help needed

[jake172]

hey im new to the whole "cockpit-building-scene-ish-thing" and im looking for some advice from someone who actually knows what they are doing.
(unlike myself)
anyways, my question is if its possible to take an AV input joystick and rewire it to work on a flight-sim, and if so, how?


and also please dont talk in big words
haha
im not stupid but im not a tech dude either

[Michael Carter]

What makes you think anyone here knows what they're doing??? ;)

Anything is possible in electronics. You might need to run the contoller to an inut card, or, it may have one on board, or the card may have been in the AV box. At any rate, you'll need one to get it to work on a PC.

[Mike.Powell]

Jake,

It would help if you could provide some detail about the AV joystick.

The short answer is "yes". However, based on the details of what you're starting with, it may or may not be practical to make your desired conversion.

Most joysticks use a type of variable resistor called a potentiometer. Moving the joystick changes the resistance. There is a potentiometer for each axis. For joysticks to be most easily used for flight sim, they should appear to the flight sim program as a game controller device. Contemporary simulation joysticks generally do this by virtue of having an embedded microcontroller programmed as a USB interface that identifies itself to the computer as a game controller.

Wiring your AV joystick as a flight sim joystick can be done by making it look like a game controller. The easiest way to do this is to use the electronics from an existing game controller. For example, a Logitech dual-action gamepad can provide this sort of electronics for $15~20.

Of course, this assumes that your AV joystick makes use of potentiometers. Which brings us back to asking that you provide more detail about the equipment you're starting with.