Thrustmaster Warthog button box

Shortly after finishing my previous thing to add a button box to the Saitek X52, I took the plunge on a Thrustmaster Warthog throttle. This is a minor adaptation of that design to add a single, smaller button box on the left side of the throttle unit. Since I play in an Obutto R3volution simpit the throttle needs to mount on a small throttle plate, rather than sit on a table, so the button box needs to be secured to the bottom of the throttle unit itself.

Originally I was planning to use the mounting holes in the throttle base but to fit on my print bed I had to modify the design. The flat bottom sections of warthog_box_main go between the two metal baseplates supplied with the throttle, and is clamped in place with the throttle's baseplate holding screws (see picture #3). The safety cover for the emergency button is mounted with a couple of 2.5mm screws. All the rest is pretty straightforward.

The button box has mounting holes for the following controls:

• three momentary pushbuttons, one of which press-fits into the bottom of the printed emergency button. I use the two side buttons for recenter VR view and zoom VR view, and the emergency button for eject, naturally.
• two rotary encoders. I use these for mission briefing / kneeboard functions.
• four small ON-OFF-ON momentary switches. These have different functions for every plane/game.
• one large ON-OFF-ON momentary switch. I use this for landing gear up/down
• a 3mm LED in one of these LED mounts, or you could stick another small toggle switch here if you wanted. I use this as a power indicator.

I used a Leo Bodnar BBI-31 Button Box Interface as the brains of the thing. Don't forget a cable tie for strain relief on the USB cord - there's a hole in the box right above the cable port for it.

Update 05/25/2020: on request, added a stand-alone version of the box without the base.