I made a RC joystick controller from an old Futaba radio. - My creation works with FMS (also RealFlight but who cares)

[Mr P Trog]

My RC buddy port connector did not work in XP. So I needed a solution for my FMS addiction. My wingman rumble pad was OK, but not quite right. I had a dead Futaba Conquest and decided to search the web...
I found the directions here...

http://webpages.charter.net/rcfu/ConstGuide/FSC.html

I have a few thinks to add.
This was Probably written when DOS was king. I used 100K pots and windows callibrated it just fine.
I did not clean off my workspace like the directions said. (My mother couldn't make me, and my Wife still can't)
I mined the 100K pots I needed from two cheap (Ŭ.99 US) joysticks. The guy at radio shack was very nice and even loaned me a screwdriver so I could rip apart his joysticks to see if they had the pots I needed. They fit with no further modification.
I Added four momentary on buttons.(OK three plus the existing Buddy switch.)
Good luck finding a 15 pin D shell connector. I dissected a MIDI adapter to get mine.
You need the correct 12 wires from the connector to the joystick. Most joysticks have only 3 pots connected. From reading on the web, I found out that a joystick that is Thrustmaster compatible, has a throttle and hatswitch, should have the right combo of connections.
If you find a Cheap doner joystick that has the right pins connected, Post a followup to help others.

Overall, I like it better than the buddy port connector. It has no spastic glitching. Although something can be said about the realism of minor control glitches keeping you on your toes.

[mwampler]

Were you ever successful in setting up a profile for your Rumblepad that gave you full two stick control of all four channels in Mode 2. If so, please tell me how you did it. Thanks. Michael Wampler mwampler@visto.com

[Mr P Trog]

Off the subject, but Hey, why not.
I did not need to set up a profile for the rumblepad. I just hit the mode button until both sticks where working, then selected the axis I needed in the controller setup for joystick.
I found it easier to control if I mapped the slider to the throttle/pitch.
I hope this helps.
My guess is you already figured it out by now.

(Edited by Mr P Trog at 6:09 am on Nov. 24, 2001)


(Edited by Mr P Trog at 6:10 am on Nov. 24, 2001)

[mattb]

This appears to be simply connecting the pots in the radio to the gameport directly, correct? I have considered doing this myself (I think I even ran across that page once that you posted that has the directions) I have a working Conquest system but the elevator channel is out (I have determined that it is indeed in the transmitter itself) so it's mostly uselss. BUT maybe I can make a sim interface out of it! Anyway, connecting the pots to the gameport directly sounds like a great idea. Clean and simple. Do you have the extra terminal on the pot wired to the middle terminal or is that not necessary?

I have not been into the transmitter interface much, what resistance are the pots in the TX? Would be nice if I could just use the pots that are in the TX already (I know that page says they won't work but it doesn't say why, really).

Anyway...I have just discovered FMS myself (this is my first post here actually) so far it looks very good! My only R/C simming has been with Flight Siulator 5x using tower view (which, I must say, was rather helpful in getting used to the right/left orientation), the Ripmax sim demo, and custom aircraft in the X-Plane flight simulator.

-Matt Bailey

[johnhlong]

???
I believe the problem was the value of the resistors (Pots) and their throw (or travel).

John


P.S.
You might want to think about replacing the modulator IC. They used to be a standard IC. Same one used for 2 ch - 8 ch. Different transmitters just connected different amounts of channels and changed the channel order to try to get their brand to be unique.

You also might be able to change the broken channel to one of the other unused channels and then re-assign the channel in FMS.

[mattb]

Thanks for the tips johnlong, actually it could be that one of the pots is bad, that would be easy to swap with another channel I'd think, or replace. I dunno what the IC looks like but don't want to put much $$$ into this old radio anyway.

Actually I did hook up an old Cox 2-channel TX to the gameport some time ago, as I recall it did not calibrate correctly at all. Guess you do need different pots. I thought maybe the pots were just dirty or something.

-Matt Bailey