A generic force feedback yoke for realistic loads

[Tom_G_2010]

Gerald, I just found your post here and want to compliment you on a fantastic build. Two things caught my attention in particular: 1. The compactness of your design; 2. The use of a planetary gear box for your aileron drive.

I completed my build a little more than a month ago and, like you, decided to do my own drive carriage design using metal instead of wood and with a number of off the shelf parts. However, my design has a much larger foot print. My hat's off to you for coming up with the idea to use the planetary gear drive and, mounting the power supply and cards on the side of the carriage. That really cuts down on the space needed.

Where did you get the motors and gear box? I found sourcing the motors to be quite challenging. I am hoping to get my rudder pedals done later this summer and I've been looking all over the net at different planetary gearbox options. I already have the motor and driver card. In fact I have a temporary linkage to it that is being used (with all the forces disables) for position sensing on my rudder pedals until I can get the gear box and design the interface.

Here's a short video I posted showing a high level overview of my build while it was still in progress.

[gfesim]

wow that's an impressive setup.
Wish I had the space (and wife acceptance ) putting a real cockpit fuselage into my home. So I was somewhat forced to condense everything into a small footprint.
The motors and planetary gear boxes I purchased at the manufacturer, Agenzia Pini in Italy. (www.ing-pini.it). They provide a selection of gear ratio options together with their range of BLDC motors.

I'm too working on a rudder pedal design. The gear box has a transmission ratio of 1:16 which should give me a force of about 400 N. Work is still in progress, here is a render with the planned design.

Gerald

[Tom_G_2010]

Thanks for the info! I was afraid Agenzia Pini was the answer. Purchasing from them proved challenging and my bank was of little assistance trying to get the funds to them. I'm not sure I'm up for another round of that...

I'll keep looking for in country resources but, if I come up short at least I know I can go back to them. Other than sourcing that gear box my design issues are a bit simpler. I have the full Cessna rudder pedal assembly and simply reversed the direction of the control cables to come out through the firewall where I can connect to them. I'll need to come up with a linkage from the cables to the gear box but I don't see that as too difficult.

Again, thanks for the info and great job on your build!