DIY Arduino Helicopter Collective Joystick Control -- Episode 440

I love to fly in simulators, especially helicopters. But, there is just not an affordable collective control that I have found, so I decided to make one for myself! I am going to build a joystick using an Arduino Micro, with a bunch of buttons for assignable controls and a high quality encoder for the collective axis.

Supplemental Content:

Also you can watch the live Twitch recording about this build: element14 Presents Live Twitch Stream: DIY Arduino Helicopter Collective Joystick Control

Bill of Material:

Product Name	Manufacturer	Quantity	Buy Kit
BOURNS Absolute Rotary Encoder, 120 rpm, 128 PPR, EAW Series	BOURNS	1	Buy Now
ARDUINO Development Board, Arduino Micro, ATmega32U4 MCU, 20 3.3V I/O, 12 Analogue Inputs, ISCP Header	ARDUINO	1	Buy Now
ITW SWITCHES Pushbutton Switch, Industrial, 59 Series, 13.6 mm, SPST-NO-DB, Momentary, Square	ITW SWITCHES	1	Buy Now
ITW SWITCHES Pushbutton Switch, Industrial, 59 Series, 13.6 mm, SPST-NO-DB, Momentary, Square	ITW SWITCHES	1	Buy Now
ITW SWITCHES Pushbutton Switch, Industrial, 59 Series, 13.6 mm, SPST-NO-DB, Momentary, Round	ITW SWITCHES	1	Buy Now
ITW SWITCHES Pushbutton Switch, Industrial, 59 Series, 13.6 mm, SPST-NO-DB, Momentary, Round	ITW SWITCHES	1	Buy Now
C & K COMPONENTS SWITCH, SPDT, 5A, 120VAC	C & K COMPONENTS	3	Buy Now
BOURNS Incremental Rotary Encoder, Pro Audio, Continuous. 24 Detents, 24 Pulses, Quadrature Output	BOURNS	1	Buy Now

Additional Parts:

Product Name
5 Way Momentary Square SMD Tactitle Switch
M3x5x2 Square Nuts
8mm Bore Diameter ball mounted pillow blocks
T6 Seamless Aluminum Round Straight Tubing 16 Gauge 1-3/8" OD

Attachments:

HelicopterCollective_Resources.zip

DIY Arduino Helicopter Collective Joystick Control

element14 presents | About Kaleb | Project Videos

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ironeagle585 over 5 years ago

HI Kaleb, thank you for a great maker project, already got the maechnical part done, but was wondeing where you can get hold of the Controllers Lite software you used in the video, searched Goggle etc, but no joy, hope you can help. All the best.
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KalebTheMaker over 5 years ago in reply to ironeagle585

Hi D,

That was just used for testing, You can use anything that sees a joystick. That one specifically for mac and can be found here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/controllers-lite/id673660806?mt=12

Antimicro would be a windows option, And something like jstest-gtk for linux, or use python pygame.

https://github.com/AntiMicro/antimicro
https://jstest-gtk.gitlab.io/

Good luck on the build, please share pics!

-Kaleb
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KalebTheMaker over 5 years ago in reply to ironeagle585

Hi D,

That was just used for testing, You can use anything that sees a joystick. That one specifically for mac and can be found here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/controllers-lite/id673660806?mt=12

Antimicro would be a windows option, And something like jstest-gtk for linux, or use python pygame.

https://github.com/AntiMicro/antimicro
https://jstest-gtk.gitlab.io/

Good luck on the build, please share pics!

-Kaleb
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ironeagle585 over 5 years ago in reply to KalebTheMaker

Hi Kaleb,

Thanks for the update, no wonder I coudn't find it, as I dont have a mac , I'll defnitely check out the others though, I'll get some pic on here as soon as I've finished it all up

Kind regards,

D
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