Popular Post Garry Posted June 28, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 28, 2020 (edited) Backstory I only have use of one hand, my right. Previously I had a 20+ year history of racing with both hands in the normal fashion. I could drive fast with both pistol radios and stick radios. I had no preference but at the time of my medical drama I had a stick radio as my main racer. It never took me longer than 20secs to adapt to a new radio, I could race with one style then immediately swap to the other and set very similar laptimes. Pretty unusual! Stage 1. Holding a radio and operating the controls. If you've ever done ant form of competition driving you'll know you HAVE to be able to react very quickly, basically being able to operate the full range of steering and throttle travel ant ant given moment to make a pass on a rival. Looking at the range of radios on the market, it initially seemed that the right hand operating 2 sticks together wasn't possible. but one stick might? So I gathered a few bits to try a 6ch aircraft radio and very quickly I ruled out going down this route, its fine for crawlers but no good for racing, the stick throw was too long ad far too soft. Plus the menu system was setup for planes not cars so no provision for car features like drag brake, idle up and the like. A chap at my local RC racing club also has the same limitation as me, same working hand, he races with a Futaba pistol and he holds the radio against his belly, gripping the wheel with fingers and thumb, trigger with index finger. He turn the rates up high so he can go from lock to lock in about 15deg of wheel movement. Interesting angle of approach and it planted some seed in my mind. 😄 Stage 2. Wheely positive. The Flysky Noble NB4 came out at the end of 2019 and had the option to be used left handed. no good for me right? Well maybe not, as if I moved the wheel across I could possibly trigger with my index and steer with my thumb? Nope. Again its great for slow driving like crawling but useless for racing, taking your thumb off the wheel to reposition at 40+mph is dangerous. People have 3d printed sdevices to attach to wheels to keep contact but they assume your thumb is a certain size and sweeps in a particular way. They also make it a very twitchy car to drive so I abandoned that train of though and looked again at the method the guy at my club uses. Pressed against my belly I steered the wheel in ''normal'' mode with my thumb and index, and reached under with my middle finger to get the trigger. That got me on track for a couple of months to assess where my driving ability was currently at. I was reasonable but rusty. And then I started idly googling. Stage 3. A Hybrid future? Years ago KO Propo released its top line EX1 and EX2 radios where the buyer could customise it with drop down wheel units or being able to slide the trigger forwards or back to match finger lengths. A superb idea to make it as comfortable as possible. With the Noble I found m y middle finger wasn't quite long enough to reach the brakes on the trigger meaning sometime i sailed past apexes. One huge plus point for the racer in me was car specific modes like ABS and idle up. Time had passed since their release so instead of being silly money, they are now reasonable money on ebay. One accidently found its way to my house.Remember I said I could drive sticks and pistol? Well Another option for this line of radios s the ability to swap out the wheel unit for a stick. Interesting. My thinking was I could adjust the trigger position to match my middle finger whilst steering the stick with my thumb. I'd be holding the radio in a non-standard fashion so I'd need to create some sort of handle to support my palm. Luckily I by now had bought a 3D printer for various uses but perfect for this. I sketched something up and printed. #it was really little more than a triangle cable tied to the radio but it worked! O could finally reach att the controls I needed at any time too, exactly what I needed to race. I refinded the design 4 or 5 more times adding chamfers and more material in strategic locations to make it even more effective. Stage 4. A different direction. Something about my design bugged me greatly. firstly the throttle on my middle finger. Its not a very dexterous finger for fine control. I really needed a throttle on my index. And the stick for steering was really too far to the right meaning my thumb was actually behind my knuckle on right hand corners. Playing on Xbox one night I realised the solution was that I really needed to recreate the ergonomics of the Xbox pad in an RC radio. Thumb outstretched, index finger forwards. Pull back to go. By now I'd amassed a selection of KO receivers and I love KO brand radios, they feel high quality. So I began researching. KO sell all parts as spared so I ordered an EX2 trigger unit to see what it was like ouside of a radio. Its entirely ''enclosed '', the tension spring is part of the trigger for simplicity. so in theory I just needed to solder it up and mount it? And hope the radio sees it? Credit card bashed and this arrives. a KO Propo Esprit 4 top level twin stick radio. Beautiful isn't it? As luck would have it, KO don't change the PCB plugs so in theory All I needed to do was unplug the throttle stick and plug in the trigger. The radio only sees potentiometers not the stick/lever/etc. I tested. AS I was going to mount the trigger on the back, the plug needed extending. I didn't fancy soldering tiny delicate wires so I ordered a 3 pin Micro JST male to female cable and tried it out on the bench and it worked. image hosting Mounting to the radio back involved a servo post and a scrap bit of carbon to place the trigger at the right height. Actually very simple, just 2 holes drilled! 'The trigger needed a little protection so I added a transmitter stand to the factory handle. Neatly done I think, I've spent knockdown refining it but I can't wait to get back racing again to see how much faster it is. It feels absolutely mega now. Edited June 28, 2020 by Garry 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 Some great R&D! Do you need the left hand side of that controller? Is it unnecessary weight you can remove? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garry Posted June 28, 2020 Author Share Posted June 28, 2020 35 minutes ago, Nick said: Some great R&D! Do you need the left hand side of that controller? Is it unnecessary weight you can remove? The left gimbal (throttle stick)is disconnected so its purely for show at the moment, I've got an idea to remove it and blank with a carbon plate in future but they are only 20g-30g so not a huge weight saving. the throttle trim is still mapped to the ET2 switch so exactly as factory, its rarely used so doesn't need moving closer to my thumb. the lower left switch remotely shuts my ESC down at the end of a race so thats gotta stay. the lower silver buttons next to the screen are direct access menu buttons. The whole radio is actually pretty light as I power it with a 2s LiPo, its only 725g. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tug Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 Will you look to find a way to seal the back of the trigger? Keep dust out etc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garry Posted June 28, 2020 Author Share Posted June 28, 2020 (edited) Probably not, I race indoors on carpet which is very clean. Away from the track it lives in a padded bag so its well protected from nasties. It'd be very simple to brush on a coat of Plastidip over the exposed electrical bits though. But I am pretty lazy 😄 Edited June 28, 2020 by Garry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tug Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 Yeah, potting without permanently sealing it is where my train of thought was. Keep all contacts clean as a whistle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 How much do you think this has affected your performance racing? Are you still getting good results? You could probably beat most of us on here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garry Posted June 28, 2020 Author Share Posted June 28, 2020 (edited) Well at my local club I stepped up my performances moving from the Noble to EX2. A solid 5-7 places higher. I was able to find my lines more cleanly like I wasn't fighting the car as I had been previously. I'm hoping a similar improvement again now, I'll probably never be one of the quick ones here as we have national A-finalists at the club but i'll be happy to move into the top 25 eventually at thew club, I l'm just inside the top 40. Edited July 2, 2020 by Garry 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PraetoR Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 What a great read! Great work, well done. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 This is amazing, thank you for sharing! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigoggy Posted July 4, 2020 Share Posted July 4, 2020 What a great read. Good to see that you have not let it stop you doing what you love. And it's great that you have the skills to build something that makes it easier for you. I've know 2 drivers with one hand across my 36 years in RC, one used an aircraft radio for racing, and the other is a crawler guy, and just uses a clamp on the wheel to allow easier thumb use. While it allows them to carry on doing the hobby, they always looked like compromises, your idea looks like a real fix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garry Posted July 6, 2020 Author Share Posted July 6, 2020 There's nothing on the market designed for people like me, the market for equipment is tiny so its just not cost effective for a manufacturer to create a product suitable for disability especially when every disability is different, my hemiplegia would cause different challenges if I were affected on the opposite side, probably a bigger hurdle to overcome. Adapting something is much easier than starting from scratch. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormbringer Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 2 minutes ago, Garry said: There's nothing on the market designed for people like me, the market for equipment is tiny so its just not cost effective for a manufacturer to create a product suitable for disability especially when every disability is different, my hemiplegia would cause different challenges if I were affected on the opposite side, probably a bigger hurdle to overcome. Adapting something is much easier than starting from scratch. maybe you should patent it ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ag100 Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 (edited) https://www.yeahracing.com/yeah-racing-aluminum-single-hand-tx-adaptor-for-radio-ya-0613-00101152 is this any good for you @Garry ? Edited July 20, 2020 by Ag100 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garry Posted July 21, 2020 Author Share Posted July 21, 2020 21 hours ago, Ag100 said: https://www.yeahracing.com/yeah-racing-aluminum-single-hand-tx-adaptor-for-radio-ya-0613-00101152 is this any good for you @Garry ? No they are great for driving slowly but no good for racing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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