybe one or two buttons and plug into the base of the sick

So what have I changed?

Well to start off with I've decided to add rudder pedals simplify the design of the stick and add more buttons to the throttle

Why add ruder pedals you may ask?
Cuzz yaw control mate!

The reason I decided to simplify the stick is that I wanted to add a wrist rest for long sessions and didn't like how my current design looked with it tacked on.

As for the throttle my original plan was to use a "pot" in the grip and a rocker to control rudder, I still might do that but for now I'm just going to go with a separate rudder unit and a simple throttle.

Ok, time for a brief explanation of what I had originally and what I've done to improve each part

Pedals:
We'll start off with the pedals as they are the newest addition to our little group
After a lot of searching and failed ideas (I'm halfway through a package of printer paper) I ended up tossing an email at the good man over at SlawDevice and he gave me permission to copy the design for his centering mechanism (THIS design, not his new one) ill be using a slightly altered version of it for my design.

Although I haven't had time to do much more than sketches I did manage to stop by my local hobby shop and pick up two things, one being several sheets of foam-board and the other was a pack of potentiometers.

Now that I have a general idea of the size and durability of what I'll be working with I used some of the foam I picked up to put together a simple testing platform to find out things like "how many degrees should it travel" and "how wide should it be?". during my testing I found that a distance of around 380mm between the center of each pedal with the pedals sitting parallel at a distance of about 6-8 inches from my chair (my chair sits at a height of 19 inches) was more or less perfect for me, however when my brother tried on my test rig he didn't find it comfortable till the distance between the pedals was 475 with a slight angle so that his toe was facing outward and the were pedal cockeyed so that the inside edge was higher then the outside edge, we also moved the pedals back by about 4 inches. (hes a 6-foot something or another mammoth)
So, what does this mean for me? well it means that either ill have to put the pedals on some-kind of gimbal to allow you to adjust the angle or just leave them parallel and call it good enough.

Stick: Aside from deciding to simplify the stick Ive also tried to take into account the fact the Ill be playing primarily sim battles in war thunder and IL-2, which means long sessions.
So this means ill want function rather then form (Yeah an angular stick will look nice but my current design doesn't have a wrist rest and due to the gaps between the plates wont be that comfortable for hour+ sessions of game-play) so what do I intend to do to improve on the stick? well ill be adding some-kind of wrist rest and either go for a 109 style grip with simple lines and no frills or switch to a floor mounted setup and use a yolk similar to the spitfire or early Russian fighters from WW2

Throttle: after spending around an two hours looking at and sketching out different designs I came down to one question, what do I want my throttle to do? well I want it to be desk mountable have buttons or switches for flaps, gears, engine ignition and shutdown aswell as couple extra just incase I decide I want to bind anything else.
So how many buttons and switches do I want/need? well my intention is to attempt to use a pair of LeoBodnar BU0836A (one for throttle and the other for stick and pedals) so after subtracting the inputs taken up by the "pot" Ill have 28 available inputs for buttons and for my uses I think four toggles and 6-8 buttons should work nicely.

Well folks, that's all Ive got for now.
Starting the 21st I've got a pretty busy schedule (three birthdays, Halloween, and a bunch of family stuff) so you might not get another update until December when things usually start to slow down a bit before Christmas.
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Until next time

Chase~
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Hiatus

Just a quick update for you guys,

I unfortunately have to call for a hiatus until further notice, I intend to continue working on the project, however, some IRL things came to a head quicker than expected and I don't know when i'll be able to devote the time that this project deserves.

So sorry.

Chase~

2 Likes
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If you get a design that you are interested in trying out you can give me a 2D drawing with approximate measurements that you want drawn in CAD (Solidworks) and then I could work with you to produce iterations that you could print and test ergonomics...

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Thx for the offer ill be sure to keep it in mind when I get thing finalized:)

I also have a quick question if you don't mind, My currently plan is to model everything in clay (the only 3d medium I'm good at working in) and use a program like 123D to convert it to a 3D model so that I can clean it up in SketchUp before making my prints, do you see any problems with this method or do you think it'll work out fine?

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I haven't used 123D personally, however the issues with converting a clay model to a 3D virtual model is, unwanted marks and fingerprints that come with hand making the model might be taken across too.
I recommend instead you use clay to create the best ergonomics. This is a fairly common practice within industry. Then manually create a model from the clay.
By using images from each plain you can lay these images over several sketches in solidworks and build really detailed 3D models from that. Generally a skilled manual construction is better than a 3D scan.
I hope we can help.
Ed

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Thanks for the info!

Quick question if you don't mind, when I make my images for use in solidworks can I use photos taken on a white backdrop or should I convert them to sketches?

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You can import any image you like into solid works, the nice thing about it is, the software allows you to have the image in the exact plane that you are working on. So in effect you can trace over it electronically to build the 3D model. So either a hand drawn sketch or a photo would be fine.
I strongly recommend you have a background in a block colour that has a strong contrast to the part, such as dark clay on white or pen on white as you can remove the background in solid works and make it transparent.
If you can build exactly what you want out of clay, take clear pictures of that directly on, and one for every 90° plus a top and bottom if you can. The more detail the better. Plus, take exact measurements of the model, such as hight and width, this is vital for scaling the photos in solid works.
Hope I haven't missed anything
Ed

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Oh, and just something to keep in mind for the design. With whatever 3D printer you get, check the hang angle (probably called something else) it's the angle the printer can print out before the plastic droops, this is mostly effected by the plastic you use but most projets are designed with specific plastics in mind. Generally this angle is about 45° before you need to print supports with it however from personal experience I would use something closer to 25-30° just to be safe.

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Oh, wow. That sound incredibly useful.

As for the printer I'm either going to wait and see what the reviews say about the TIKO or try and grab a pruisa i3 with a heated bed when I can catch one for cheap.

I'm going to try to get some clay this Saturday so ill keep in make sure to get something with high contrast would dark gray work?(I have a "microwave" setup I can dig out of the closet to take the pictures also does using a two-tone (Lets say dark tan and grey) cause any problems when working in solidworks?

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The way you filter a colour to make it transparent in solidworks is just by selecting the colour and then adjusting the slider, for sensitivity, by having it very sensitive only that exact colour will be removed, by making it less sensitive a wider array of similar colour will be removed. By having a good contrast just means more more colour can be removed. Making it easier for whoever is making the virtual model. Grey would probably be best, because if the clay was too dark you might not be able to see all the details on the picture.

Do you know what format that 3D scanner exports as? Because unless it exports as an industry standard such as .STL solidworks might not be able to import it. But also, from personal experience, unless the 3D model is EXACTLY as wanted it is easier to just manually model, because making little changes to an import can be so tricky sometimes.

Will you be doing the modeling? I would offer however my license for solidworks has sadly expiered. If you are not doing it yourself then it might be best asking whoever is doing for their preferances on the matter.

However being able to send people a 3D scan of a prototype can be really useful, I'm not trying to diss 3D scanners ;)
Ed

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My apology's reading back I realized that I wasn't vary clear, the link to the "microwave" was just to give you an idea as to the setup I have to take pictures, It should allow me to take everything with even lighting aswell as provide whoever ends up doing the modeling with clear clean and precise images.

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I wouldn't waste my time with the TIKO... Always better to go for something tried, tested and well-documented instead of a promise with slick marketing campaign.

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That's why I intend to wait till a site or You-tuber I trust reviews it, However I tend to agree with you based on the fact that having a strong community would mean that once I acquire my unit there is a good support group, plenty of field testing and a know list of bugs and fixes available as soon as I need them.

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Ah I see, good lighting is really good, particularly with a darker medium, such as clay. But don't worry too much about a crazy set up to take the pictures, it just makes it a bit easier for the person designing the 3D model. Personally, I have found being able to put everything into the correct scale easily to be a very important part, so make sure your pictures are directly at the model, don't have your camera at an angle if you can. 90 degrees makes things much easier. Plus even something as simple as an accurate height measurement, then everything else can be linked to that.

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I don't have any experience, nor have I really heard much about either printer. So I can't really comment on these specifically. However I am dubious of the extrude technology which extends the ext ruder head on those arms, away from the stepper moters as with the TIKO, I have found them to be less accurate. However that may be more of a production/individual design issue rather than a flaw with that method.

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Thanks for your advice and help, Ill be sure to keep it in mind when the time comes.

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Keep us up to date on how the project is going. It would be interesting to see a project log as it goes through
Ed

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Will do, I threw together a basic update line that I'm going to try and follow.

1.Launch project and get first impressions
2.Make basic gimbal designs
3.Basic clay models
4.Get advice on looks and opinions on button placement
5.Second clay models incorporating advice from four
6.Same as four
7.Take pic and model in 3D
8.Test print at 1/6 scale
9.Fix any errors and make any final tweaks
10.Final print

1 Like
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A Bowden setup works well if it's implemented correctly. Thinner and flexible filaments tend to kink and bend inside the tube, which causes problems down the line at the hotend. Ultimaker have tackled this by using 2.85mm filament, and a lot of repraps use 3mm. The fact that TIKO use 1.75mm filament should be a red flag, but maybe it's not as pronounced since the tube is so short, who knows...

Oh yeah, @jamestchase, if you can publish the source files after finishing the project, that would be rad :)

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Maybe this is a conversation for a different thread, but I have found that when the hot end is dangled below the stepper motors like with the TIKO the inaccuracies of the stepper motors are magnified because the motors move a smaller distance per mm that the hot end is moved.

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That's good info to know, Ill keep it in mind.

Of-course!, I intend to release the source and make a short build guide when I've finished the project.