Has anyone started or completed a helicopter cockpit yet? I got a request to build a Bell 47 one for the Fly Inside model.
I designed and built a collective. Made a few extra. Have all the parts for about 10 more. I just got tired of building them. Started a build video but then MSFS came out, so I moved on to other aspects of my pit. Maybe I should start building them again.
Current collective - YouTube
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That’s really cool! I’m impressed with it. Makes me a little jealous, wish I had one. I’m Xbox though, I probably couldn’t make it work right anyway. Still really cool though.
OMG. I just watched all your build video. I don’t need something as complicated as the Huey head but……
Do you still have all the parts available? Even just the pivot arm and base world help me a lot.
That is just Awesome!!!
Just tested the cyclic control. Work very well. I was worried about over control but the length of the arm means a lot of distance up top to get a short distance down below. I will probably rework the detente spring though and make it an adjustable tension. Hope to start the collective and panel next week. 
. Everything will mount on a base that can be moved in an out of the sim pit depending on what I desire to fly that day.
That looks good and I hope it works well but remember that with such a short throw, the resolution is drastically reduced.
HTH
I don’t recall reading this post of yours. Did you ever build your collective?
No, I just now posted, two years later. 
I arrived here to this thread because I searched for “helicopter build collective”.
I’m actually looking for the best way to interface HW to the sim, specifically, the potentiometers I’ll use for positional sensing of the collective and throttle. All of the search results so far show only commercial products.
Yes I did. Off of your design with only slight modifications. Works great and I fly VR only with it. Printed some pedals also.
Glad to hear.
There is mine that is linked above. There are a couple other DIY collectives floating around. Some people buy a racing game e-Brake handle and mod it from there. I was thinking of designing a more accessible unit out of a e-brake handle for blade pitch and an electric bicycle twist throttle but have too many other projects going right now.
I mostly use Mobiflight to interface. My collective is a small Arduino clone though. The beetle board is a nice small board for use in a collective.
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For interfacing pots, switches etc to the sim, consider Leo Bodnar’s range of USB cards:
Universal USB Interfaces : Leo Bodnar Electronics
There are other ways, of course, including Arduino + Mobiflight as mentioned above, but I personally prefer the USB route and then use Spad.neXt or similar to connect the hardware to the sim. The USB device appears to the OS as a regular game controller with buttons and axes, so it can even be bound from within MSFS itself.
Yeah, after finding that my spare Raspberry has no native A/D, it’s looking like the fun/tedium threshold has been reached.
I had been using an old phone as a tablet but it caused all sorts of USB issues such that I had to power up in a certain order. All of that was eliminated with the purchase of a cheap tablet and an app.
Thanks to all for your input!
have a look at Arduino Pro micro + MMJoy2
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any chance you willing to share the Fusion 360 files. (wanna mod some of it to represent Robinson’s).
looking at putting one of these together myself.
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PS: love how you made the heads interchangeable.
It’s all on Thingiverse. Helicopter Collective with inter-changeable heads by Thick8 - Thingiverse
whats there is the stl files… not the source design required if you want to make changes.
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Last 3 files in the list are the f3d Fusion360 files.
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