Rudder pedal project resumes!! (part 3)

[beaky]

Next I add the brackets, and test-fit the controller. Wow. Got lucky. Nothing hits it, and the pot should fall right over the center of the hole in the middle bar. With the hard rubber surrounding it, the controller fits very snugly between the brackets... perfect for tweaking, if need be.





Setbacks are inevitable: I forgot to countersink the holes in the pedal plates, so now my switch blocks hit the bolt heads. D'oh... a quick trip to the band saw saves the day... just barely got away with notching these...




The soldering worked out pretty well... now my doorbell buttons control the brakes, independently or together. Sweet. Being wireless, this unit has a "power save" mode to conserve batteries, but all I need to do to wake it up is to tap the brakes.




 I bend a piece of sheet metal into a "U", bolt it onto the center of the middle bar, carefully ease the controller down onto it so the pot is trapped, and... Eureka!!! It works!! No problem holding rudder centered, even with everything loose and no bungee. gonna definitely need springs to return the pedals to their upright positions, and to add a little resistance when braking.
But holy crap-it works!!
Next I'll tighten everything up, add the bungee and springs, and we'll see what we've got. Soon as i find a scrap of the right kind of material, I'll add some rubber or something to the pedals.

[zeberdee]

Looking good. But do they work?

[beaky]

Looking good. But do they work?

So far so good. Already added springs to keep the pedals upright; now I need to add a bungee so the whole rig wants to return to center... the big problem without that is taxiing. There's no "feel", and I wind up veering all over.