can I canibalise a joy stick for pedals?

[volunteer]

Hi,

I got a pair of car-tube foot-pumps cheap in a sale and joining the tubes together and removing the springs

[ozzy72]

Not the best of plans. What you could do (and is much cheaper) is to attached a variable resistor to each pedal and then attach them to a suitable circuit board. I've got some plans lying around for a set of pedals, I'll see if I can find them.

[JBaymore]

volunteer,

Welcome to the Homebuild Cockpits section.

[JBaymore]

volunteer,

Go to Page 12 in ths forum section for rottydaddy's docs on his pedals.

best,

..........john

[volunteer]

Thank you - I need to digest all this!! what attracted me to the pedals was they were megga cheap - and they are robust and look the part. With the air pipes joined - one pedal goes up and the other goes down. I think oil would be better than air, as the action when joined is a bit spongy. I never thought of toe brakes. Just the idea I had in the store - when I saw the foot pumps at ten $ for two got me thinking.....

[JBaymore]

volunteer,

The "hydraulic approch" sounds interesting.

[beaky]

Rather than using the air to move your potentiometer (getting a headache just thinking about that), you might rig some other sort of simple linkage that moves when the pedals move. Much easier and cheaper.
JB is on to something brilliant, but I'm guessing you're not looking to go quite that far...

The pump-pedal idea has potential, that's for sure. The movement of your feet will be more similar to braking than moving the rudder, but maybe not very much so.

As for hacking a stick: don't plan on using it again as such, although that's do-able. Rather than go through all the trouble of setting things up so you can restore the joystick to its former state, you'd be better off getting a real cheap joystick and gutting it.
If you're only using it for rudder control, it can be a pretty crappy joystick.  ;D