UPDATE. Took some time this past couple weekends and got the control platform welded up enough to move it. I Haven't got a weight just yet.
Last weekend I took a trip to an heavy equipment junk yard where I knew they had an old Marion 7400 dismantled. Asked about the original operators seat. The guy had it in side out of the weather thankfully. So I came home with it.
Today I decided to go all out and see if my idea of hacking one of my DX7 transmitters and hooking up the 5K pots to the 1:1 master switches works.
Got it hooked up with jumper wires for the big test. It worked!!! Actually it is easier to control the bucket hoist chains while dragging in the bucket.
I put about an hour of operation time in with no flaws. Haven't tried dirt though only along the concrete floor. It took a little to get used to especially the swing pedals. Now I will have to take the time to wire up some of the switches on the consoles.
This is another major milestone for this long time build. I have been wanting to do this since the beginning of this project.
Seat swings out to easy get into operating position.
Here is the elevator pot from the DX7. De soldered it from the board and attached my jumpers.
Mounting plated for the 5K pots.
Temporary mock up
