Just produced my first 3d design, a Joystick extension for a HOSAS set up designed using OpenSCAD and FreeCad.
This is the complete set up.
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The key components (minus base). The fat S-shaped thing is 3d printed.
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The threads at the top and bottom of the extension were made in OpenSCAD using Adrian Schlatter’s threadlib (GitHub - adrianschlatter/threadlib: thread library for OpenSCAD).
These were imported to FreeCAD, and linked to the main tube which had been sketched in FreeCAD.
The design features a captive nut, which was the hardest part to make work.
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This proved difficult, because it needs support to print, and I tried using normal supports in CURA. When I realised the normal supports were causing my problems, I switched to tree supports, which are much easier to clean up.
HOSAS? Hands on Stick and Stick.
The set-up uses two joysticks, mostly used is space flight simulators. The advantage of using a horizontal grip is that the grip itself twists. In normal flight modes, this can be used for left-right turns (rudder). In space flight, on the left-stick, this twist is normally used for straight up-down movement, so less intuitive if the grip is upright. Turning the grip on its side means that we twist up-down when we want to move up or down.
A better known acronym is HOTAS (Hands on Throttle and Stick) which is standard in conventional, full-size, flight, and best for flight simulators.
Thanks. I’m not sure that I have the language skills to explain the purpose, but I’ll give it another go …
The intent is to control movement in six directions around and along 3 Cartesian axes.(6 degrees of freedom, this Wiki explains: Six degrees of freedom - Wikipedia ).
The right joystick (J/S) controls pitch (nose up-down), and roll (waggle wings). Yaw (nose left-right) is controlled by the rudder (pedals in aircraft, but often a J/S twist in games).
This is similar for both HOTAS and HOSAS set-ups.
HOTAS (aircraft), the left control is used for throttle and other engine or speed management, basically, go forward faster or slower.
HOSAS (space flight games) the left control is:
Push forward to go faster, centre to maintain velocity (we are in space, so no drag), and pull back to slow down or reverse.
Push left-right to strafe (move straight*) left-right.
The remaining J/S movement is a twist, and the remaining direction is strafe up-down. If the twist is on the vertical axis, that feels like another go left-right. Most J/S bases are set up this way.
By setting the grip on its side, the feel is closer to either another pitching motion or to strafe up-down. It is this last feeling, strafe up-down, that the extension gives me.
I’m not sure if this meaning for ‘strafe’ is gaming community jargon, or if it has broader application.
Strafing comes from shooting a machine gun. I learned that from my old friend Sam Cotton who sold the Sten gun to the British Army in the second world war. Time goes by when you’re having fun.
Too bad the sten gun was a piece of sh*t. You know its nickname? It was “plumber’s nightmare”. The thing was so prone to misfiring and other mishaps that soldiers come up with novel ways to use it. If you pulled back the cocking lever, then threw the gun through an open window into a room of Nazi soldiers, when it landed on the floor the cocking lever would pop loose and the gun would start firing randomly around the room, turning in a circle as it responded to each shot being fired.
