Auto throttle quadrant driven by stepper motors

Nov 06, 2026 Last reply: 2 hours ago 4 Replies
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Most home cockpit throttles stay passive, with levers you move by hand and little more than a potentiometer inside. This build goes a different route: a flight simulator throttle quadrant where steppers actually drive the levers themselves when the auto throttle is active. In the clip, a hand pushes the throttles forward and then the motors take over and move them on their own in the simulator. That is a much more convincing simulation of what an auto throttle really does.



The build has clearly had real care put into it. There are two 3D-printed throttle levers marked A/T DISENGAGE, driven by motors the maker believes are NEMA 17s, with an A4988 as the stepper controller. A small red microcontroller breakout board, about the size of a Pro Micro, sits in the base. Above the quadrant there is a panel of backlit switches, and to the right a Control Display Unit shows flight management pages. The maker sends STEP/DIR signals every cycle and has shared the Auto Throttle sketch on GitHub for anyone who wants to look at the code.



One thing stands out about the workflow: everything was fully assembled before the noise problem was tackled, and the maker says the assembly can now be heard from anywhere in the house. The noise is described as electrical rather than vibration, which is an interesting distinction. The plan is to try adjusting the potentiometer on the A4988 during a flight, and a bench unit for testing new hardware is also on the list.



A couple of things remain open. The exact motor model is unconfirmed, and it is not settled which driver interface is in use, since the maker is unsure about STEP/DIR. Watching how the potentiometer adjustment goes should be informative.


Choosing steppers to move the levers under auto throttle is the boldest part of this build in my view. It gives real, autonomous lever motion that a passive quadrant can never match, but it trades that away against noise, and with an A4988 in the mix the maker is clearly paying that price right now. Still, I think the trade is worth it for the realism it brings to the simulator.

I am curious about the wiring side of this. Has the maker said which interface the steppers are being driven with, whether it is STEP/DIR or something else entirely? That seems like it would matter a lot when picking a replacement driver for a quieter setup.

From what the maker has shared, this is not settled yet. They are unsure about STEP/DIR themselves, so the interface has not been confirmed. The motors are only believed to be NEMA 17s as well, with no exact model given. The maker has offered to show how it was wired, so that question might get answered soon.

A concrete suggestion: swap the A4988 for a newer TMC driver such as a TMC2209 running in stealthchop mode. The old-style drivers chop current in a way that produces the whine, while the TMC parts run near silently, keep the steppers cooler, and even offer stall detection and motor load estimation. If an upgrade is not possible, changing the current setting or lowering the supply voltage could still help.

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