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Infinity vs Tosten

andrewtac

Well Known Member
I was getting ready to order some grips for my 10, I want the military style grips and was looking at Infinity and Tosten. Both are similar in price and come in the configuration I want. Any reason to pick on over the other?
 
The Infinity grips are made for right or left hands. Installing them you “clock” the grip for best fit for you (as in it is turned a little counter clockwise for the right hand, clockwise for the left). You may find this as advantageous - I do.

I installed infinity grips in all three of my RV projects, and will use them again in the next.

Carl
 
Thanks Carl, it is the same with the Tosten (as far as right and left hand). I do plan on clocking mine.
 
The Infinity grips are made for right or left hands. Installing them you “clock” the grip for best fit for you (as in it is turned a little counter clockwise for the right hand, clockwise for the left). You may find this as advantageous - I do.

I installed infinity grips in all three of my RV projects, and will use them again in the next.

Carl

You can also get the swivel adaptor from Infinity now and I like that feature. It allows a quite a but of rotation on the grip after installed so you can change your grip position as you fly.
 
I looked at both, chose Tosten. I don't think I saw a huge difference between them, except that:

1, Tosten was a little cheaper when fully loaded with lots of switches.
2, reviews on this site and others are full of raves about both Tosten's quality and customer service.

Nothing bad about Infinity to report. But the positives for Tosten were compelling for me.

And yes, they do both hands. I have a right and a left handed stick in my cockpit, depending on the seat.
 
I’ve got both of them, and like them both. But I really like Kevin at Tosten - he bends over backwards to help the community, and that’s worth a lot!

I also like the ease with which you change the rotation of the grip if you want - with the Infinity, it’s only setable once.

Paul
 
The Infinity is adjustable, too - if you know how ;)

After cutting off most of the upper portion of my control sticks for panel clearance I found myself having to secure the Infinity's by clamping force at the bottom rather than a through-bolt. The rim at the bottom of the grip was amply thick and strong to tap for a pair of Allen set screws 90 degrees apart. The attachment is adjustable for clocking and very firm. No way it's going anywhere.

JD or whoever the guy is at Infinity was very helpful in exchanging the wrong size bushing that came with the grips that came with my partly-assembled kit.
 
Infinity

Ditto for all the above. In addition, I went with Infinity because it is a nearly EXACT copy of the stick grip in the F-4 Phantom. After 2069 hours in the Double Ugly, the Infinity grip just helps things feel like home.
 
Infinity was, I believe, on the market before Tosten. My "slow build" was started in 1992 and that was the only one available. As I recall....a few things have happened since then.....

After 1200+ hours on my -4, I am pretty happy with it! Picture of the installation on a similar thread....
 
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I looked at both, chose Tosten. I don't think I saw a huge difference between them, except that:

1, Tosten was a little cheaper when fully loaded with lots of switches.
2, reviews on this site and others are full of raves about both Tosten's quality and customer service.

Nothing bad about Infinity to report. But the positives for Tosten were compelling for me.

And yes, they do both hands. I have a right and a left handed stick in my cockpit, depending on the seat.

+1.

The Tostens in my 7 have been great for the 3.5yrs and 450hrs I have flown the plane. Easy install, nice fit and work great. Ordered another set for my 4 under construction.
 
I've had two Tosten CS-8's in my machine since new (~11yrs & ~750hrs) with no issues.

As part of an upgrade (ADSB amongst others) I've replaced those grips with the Tosten MS grips - reasoning being the price was better for what I wanted, and while the Infinity grips are very good and very robust, they're a little too 'industrial' for me, and I don't believe I'm losing anything in terms of quality or robustness with the Tosten grips.

The key thing that swung it was Kevin's service & support - it's at least as good as I have experienced anywhere
 
For me, it came down to aesthetics and switch count

I examined Infinity and Tosten up close while I was building my 7A. Both are of good quality. I liked the looks of the Infinity grip and it seemed to offer one more switch location, as I recall. I use all of the available switches on my grip on just about every flight. I wish I had more switches, although that might require more fingers :)
 
My purchased -8 had Tostens but they felt "wimpy" until I wrapped them with black electrical tape. Now they feel "manly" as if I was flying a Phantom.
 
I went with Tostens because they offered a multi-switch grip option that felt like a fighter but didn't look military (the CS-8's). I have no complaints about them.
 
Kevin Bandwagon

Though I posted my opinion to do it differently if I had to do it all over again (I probably wouldn't go with Tosten or Infinity because of aesthetics ), Kevin was awesome to work with and answered all of my dumb questions without hesitation.

If you you like the look and functionality of a military style stick then you can't go wrong with Kevin and the grips & service he provides!!
 
The dealbreaker for me was not being able to share a common ground wire on the switched outputs with the Infinity grips. I wanted to drill a hole in my copilot stick to pull the wires out to put through a Molex Microfit 3.0 connector, allowing me to easily remove the copilot stick, even though it has all the capabilities of the pilots stick. Tosten would allow me to use this common ground, which essentially halved the bundle size and greatly reduced the size of the hole required in the side of the stick. Ended up drilling a 5/16" hole. The only thing to watch with the RV-8 is panel clearance, as the head and buttons on the top of the stick adds a bit of bulk, which may mean your hand is too low down the stick with a stock panel height. This wasn't really an issue with the 7. The stick height is absolutely perfect after I trimmed off about 5.5" off the stick. In all, I absolutely love the Tosten Military stick. It's comfortable (put about a 20° twist on it to get your wrist angle right) and having the flaps and trim on the stick makes approaches a seamless experience, where you are not looking down inside the cockpit for control locations.
Good luck.
Tom.
 
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JD wouldn’t wire it for me that way due to his perceived redundancy risks. He may have changed his position since then, as this was 4 years ago. I called Tosten, asked if they would wire it the way I wanted, they said no worries and the rest is history.
Tom.
 
JD wouldn’t wire it for me that way due to his perceived redundancy risks. He may have changed his position since then, as this was 4 years ago. I called Tosten, asked if they would wire it the way I wanted, they said no worries and the rest is history.
Tom.

No big deal, just tie the grounds at the other end of the harness. I have a single ground going the the connector, which one side has the grounds connected. While it may incur some risk, it also allows me to disable the all the switches with a single toggle switch when I’m flying Young Eagles or other youth in the seat.
 
I think its stupid that infinity brings out both sides of the switches, makes the wire bundle impossible to work with. I always end up cutting up thier pretty harness to gather all the grounds together so I can have a single ground wire exiting the grip. As far as installation goes infinity is the most difficult IMO, hard to get the height/angle/wiring just right, I tend to go with/recommend Tosten which is good quality and much easier install.
 
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Tosten CS-8 Peeling

I have had two Torsten CS-8s in my RV10 for a little over 3 year and 350 hours and am really happy with them but am curious if anyone else did the “soft touch” option and if it is peeling off?

My pilot side grip has been flaking off ~1in pieces of the outer covering for the last year or so. This isn’t a big deal and certainly doesn’t impact performance just makes a mess for you to clean up.

It is only one of my two grips that is flaking, but it is the one that I use most so it may be a lack of use that has allowed the covering on the co-pilot side to remain intact. Most likely I just got a grip from a bad lot but I haven’t heard anything from Torsten.

Still really like the grips despite this cosmetic issue.
 
When i put the infinity grip in my 4 i removed most of the grounds from the wure bundle so i could have a smaller hole in the stick. Just tied them together.
 
When i put the infinity grip in my 4 i removed most of the grounds from the wure bundle so i could have a smaller hole in the stick. Just tied them together.

The Infinity guy is also suffering from the misconception that you are not allowed to use higher than 22 gauge wire in an aircraft, leading to a massive wire bundle. No reason you couldn't use 24, 28, 30 or higher gauge wires if you're not pulling any significant current through the stick switches (for example if you're you're using relay boards or servo speed controllers). I doubt the PPT switch sees more than a couple milliamps with most radios. Of course stripping and crimping (if not soldering) the higher gauge wires can be a challenge.

Finn
 
Wiring bundle

So I was faced with a problem running the wires to the controller. I ended up using a thin cat5 cable with 28 awg and 8 wires. This was the smallest way I could figure to run all these wires through the harness.
 
I have had two Torsten CS-8s in my RV10 for a little over 3 year and 350 hours and am really happy with them but am curious if anyone else did the “soft touch” option and if it is peeling off?
Every product i've ever owned that has "soft touch finish" has had the soft touch fail eventually. Flaking, gumming up, etc. It's nice when it's new, but doesn't last.
 
Can anyone comment knowledgeably on the lenght of the Infinity stick grip versus the Tosten stick grip? The Tosten web site says the stick grip is 10" tall, where Infinity is unclear, but seems to indicate 5.73" length. This difference seems suspect.

I'm asking because of the clearance issues reported by some when using the Tosten CS-8 stick grip (which also is reported by Tosten as being 10" tall).

Have any of you had issues with panel clearance with the Infinity "military" stick grip in an RV-10 with the Aerosport Products 310 panel?

I have flown a friend's RV-10 with the Tosten CS-8 stick grips and it appears they had to be adjusted to clear the Van's factory panel in that aircraft, so I'd imagine the clearance would also be too close with the Aerosport panel.
 
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Had the Infinity grip on the bench, overall length is less than 6"
 

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note that the control stick inserts 2.125" up inside the Infinity grip. That depth might change a bit if you go with the swivel adapter option.
 
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