Throttle Quadrant

Throttle Quadrant

June 2004

I finally started hooking up the throttle quadrant. After talking with James Price and Alan Dyer about how to set the slide potentiometers, I decided to use some of their proven techniques and devise some of my own.

SPEED BRAKE

Here is a front view of the Speed Brake potentiometer (from now on referred to as a pot) (100k) that was mounted on 1" aluminum angle, which was mounted on a 1" flat piece. I off set it 1/4" to allow for clearance for travel of the actuator arm. Bellow is a side view. I used 1/4" standoffs to mount the pot to the pot mounting bracket.

THROTTLE

August 2004

The top of the throttle actuator rod was mounted to the throttle pulley using R/C 4-40 swivel ball links, this type of linkage was also used on the Flaps setup. Since the rods were custom made, I had to buy a 4-40 die set to thread the rods at one end.

My wife returned home from shopping to find the quadrant on the kitchen table. I promised her that I would be done tracing wires and wiring the Phidgets card in a few hours. Well, they had breakfast, lunch, and dinner around the quadrant the next day.

I am using the Phidgets Interface kit 8/8/8 for the quadrant. below is a brief description:

The Phidget Interface Kit is a component that provides a high level programmer interface to control a Phidget Interface Kit device connected through a USB port. With this component, the programmer can:

	turn particular outputs on and off.
	get notified of changes of state of the inputs as events.
	configure events to fire when the analog inputs change.

The Phidget Interface Kit devices provide a combination of

	Digital Outputs
	Digital Inputs
	Analog Inputs

I mounted the Phidget card on .063 aluminum to give me easy access to it if needed. I also labeled it to keep wire tracing simple. The Throttles, Reversers, Speedbrake, and Flaps are connected to the Analog inputs via the "RCA" type jacks. The Auto-Throttle Disconnect, TOGA, Fuel 1 & 2 are connected to the Digital Inputs. The 28v Brake light will be connected to the Digital Output later. The Horn Cutout and Parking Brake will be wired later. I will wait to wire the parking brake because I will have to install the quadrant to use the original switch and linkage which is underneath the sim's floor.

II decided to remove the rotary potentiometers in favor of slide pots for the thrust levers. The rotary pots were only producing about 25% due to the amount of turn required to get the necessary thrust required. After many modifications to the arms and rods, I pulled them out and made this new mount. This is made up of right angle aluminum. The base is the inside width of the quadrant ( see photo below for placement) and the top is made of two pieces of the same material that have been riveted to a flat piece in the center. This setup gives me full use of the slide pots 0-100. The placement of the rod to the thrust drums is the key. If you use this setup, build the mount first and put it in place. Then attach the rod (r/c linkage rod) to the slide pot, with the slide pot in the down position. Put the throttle in the full throttle position and measure the rod from there to your mounting point on the throttle drum.

The quad is ready for the final paint. I will have the Trim Wheels re-anodized. I will now start on the 3-bay avionics bay

FLAPS

I picked a spot on the Flaps pulley that would not bind the actuating rod when the pulley rotated from 0 to 40 degrees

Removed the existing Stab Trim linkage and cannon plugs. I mounted a 4" slide pot to 1" aluminum angle and riveted it to the existing Stab Trim linkage mount.

Lower shot of the Flaps setup. The slide pots will wired to a Phidgets card.

August 13, 2004 (Friday the 13th)

The end of work for the month thanks to Hurricane Charley

The outer bands approaching Orlando at 1700 hrs., winds at my house were 105mph as reported by KMCO tower. Don't believe me....look below at I-beam sign

The entrance to my subdivision

Where is the house?

My back yard

Legal Stuff

ALL images on this webpage are owned by ProjectB737NG.com unless otherwise stated...... all rights reserved, any use of content (word and picture) without written permission is illegal
Copyright © 2005,2004,2003,2002,2001 Chuck Moore