Table of Contents

Helicopter Pedals (Bell 429) as Joystick Emulation

Going to try to build helicopter pedals that appear to X-Plane as a Joystick.

I had to purchase a Arduino Leonardo, because only this model can appear to a Windows machine as a Joystick. Arrived today from Amazon (keyestudio), about $15.

Tom Stanton did something similar, using Hall effect instead of a potentiometer.

Arduino Joystick 2.0 Library Shows use of Arduino Joystick library, including means to rename device to allow multiple USB devices

How to Build a Button Box Shows how to wire 4 rotary encoders and how to multiplex switches to allow more buttons than input pins.

https://hackaday.com/tag/tom-stanton/

Hall Effect Sensor 49E

Purchased 10 from Amazon for about $8.

49E Hall Effect Datasheet

Arduino Pro Micro

Purchased 3 Arduino Pro Micros from Amazon - HiLetgo 3pcs Pro Micro Atmega32U4 5V 16MHz Bootloadered IDE Micro USB Pro Micro Development Board Microcontroller Compatible to Arduino Pro Micro Serial Connection with Pin Header

I purchased these because they appear to Windows as a Joystick, and are smaller than Arduino Leonardo. Since I only need one axis, via Hall Effect sensor, this device should suffice.

According to the diagram, this can be converted between 5V and 3.3V device by shorting the J1 pads on the PCB.

Description:

  1. The Pro Micro is similar to the Pro mini except with a ATmega32U4 on board. The USB transceiver inside the 32U4 allows us to add USB connectivity on board and do away with bulky external USB interface.
  2. This tiny little board does all of the neat-o Arduino tricks that you're familiar with: 4 channels of 10-bit ADC, 5 PWM pins, 12 DIOs as well as hardware serial connections Rx and Tx. Running at 16MHz and 5V, this board will remind you a lot of your other favorite Arduino-compatible boards but this little guy can go just about anywhere. If you're supplying unregulated power to the board, be sure to connect to the “RAW” pin, not to VCC.

Features: * ATmega32U4 running at 5V/16MHz * Supported by Arduino IDE v1.0.1 * On-Board Micro-USB connector for programming * 4 x 10-bit ADC pins, 12 x Digital I/Os * Rx and Tx Hardware Serial Connections

Note:

  1. When you open the Arduino IDE software, pls go to the tool and choose the board “Arduino Leonardo”
  2. The acceptable voltage range is 5 to 9 V.

Package included:

  1. Pro Micro ATmega32U4 5V/16MHz Development Board