Aviator flight stick mod
 

Here are a few pictures of the mod I did to my aviator to relocate the "Zoom in" and "Target cam (Arcade) Trim (Sim)" buttons to a reachable area.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...20090731205230

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...0731205308.jpg

The Button at the top is the LSB button (Zoom), the one below it to the left is the RB (Target cam/Trim). This ws fairly easy to accomplish and took about 30 minutes once I figured out the correct wires. My good camera is broken and I had to use my phone for the pics so I'll try to explain in detal.

Here is what you will need.

2 push buttons (available at RadioShack $2.99 ea.)
Electrical tape
extra wire (speaker wire works well)
wire stripper
drill with appopriate sized bit (for new button location holes)
soldering iron

(Continued)

Find where you want your buttons & drill appropriate sized holes (there are no electrics on the left side behind the throttle, see pics. on last post) Remove all of the screws from the bottom/base of the controller and remove bottom. install your new buttons.

On the front of the controller you will see the board that holds the buttons on the left (facing you with mic input) you will see a dark purple wire by the buttons (this is the zoom). Cut the purple wire at the button board (not the main board) this will need to be redirected to a post on one of the new buttons, you will probably need to use extra wire to reach.

on the right (not mic side) you will see an orange wire cut this at the button board and redirect to a post on the other new button.

to the right of the hat switch on button board there is a line of 7 wires soldered into the board, the one closest to the center (light grey) is your ground. cut this wire in the middle strip it and twist it back together leaving it exposed. run wire from the second post on each new button to the exposed wire and twist them into it, cover with electrical tape. This wire must stay conected to the main board from the button board, we are only splicing it to the new buttons. You can splice the orange & purple in this way if you still want to use the front ones (I saw no need).

Now solder the wire connections on your new buttons. reasemble & enjoy your new reachable zoom & trim/target cam buttons!

I will post pictures of the wires tommorow when I have a better camera or at least daylight.

Rev:mrgreen:

After a bit of play this mod works great! all the buttons you really need within reach on a controller you can hold in your lap :mrgreen:

Good work. I might well try this, at £30 these sticks are cheap enough for me to void the warranty.

you did that? Amazing!

I may want to try this if you recomend it and post some good photos (no pressure)

ok here are some pictures of the wiring.

controller with base plate off.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...0801084412.jpg

orange wire location on board
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...1249137454.jpg

purple wire location on board
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...1249137547.jpg

wires connected to buttons (red wire is from buttons)
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...1249139012.jpg

finished product
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...1249140170.jpg

I'm going to add another small button to relocate the map function later this weekend. I'll add info on wiring that later.

Hope this helps,
Rev:mrgreen:

Well played Rev!

thats soo cool!

hey, is it possible to move the POV to the base?
say I got an old XBOX controller, would you be able to use one of its thumsticks and use that as a 'look around' on the aviator?

Nice job Rev!

How hard do you think it would be to take a better PC stick and change out the board with an Aviator board? That way you could have a better stick and throttle combo with Xbox compatability. I was thinking of tackling that if the game is as good as it seems.

I would think the only real challenge would be figuring out any power issues.

I'm sure some mods will turn up soon or later...I'll be all over them when they do

Once you get into the POV and Joystick functions you are running into a LOT of very very tiny wires. I would not recomend messing with those as you will more than likely be buying a new stick (or two). I have found however that the aviator joystick is much less jerky and serisously easy to aim with after I used Bunsenbeaker's zip tie mod. Just use 2 zip ties to lesson the spring tension at the base of the stick (see pic)

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...0802092720.jpg

Thanks Bunsenbeaker!
Rev:mrgreen:

I fully support the zip-tie mod as well. I was actually able to fly the P-51 much more smoothly, and even did some dogfighting in that mission. During previous attempts, all my turning to line up the sights would just send it into a stall or a spin given the abrupt nature the stick had of going from center to about 1/3 of it's range of motion.

Seriously, if you're wondering about this mod I don't know why. It's so cheap, and easily makes this stick so much better.

My thanks to Bunsenbeaker as well!

I thought the stick already seemed a bit too loose. It flies better with less tension?

If you have your stick handy - go ahead and simply set a finger against it and start pushing it very lightly in a direction. Increase the pressure until it moves. If it's setup the way I've seen most AV8R sticks, it will take a good amount of pressure for that bottom, cone-shaped section of the stick to "pop" over the edge and let the stick start moving freely. This is really what the mod fixes in my opinion. Now just pushing the stick lightly will let it move freely in the direction without that hangup on the base itself, allowing for much smoother movements when you need to make only slight adjustments.

Cool, I'll have try that out.

Rev, I haven't opened any sticks up yet but couldn't you just cut the wires before the board solder points and splice them there? Seems like that would be easier then trying to desolder and resolder all the board connections.

Actually Tex that is how I did it, the only things I soldered were the wiring to the buttons to make sure they wouldn't get loose & short. If you can find some buttons with wire pre-attached to them no soldering would be required.

Today I finished up the controller by adding map & view buttons as well. To wire these do the same as with the other buttons, they all use the same grey wire as ground. Here are some photos of the location of the wires you need to cut & connect to the buttons.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...1249250717.jpg

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...1249250832.jpg
And here is the finished product.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_wL3f1bGat8Q/Sn...1249251140.jpg

This is a great way to turn an almost useless stick into a really comfortable custom setup. It is not that hard to do (believe me I'm no electronics expert) and less than $10.

Have fun!
Rev:mrgreen:

I can't see the new pictures.

Wierd, oh well I set them as links, they should work now. I've also decided to see if it's possible to move the d-pad to top of the stick as well (this will have to wait untill tomorrow as I have had a few beers:mrgreen:

Rev:mrgreen:

Different Mod
 

what I did with this AV8TR was to addres the problem with the hand rest and also swaped some button functions around. the RB(Button) for the X wich is the thick oragne wire inside the stick and one of the thin orange wire coming out of the stick. also the LSB (Button) for the B which is the zoom this is the Dark thick Purple wire and the thin yellow wire coming out of the stick. also removed the lock that the X button and added some foam dots on it to make the button more accsesible ans make the HAT stick easier to use. also added a foam dot to make the new B Button which now is on the LSB.
The other guy's aviator looks nice with the new button(Just A coment)
If you have any questions hey feel free to ask.

Nice work Cocteau! what color are the wires for X and B out of the stick? I might want to swap them around once the game comes out.

X is Orange B is Yellow.

I think I might swap trim & zoom to the stick & put bombs & rockets on the stick base. It seems that will be the best set up as I'm into the game mainly for multiplayer.

Thanks,
Rev:mrgreen:

there is a trim LOL i did not even know. what button is that

I'm hesitant to do anything with wires and opening up cases to things I don't understand, so this is just a shot in the dark, but is there any possibility to put a button on the bottom/front of the stick itself? I had an old joystick for the PC with a button in that position, and even if it's unrealistic it was pretty handy for things - I'd probably end up mapping zoom to that.

Trim, when using a joystick, is RB.

Yes the trim is RB the far right button on the front of an unmoded aviator. It is the "target mode" button in arcade & realistic, it's only trim in simulator mode.

Yes that could be done (I used to use that button for landing gear on computer sims with my X52). Everytime I think I'm done moding my aviator something else comes up. Once the full release comes out & I know which buttons are the most important I will post a printable step by step PDF with instructions for installing new buttons & a wiring layout.

Rev:mrgreen:

so Realistic is not really realistic. simulator is more realistic?

Realistic is middle.

Arcade, Realistic, then Simulator.

In sim mode you have control of the flaps and trim, but there is no target cam or select target. select target (or Y on the stick) becomes flaps (level or combat while flying) with gear down they are up or landing. In sim mode the button that is the target cam (RB on an unmoded aviator) becomes the trim button. Basically you push it to set the aircrafts controls when you are in level flight (in case of damage or high speed in sim mode).
I believe that the single player game will be almost impossible to complete in Sim mode (with ground targets hard to see as well as objectives). However I believe that sim mode will be popular in online games (changing flaps from combat to level gives you a seruious advantage in turn fights as does trimming at high speed).

i can get the game to keep sim mode. it will not stay .

Sim is definitely a challenge in that regard, but I'm certainly going to try going through the game on that mode first. Using the map helps a lot in pinpointing things - but at times I stll find myself losing track of certain targets. (Love that you can tap the map button for extended glimpses, or just hold the button for a quick look, then let go and you're back in action.)

For example I probably spent a full 5-10 minutes looking for the trains in the Tiger Hunt mission. Then occasionally I would spot them in free look, only to lose them by the time I turned to face them. Really though - those are silver on white, and the Germans wouldn't want them to be fluorescent orange or anything, so it's to be expected. The gun emplacements at the beginning of the level though are no problem to find again if I decide to go chase a plane for a bit.

If you're talking about starting the demo up and having to unlock sim mode each time, then yeah - it's an unfortunate side effect of how demos on the 360 are set up.

All you have to do is start with the third tutorial mission, and follow the prompts exactly. You should only have to shoot down three bombers total if you use the target camera like they want you to.

First few times I loaded it up I didn't realize that and ended up shooting all the bombers each time, haha.

no actually i had to download the demo again now it works. i would do the tutorials unlock realism and sim mode but could not have the game put me on sim mode. now it does. this is the good stuff. thanks man

Glad to hear it works now!

I actually totally meant to put something about redownloading it if you meant it was happening in one session, then just got carried away.

Thanks JCofDI! I thought it was just a glitch. I was actualy toying with making my map switch a toggle instead of a button.

Yep, that's the mod precisely! Glad it's helping you guys. I meant to post up pictures, but I ended up going out of town at the last minute over the weekend.:grin: This thread should be considered for a sticky since it has a lot of good info in it.

please do!

Looks quite kinky :grin:

The zip tie mod has helped but I think I'm still gonna have to use a controller online. The dead zone of the AV8R makes it hard to maneuver precisely and the twisting needed for the rudder just feels plain wrong. Controller/ace edge guys would be flying rings around me else.

I would not recommend the AV8R for BOP IMHO. If you're on the fence do yourself a favor and save the money until something decent comes out that doesn't cost the earth. There is no advantage with this stick.

First post, shame it has to be negative. I think the game itself is amazing for the record.

I havent had that problem at all. The freelock is the major thing for me. Havent noticed a problem with the deadzone.

Really? I would say for mine there is about a 5 degree dead zone around the center position. Anyone else noticed this?

I'm not sure if the developers have programmed in the dead zone, similar to how the Ace Edge was for Ace Combat, or if it is a problem with the AV8R itself. From what I hear the Ace edge has zero dead zone for BOP. Shame it cost £200 to get one.

New buttons guys.
 

I have added two new buttons, the one on the front of the joystick is so you don't have to take your hand off the throttle to do things. in my case i set the B button to shoot rockets. and the side button well i put the gear there but you can put the map or what ever. here are some pictures. if you have question just ask.

Is the wire switch in the handle or the base?

Awesome mod to the Av8R.
Could you repost the pics with the wiring specifics?
I can only open the purple wire image and am dying to do this to my Saitek.
:grin::grin::grin::grin::grin:

Here ya go Devan
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=9578

Thank you, thank YOU! :grin::grin:

Just completed this with a twist, and I love it! I went with 'head locked to target' and 'zoom' buttons added to the front left, but used toggle on, toggle off buttons so I can click it on and free up my hand. Works great! I can now do what I'd do in real life, where you keep eyes on the target and bring the plane to your eyes. I could never use that before as the button was horribly placed and unreachable. Makes such a big difference, I really REALLY am enjoying the game now :) :) The fact he zooms in a little when you use it was icing on the cake!

I've done it !!!! Thanks a lot Reverend. I put the 4 buttons just next to the throlle :)))

I will post photos as soon as possible.

Just a quick remark though the color of the wires were different from yours

Here are the pictures. :)

The aviator comes to be more handy with that config :-P

Modded mine soon after purchase and to hell with the warranty.

Also added a switch to change the function of the centre button from Map (for Sim games) to Target Camera (for Realistic).

http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/t...loevs/AV8R.jpg

Amazing what a soldering iron & 5 bucks at Radio Shack will do for a pretty much worthless controller eh ;)

glad I could be of help

In reply to modding a better stick by incorporating the AV8R PCB's. Haven't looked into it fully yet but the AV8R has two top hat type switches (one at the top and one at the rear for the menu options and command control) but many better sticks have just the one e.g. the Cyborg Gold 3D. The other problem may be the pots used in the AV8R which have very little rotational movement on the 45 degree pots fitted. Also noticed the values either side of the pot centres are not the same so may benefit from some sort of calibration. Sure others are looking into the technical aspects of modding these sticks but going to examine the dead zone issue and the possibilty of reducing this, not sure at this stage that it can be entirely negated due to the MS interface.