DIY Flight Stick

I would like to build my own flight stick. I want it to be durable and accurate.


This is a picture of a flight stick built by Thrustmaster. It's everything I want, but it's very expensive.

I don't need mine to look like this, especially at first. I just want to know how it's made so I can try to build my own. If I make something that is useful I can worry about the way it looks later on.

I found that there's a ready made joystick analog configuration that can be applied:


This is the Arduino joystick module.

I want to go from having a simple module like this, to having a functional, durable flight stick with 4-5 buttons plus a trigger.

I don't expect someone to walk me through the process but some advice on getting started would be great. I'd rather not paint myself into a corner due to an early mistake.

One thing that I am already worried about is that the Arduino joystick module is just a thumb stick. My thinking was that the sensitivity of the stick might not be there if it was originally designed for a smaller range of motion. The larger stick was likely designed for the full range of motion from the outset. This might mean me having to build my own joystick module using two analog input wheels of larger size. I am prepared to do that, but would rather not if the consensus is that the thumb stick with an extension attached would still be accurate.

I'm completely new to this sort of thing, so don't worry about offending me by stating the obvious.

I'm completely new to electronics development in general. I'd never heard of all these new boards, and now that I know they exist I feel like a whole world has opened up to me, and that I'm completely incapable of getting on my feet in that world.

I'm looking for advice on what to buy.

Basically I want to be able to make a simple flight stick - durable and accurate with 4-5 buttons. The standard of 6 axis will be enough as well, so I don't need to learn the more advanced things in the many axis joystick post.

I just need to know what sort of board, and tools I may need to get started on this project. Any other guidance, such as learning or tutorials out there that might be applicable would also be greatly appreciated.

I'd start with the
Adafruit Learnig System. That will cover enough of the basics to get you going including tools.

That covers the electronics. If you don't have a solid mechanical platform to start from then I'd say that the electronics are the easiest and least expensive pat of the project ( excluding cost for tooling ). What do you intend on using as a mechanical platform ?

Thanks for the advice Headroom. I'll check out that learning system right away. It seems like a good way to get started.

As for the mechanical platform I have a few ideas. https://www.sparkfun.com/ has a lot of nice bits I could employ. I am prepared to use any kind of pipe or metal and pound it / melt it together to make the pieces I need to build. The electronics will sit in a pretty standard enclosure, and I could use anything up to / including a kitchen faucet for the handle. A washer around a potentiometer would sit at the base.