batdog, your reply must be in reference to the Suncom Throttle which I do believe you lose rudder control from using the duel throttle setup, but who cares you probably would have USB pedals plugged in seperately and it wouldn't matter
Hopefully. If not then you are correct.
This is real easy to make.....
Take one CH Pro Throttle and cut in half with a rough cut tool box hand saw! Then I just super glued(r/c hobby stuff whick I believe is the best kind of super glue) the halfs to a couple of pieces of scrap plastic I had laying around the garage cut to the profile of the 'chopped' throttle handle. On the other side of the plastic peice, I added a 1/8 peice of plywood to the top 1/3 of the handle, with the bottom of it rounded and matched to the top of the lever which buts up against it. I do this so I can attach it to the lever the following way without worrying about it twisting on the lever. I countersunk the opposite side of the lever and put a big flush machine screw through it and the plastic peice and secured with a plastic locknut.
I would select a different angle next time as my throttle sits sideways for comfort and I push it at a 45 degree angle instead of fwd/back. You have to be careful when selecting the angle to cut, being careful not to cut through the attaching posts that the screws go through to keep the upper and lower halfs of the throttle together(you have 4 peices when you cut it in half). Mines a serial version but a USB Pro Throttle would work and I think I'll be able to just drop in the elecs from the USB when I get it because I'm betting the shell molds are the same.
It's plugged into my gameport on the PC and the other half is nothing more than the guts from a spare 3 axis joystick(my old CH Combat Stick) installed with the extra 2 axis pots mounted and sticking out the back for callibration. The 'other half(3 axis joystick)' is plugged into the Pro Throttle joystick port which sticks out the back of the base. It is callibrated in Windows as a generic 3 axis 4 botton joystick. I wired it per diagrams I found searching the web, lot's of them out there. The buttons do work on the base, but I don't use them, just a matter of windows recognizing everything and then mapping in AH.
The base is just made out of wood, 2 side panels, one center panel the same size as the side panels, back panel, and bottom panel of 1/4 ply. The top curvy lid is 1/8 plywood from my r/c hobby I put under hot water to get it to bend then I screwed it down and let it dry and take a set.
The levers are 1/8 X 1 1/4 steel scrap from work, with a nut welded on it where it rides/turns on a shaft made from all thread (I forget the size). The all thread in turn is just attached to the center panel with nuts and washers. On the shaft outboard of the levers I have springs and plastic lock nuts to tighten against the levers(springs on both sides of each lever actually) to give it adjustable tension. I didn't use the stock pots from my CH joysticks as they are of low quality and bought military spec pots from Newark Electronics(if you use USB gear this is unecessary as USB takes care of the 'jitters' that plague low quality pots). For the linkages I made some levers out of aluminum that attach to the pots with set screws and ball links and rod from my r/c hobby stuff to connect the levers to the pots. Then adjusted settings with an ohm meter to match the movement between the two levers, 0-100 ohms is the target range with both levers moving in unison.
It would be easy to make a 4 engine control, all that matters is that windows recognizes enough axis to allow you to map them in AH. I could make the base bigger and add two more levers and hook them up to the 2 extra pots I have sticking out the back, then it's just a matter of mapping them in AH. Right now my duel throttle works great with twin engines, but with 4 engines 1 half controls one engine while the other half controls the other 3, but I don't care, don't fly the 4 engine one's much
I suggest making them out of all USB Gear. I'm gonna buy a cheap USB stick next time I'm in the big city for the one half of the throttle, and eventually put the USB Pro Throttle in the other half and get rid of this spikey gameport stuff. I use the CH Fighterstick USB and USB Pro Pedals for the rest of my setup.
Email me if you need more details, or I can possibly dissasemble it enough to take more pics and send them.
ts
