Steering Tiller Design

[sagrada737]

Hello Everyone,

I spent the last couple of days designing and building a 737 Steering Tiller for my Sim.  The photos below show the construction.  Most of the parts were 3D printed.

For the Tiller Wheel, I used an existing layout from Thingiverse, then scaled it to the size that I wanted. 

The Main Shaft is made from steel, one end epoxy'd to the Tiller Wheel, and the other end drilled to accept the potentiometer shaft, which is secured by set screws.  I'm using a 1K pot.  The bracket for the potentiometer "floats" so it can be centered on the main shaft to eliminate any binding prior to being secured to the main body. 

The Main Body contains the "scissor" drive block and arms, which are moved to the "center position" by a pull spring.   This is a common scissor mechanism.  The scissor arms rotate freely on the main shaft, with the drive block secured to the main shaft.  The scissor block has pins that encounter the scissor arms, moving them fore/aft, tensioned by the centering spring.  The scissor arms encounter limit stops, which gives the Tiller wheel about 100 degrees of rotational movement.

Calibration of the Steering Tiller will be done in P3D using FSUIPC.

I used three different types of 3D printer filament.  The Tiller Wheel was printed with PLA-Carbon Fiber;  The yellow body parts were printed with PETG;  The black Spring Drive and Arms, and the Face Plate (painted gray) were printed with a Nylon-CarbonFiber.  These parts were designed in FreeCAD and prepared for 3D printing with CURA.  I printed them on my Creality 10S Pro.

This Steering Tiller assembly is now ready to be installed on my FDS Interior side panel, CA side.   The "feel" of moving the Tiller Wheel is smooth, with an adequate force required to move the Wheel.   I am going to make up another Steering Tiller assembly for installation on the FO side as well.

As a kudo for Thingivese...   There are lots of Sim parts available for 3D printing.  Thanks to those folks for making their STL files available.

Photos below...

Mike

[blueskydriver]

Hey Mike,

Nice work! If you're going to print 2 of them, why not print 3?

One for me?! LOL!

Seriously, what will you charge me for one? I got a real tiller handle already, but would it fit on your design? Since you're making this for a FDS nose and I have the same, it'll be great for me!

If you're interested...please say yes...PM me.

John

[sagrada737]

Hey John,

Glad you are interested in my 737 Steering Tiller.  I intended to purchase an OpenCockpits 737 Steering Tiller, but decided at the last minute to spend a couple of days designing and building one myself.  Hence the use of 3D printing to make the assembly.  In hindsight, It would have been cheaper to buy one.   But then it was fun to build my own unit.

However, I am not in the business of making Sim parts for sale.  As you can imagine, it is a challenge to just make incremental progress on our own Sim projects.  Since you already have  a real 737 Steering Tiller Wheel, I would buy the OpenCockpits unit, and adapt your real Tiller Wheel to that assembly.  The OpenCockpits Steering Tiller unit cost only $200 and is in-stock.   This is far cheaper than I could build one for, and honestly, I don't want to get sidetracked with side projects.   Here is the link to the OpenCockpits Steeting Tiller unit:

http://www.opencockpits.com/catalog/steering-737800-p-332.html?language=en

Order one, and you will have it in a week or so, complete with potentiometer, ready to install in your Sim.

Mike

[Joe Lavery]

Most difficult part to print is the Handle, but I found this on a German website. Looks okay if you're looking for one.

https://www.simparts.de/en/steering-tiller-proline-en.html

[blueskydriver]

Hey Mike,

No worries about this, but when you make the FO side will you layout all the parts and get some pics of them? I'd like too see how everything looks. Since I have a 3D printer it'd be a great project for me to work on.

However, did you buy or make the main metal shaft portion? That is the part I'd likely need to outsource the most....

John

[jackpilot]

FO side is an option in reality and a fairly low priority on a Sim
IMHO of course 

[archen]

If someone could give me some specifications and info about the real handle I can make this.

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[sagrada737]

John indicates he has a real 737 Steering Tiller Handle.   Perhaps he would be willing to provide tube diameter and other dimensions.

[Aerosim Solutions]

Hi all,

I have molded 737 tiller handles, I made my mold from the real Boeing part! I also sell pro quality tiller mechanisms that can be linked (FO has a handle too and they both move together.
http://www.aerosimsolutions.com.au/products/b737-steering-tiller/

Nice work on the printed unit, it looks great!!

Cheers Gwyn

[blueskydriver]

Hi Gwyn,

It's been a while since seeing you post, glad you did. I will send you an email through your website about just getting the mechanism only for Capt side.

John

[Joe Lavery]

After seeing the nice job done by Mike I decided to finally have a go myself. Unfortunately the model on Thingiverse is a bit flawed. As anyone who prints regularly will know, any holes however small in the 3D surface will cause the print to fail, or not print predictably.

So I spent roughly two hours stripping the mesh apart and rebuilding the bits that were not connected properly. Then I reduced the size by 5% just to keep it within the scope of my Ender 3, as it happens it probably would have been fine anyway. Then eighteen hours later it finished printing and I was surprised how easily it separated from the mass of supports. The images show it while printing and the two parts as they separated.

I will not be making a second one but if anyone wants the repaired mesh just drop me a PM.

Now to construct the mechanism, I will probably follow the usual scissor design which seems to be the most used in the ones I've seen on line.

Finally if anyone is interested, I can personally recommend any of Gwyn's products, they are just about bullet proof and made to a higher standard than most of the commercial vendors products.

Joe.

[archen]

Yeah, didn't know Gwyn made them. No need for me to go ahead and make something.. Gwyns look rock solid

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[sagrada737]

Amen...  Gwyn's design is shear elegance!  Nice work Gwyn!

[Aerosim Solutions]

Thanks guys for your kind words, I do aim at building my stuff to last, in ten years I haven't had a warranty claim apart from some rudder sets an ex partner made for me under "licence". No more partners for Aerosim!!