Home-built Rudder Pedals With Toebrakes For FS2000/FS2002

By Rob Barendregt

If you are you interested in making your own accurate and robust rudder pedals with Toebrakes, please read on.
All you need is a free (analogue) gameport on your PC, some $25 worth of materials (if you buy everything new) and 8 hours of spare time. And, of course, be a little handy with tools.

Features:

If you don't have a free gameport: at the end of the article I'll describe how to construct these pedals with digital (on/off) Toebrakes so that they can be added as Rudder to your existing Yoke/Joystick on the gameport.

Introduction

Flying with rudder pedals instead using the auto-coordination feature, really enhances your flightsim experiance, especially during taxiing, flying with wind or when flying helicopters.
The operation of these rudder pedals and toebrakes is based on the electrical principle of an analog joystick: a joystick axis is just a variable resistor (called Potentiometer, or 'Pot').

In my Flightsim setup I use a CH Flightsim Yoke LE on USB and these rudder pedals on the analog gameport (driving controller axis 1,2, and 4). For helicopters or military aircraft I prefer a joystick (Logitech ForceFeedback) instead of the yoke.

Braking system of FS2000 vs. FS2002

Both FS2000 and FS2002 internally support proportional braking; however, only FS2002 supports using this feature via an external Axis controller (FS2000 only supports Buttons/Keys).
However, with the use of Peter Dowson's FSUIPC freeware addon module you can use these proportional Toebrakes with FS2000 as well. See chapter Installation.
FSUIPC can be downloaded from Peter's website at: http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html
TIP: Did you know you can use FSUIPC to precisely calibrate your Yoke/Joystick ? This is especially usefull if you have a problem with applying Reverse Thrust in FS2002 or if you have problems with calibrating these rudder pedals/toebrakes.

What Is Needed?

Of course you can make the pedals with your own dimensions, but here is how I built mine.
Note: sorry for you non-metric guys, but I'm Dutch so I'll use metric sizes :-).
Most parts can be scrap material (like I used), but you can buy them in any hardware & electronics shop.

The main components you need, and how they are used:

Assembly Instructions

It's not a full instruction, but I'll give some tips about the important parts. The pictures should speak for themselves. Now, try the mechanics of the pedals: see if they slide smoothly, and if the Toebrakes can be pressed fully even with full Rudder. If not, adjust.

Electrical wiring

See fig. 8 for a schematic diagram. Lead wires from the Toebrake Pots, Rudder Pot and Footswitch to the top of the Baseplate (fig 4C), and solder them to a shielded cable according to the diagram. Solder a 15-pins gameport connector to the other end of the cable. Connect the shield of all cables (thick light-grey line), and solder it also to the 15-pin connector and Pot housing. This will reduce 'jitter' on the controller axis resulting from electrical interference.
Note for Pot connections: always use the center contact and one of the outer contacts. Which outer contact is not relevant, since you can always use the 'reverse axis' feature when assigning the controller axis to FS2002 control functions.

Installation Of The Pedals As A Windows Game Controller

I can only make the description for Windows98, but it should be possible to get it working under other Windows versions as well.

Installation Of The Rudder Pedals And Toebrakes In FS2000/FS2002

For FS2002: go into the Options - Controls - Assignments window.

Select your favorite Flight, using an aircraft with a visible rudder movement. Go into the Flights - Realism Settings window and deselect the Auto Rudder checkbox. Check in Spotplane view that the rudder is centered when the pedals are centered. If not, adjust the Null zone in Sensitivities, or re-adjust the fixation of the Rudder Pot.
When Toebrake pedals are not pressed, no BRAKES message should appear. If it does, or if the Rudder movement goes in wrong direction, select "reverse axis" for the appropriate axis, under Options - Controls - Assignments.
Note: with the Toebrakes assigned to controller axis, the standard (on/off) Brakes keys will not work anymore (same as F1/F4 if you use a Throttle axis).
Check if the braking and rudder action is to your liking; if not, try experimenting with the Sensitivities and Null zone of the axis.

For FS2000, install the Rudder Axis as described above. To install the Toebrakes, please follow the instructions in Peter's manual of FSUIPC.

Using the Rudder pedals with a Yoke/Joystick on the gameport

If you want to use these pedals when your gameport controller is already used by a Joystick/Yoke, you cannot use the Toebrake Axis. However, the Rudder can be used, and you can replace the Toebrake Pots by push-switches ('make' contacts).
In this case, make the following modification: Note: Obviously, in this setup, you lose the current function of buttons 1,2 and 3 on your Joystick/Yoke, since these new switches on are now in parallel with the buttons on your Joystick/Yoke.

A Bonus Idea ??

As I stated earlier, I use a CH Flightsim Yoke LE USB, to which I made several enhancements.

WARNING: Obviously, when modifying the yoke you will lose warranty. So be carefull if you do !

A Final Word

I know these rudder pedals / toebrakes may not look very professional. But make no mistake: when properly constructed, they work as accurate and are as solid as commercially available pedals. Moreover, the 'feel' of the pedals can easily adapted to your own preferences. It took me some 8 hours to construct and install them (and making it was half the fun).
They require little maintenance (maybe some new elastic every year), and last-but-not-least: they cost a fraction a the price of commercial pedals: US $25, or less if you use existing parts like the wooden plates, and sliders from a cupboard drawer.
In comparison: the CH Pro Pedals cost about US $170 here in Holland.

Needless to say, I do not accept any responsibility if it shoudn't work or if my description messes up something in your PC or FS200x configuration. I am using these pedals for two month's now, and I still wouldn't know how to improve them :-).
But, if you have any comments, questions, suggestions or need support, feel free to send me an email (please: no large attachments!).

Happy flying .....

Rob Barendregt, The Netherlands
E-mail: rc.barendregt@planet.nl

Revised: 4 jan. 2002