The joysticks found on ordinary controllers are quite simple, and as a result, they fail to provide much in the way of haptic feedback for the user. This is especially tough in racing or flight simulator games where making sharp turns should require a greater amount of force.
YouTuber zeroshot’s project aimed to overcome this by combining a pair of stepper motors and positional sensors into a single two-axis joystick for use in Microsoft Flight Simulator. Based on how a gimbal can rotate in several directions while moving along static axes, the custom 3D-printed housing features a central pivot point and two sub-frames that each connect to ball bearings in the base for smooth movements.
The motors are responsible for applying a varied amount of force that is constantly trying to realign the joystick to the center. An Arduino Micro was selected since it could act as a native USB human interface device (HID) to relay the positions being sensed by the magnetic encoders to the host machine. This data was also used to instruct the motors on how far to move in each axis.
Once fully assembled, zeroshot’s next-level flight joystick was able to provide plenty of resistance when flying in a virtual cockpit and could even fly the plane itself once a few inputs had been preprogrammed into the Micro.
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