wickid wrote: ↑Thu Jun 07, 2018 9:22 pm
We have a good relationship with FlyEliseNG. We use their excellent warping software.
As for the controls. The original ASK21 control linkage is still under the seat. We attached bungees to the aileron bell cranks to center the stick. Fore-aft is done by the original ASK21 trim springs under the seat. Rudder also uses bungees attached to the control cables. The airbrakes is also the original linkage with a own design overcenter locking system and resistance is done by a gas-spring.
I am considering adding force feedback over the next winter. But a normal joystick force feedback motor won't do because the leverage from the controls is much bigger in a real glider than it is on a little table top joystick. We are still not sure how to do that. For normal "student pilot speeds" the springs and bungees are more than adequate simulating stickforces. It's only when you go above 130 kph that it feels unrealistic.
Cool, all sensible solutions. For the stick, I have some FF solutions you might be interested in. My current project is gutting a MSFFII, and by changing some resistors/MOSFETs and adding some caps and my own psu I can drive motors at 400% the power (req fancy brushed dc motors with skewed armatures to prevent magnetic cogging). With my current motor selection and gear ratio my stick will be ~3.75Nm, strong enough to replicate forces from most normal modern ships at full lever length, which is typically 25cm in roll and 30cm in pitch.
I'm still gathering materials and will be posting about it soon along with my other parallel simpit projects, but have nearly everything but power transmission parts at this point. Going to use 2GT belt drive if I can get away with it, 3GT if it's not grippy enough but will abandon belt drive if the tactile pollution is too great and switch to shaft-winging techniques. For an overview of the basic hack itself though, I'm following a friend's recipe that documented it quite well, Roland van Roy and can be found here:
http://www.simprojects.nl/ms_siderwinder_ff2_hack.htm
Beyond that I can't say much at this time, but have future plans to work out the hardware details on a collaboration project to make a commercially available FF stick that utilizes MS's DirectInput protocols (like MSFFII uses) so it will be plug-n-play with most sims. Motors will be brushless dc for that one. Back in Condor1 days I also worked out a scheme for a roll-your-own FF setup, but imo that's in the zone of diminishing returns so long as you can just bash a MSFFII to do the job better..