Homemade joystick conversion

[Paul Allwood]

Since I've removed the housings over the end of the spools that provided dust protection, I decided to add a second o-ring on each spool as a dust seal. Not sure if it's really needed but it can't hurt. I'll still make a full cover for it but it may not be completely dust proof.

Here's the top face of the valve. These are the standard o-rings. They seem a bit light on to be a pressure seal, maybe they are just a dust seal ?? Not sure.



This washer holds the standard o-ring in place. I machined an extra o-ring groove on the outer face to fit a second o-ring. Left = standard. Right = extra o-ring groove.



Here the washers are in place. The standard o-ring is in behind them. You can see the extra o-ring at the front.



All back in place, now with 2 o-rings on each spool.

 

[Paul Allwood]

When I started I wasn't sure how well my homemade joystick bits would work, or even if I would be able to make it work at all. After giving it a bit of a test today I'm really happy with it....also really surprised.

I hadn't really given the 3rd spool much thought, and the joystick changed have left it a bit hard to use with the lever so far away from the joystick. So I made the same mod's to the 3rd spool as the others. This also simplifies the cover that I'm still to finish.

This will need some sort of simple linkage and lever to try to make it easy to operate with the joystick for when I'm using a grapple (that I haven't made yet). It won't be as easy as electric but I reckon it will be usable, and I really enjoy using things I've made.