Unused axes

[milhouse]

Anyone have any suggestions w/r/t unused joystick axes?  I have Pedals hooked up to an A-Pac.  This only requires 2 inputs, but the unused axes are still reported in windows.  For whatever reason, I get constant slight movement on these axes, which makes assigning keys / pedals in MAME and other games a pain, since it always reports their movement.  I've connected the unused to ground but without much effect.  Anyone have a solution?  I am hoping there is software that will allow me to disable the axes, but so far no luck.

Thanks.

[AlanS17]

I haven't attempted an "assist" in years so take my advice with a grain of salt...

An A-PAC emulates 2 gamepads, correct? In other words, that's how Windows sees them, right? Assuming you're only using the first one, could you just disable the second one in the Windows Device Manager?

I include lots of question marks since I don't actually have a solid answer.

[P-chan]

What type of joystick?  Can you get in there and just remove the microswitches for those two axes?

[AlanS17]

I think the OP means he's getting phantom movement from completely unused A-PAC terminals.

[milhouse]

Yeah the axes aren't used/connected, but the driver still shows all the axes in Game Controllers / Mame.  And as far as I can tell, there is only one driver for the A-PAC -disabling it disables the entire device - its not separate.

Thanks.
 

[AlanS17]

I've only ever used J-Pacs and I-Pacs, and that was most of a decade ago. 

Is there a built-in Windows utility for controlling gamepads? Or does Windows just se it as a HID device?

[milhouse]

There is a built-in utility but it doesn't allow you to disable an axis.  I also played with DXTweak a bit, but that didn't seem to make a difference.

[P-chan]

Can you use Xpadder to reassign all movement to either left or right?  I doubt that will help, just a thought.

[milhouse]

Can you use Xpadder to reassign all movement to either left or right?  I doubt that will help, just a thought.

Interesting idea because at a minimum it would be easier to go back into the MAME cfg and edit out the movement, but I think that Xpadder doesn't cloak the movement - it just adds keypresses.  But maybe there's something here...

[Mysterioii]

Your inputs are probably floating.  I don't personally have one of those boards but I would suggest grounding the unused analog inputs.

[BadMouth]

Your best move would probably be to email Andy at ultimarc.

I have no experience with an A-Pac, but I'll try to help anyway.

Have you calibrated the joystick under game controllers in the windows control panel?

What OS are you running? .
It's a pain to find the calibration screen in Win7, you have to right click on the controller to get the settings window.
If you left click on the controller, it will just bring up the hardware properties.  

[milhouse]

Its XP 64bit.  I've wired the unused axes to ground which works temporarily, but if I have to recalibrate, the problem returns.  Its weird because its just spikes now and again in all the rotational axes.  I think I will just have to learn to live with it.  I was hoping there was software that would allow me to ignore the axes, but it doesn't seem like it.

[BadMouth]

Its XP 64bit.  I've wired the unused axes to ground which works temporarily, but if I have to recalibrate, the problem returns.  Its weird because its just spikes now and again in all the rotational axes.  I think I will just have to learn to live with it.  I was hoping there was software that would allow me to ignore the axes, but it doesn't seem like it.

If the axis that's connected to pots doesn't do that, then it might be worthwhile to buy a couple cheap pots at radio shack and hook up to the unused axis.

[Mysterioii]

Its XP 64bit.  I've wired the unused axes to ground which works temporarily, but if I have to recalibrate, the problem returns.  Its weird because its just spikes now and again in all the rotational axes.  I think I will just have to learn to live with it.  I was hoping there was software that would allow me to ignore the axes, but it doesn't seem like it.

If the axis that's connected to pots doesn't do that, then it might be worthwhile to buy a couple cheap pots at radio shack and hook up to the unused axis.

I just looked at the page for the A-Pac.  Honestly tying them to ground sounds like it should be fine but that calibration procedure might make it see teeny tiny fluctuations in voltage, and the least significant bit of an A/D conversion isn't that reliable so it might be picking up some noise there.  Pots are just variable voltage dividers so if you have any spare resistors lying around you might just put one resistor between 1UP and 1DOWN and another between 1DOWN and GND.  That would look the same as a pot sitting at a fixed position.  Values shouldn't really matter that much.  Even then though if the A/D conversions have flicker in the LSB's then you might see the same problem.

His diagram confuses me a little.  A pot usually has one side connected to ground and one side connected to whatever voltage you want to consider high (say +5V).  The center leg sweeps and will always measure a voltage between the two.  His diagram has one leg going to GND, but the other two going to pairs like left/right or up/down.  You've only got one changing value for a pot so calibration just determines what you want to consider fully left (or up or whatever) and fully right (down etc).  Whatever value you come up with, if you're 30% "UP" then you're 70% "DOWN".  I wonder if on the pins he's labeled as "up/down" one is really tied high and the other is the actual analog input.