Back to the point about why this is never finished / painted comes to a fine & vital point of prototyping. It is quite one thing to have an idea, envision a solution, source the parts, work out the technology etc. AND! To quite convince yourself that's the solution. Then you come to use it.
In this case I found using those triggers detracted enormously from the fidelity of control I had reached by this simply being engine control, even though that essentially takes up my whole left hand. Furthermore there's always the unexpected. I found I could catch them accidentally all too often while operating the keyboard, sometimes depleting quite a bit of your 30-mm ammo, say, when you were on your way to HO J0ker in a K-4 (say). Then because of that it cocked-up desk-position, compromised my engine control further etc so therefore:-
Ziiiiiiip!
Off it came:-
There. That's much better. Super-duper-high-precision electronic virtual piston-engine control restored. Sometimes simple is best. However I failed to solve the problem of additional controls. The 'pool-ball' is hollowed out for a momentary switch so I might revisit this. I didn't do that yet because the counterbalance I made wasn't quite enough to balance the weight of the ball on the end of a long lever.
Here's the counterbalance revealed underneath the cover. I appreciate the earlier pictures are gone I can't do anything about that I'm afraid. Many people who are apparently not AH players have PMed me through the years asking this or that. I can re-explain the mechanical operation if I have time and there's interest etc. It's much better being able to upload pictures here.
Again it was definitely worth it, it is basically made out of recycled crap and the odd eBay purchase / re-appropriated items. The Bodnar controller I can highly recommend. It's 12-bit, so as stated earlier 1024 (? I forget now) steps as opposed to 255. I've literally had to calibrate it once (per controller). I updated at some point to the more expensive version with the push-in connectors. They are a bit of a pain in the arse to use actually as the wires are close together and the angle awkward and sometimes you lose a control when you keep packing it away and unpacking it as I have done for long periods here and there, but very configurable of course.
All of this is leading into why my Homemade Joystick project became quite a mammoth, well, thing really. Since my right hand necessarily needed to absorb all of the 'fine-motor' control duty which my left hand is unable to help with. Pictures of that in a forthcoming thread (maybe). If you think this project is nuts wait until you see that
Happy Friday
