Help w/ USB Joystick encoder

[twitami]

Hoping someone can help me out here. I have bought two of the reyann usb joystick encoder that is for sale everywhere (got mine from ebay), and I cant seem to get them to work. I connected a joystick (4 switches), and 6 buttons or so, and connect it to my PC and get the "USB connected" sound. It shows a controller connected in windows, but when I go to test it, it just shows buttins 1, 2, and 3, and none of them do anything. Any ideas?

[Slippyblade]

Make sure you have the switches connected properly.  If you have 3 tab switches, one tab is ground, one tab is normally open, and the third is normally closed.  Make sure the ground and normally open are the ones connected.

[05SRT4]

How are you testing this?

What type of joystick and button micro switches are you using? It sounds like you may have the wires wrong or if the ground is daisy chained you might have a break somewhere.

Maybe start with just one button and make sure that works first.

[twitami]

I tried one button

I am using the included wiring harness. The ground is built into each buttons wire.

[05SRT4]

So are you testing this within MAME or the controller panel thing in windows?

[JDFan]

I tried one button

I am using the included wiring harness. The ground is built into each buttons wire.

ANd which button set did you get ?? Happ style with 3 connectors or japanese type with only 2 ?? If the happ type which 2 connections are you hooking them up to of the 3 ?? (should be ground and NO )

Does the joystick directions work ? are the LEDs on the encoder illuminated ??

Normally it shows up as a Generic USB Joystick with 12 buttons in windows even if only 1 or 2 buttons is connected. As shown in the attached from my controller I use on my desktop system.

[twitami]

I am using Happ type buttons. And testing on the same section in Windows as that. It shows a generic usb controller just like yours, but when i click on properties, its not there. This particular encoder (they are all over ebay and other places), doesn't use a ground-loop type wiring setup. The harness is basically just seperate connections for each switch (two for each) with a connector on the end that plugs into the board. Only thing I can think of is maybe I have them reversed on the buttons...I will try it tonite.

[JDFan]

I am using Happ type buttons. And testing on the same section in Windows as that. It shows a generic usb controller just like yours, but when i click on properties, its not there. This particular encoder (they are all over ebay and other places), doesn't use a ground-loop type wiring setup. The harness is basically just seperate connections for each switch (two for each) with a connector on the end that plugs into the board. Only thing I can think of is maybe I have them reversed on the buttons...I will try it tonite.

That is the same thing I have -- Since the buttons have only the 2 wires running to each it does not matter if they are reversed since all the wires do is complete the connection when the button is pressed ( EDIT : Actually it might make a difference if mixing the wiring since the info says "Common ground PCB" - so the grounds are all connected on the PCB so you need to use the same color wire for all the grounds !! - so whichever color wire you run to 1 switch's ground connector you should use the same color to all button switches ).-- Are you connecting them to the proper 2 connections on the switch ( one goes on the bottom separate connector which is the ground and the other goes to the NO connector (if hooked to the NC connector and ground it will show the button always pressed except when you press it. - and if connected to NO and NC the button will not work at all since it will not ground.

Here is a diagram showing the connector labels in case you need one (note some switches have the NO and NC reversed but as mentioned as long as 1 is to ground the other if hooked up to NC will just show the button as always pressed so if that happens switch them.)


And here is a diagrram of the wiring for the board (assuming you have the one you posted and not the type that are also for PS3 which have an additional 8 pin bank used for the PS3)


On it the buttons each go to one of the 12 button plugs and the joystick either goes to the 5 pin if using a japanese type joystick or has 4 sets of wires each going to one of the 4 joystick connections (AU, AC, AR, and AL in the diagram) then from the encoder they run to the button ground and NO connections of the switches.

Also is the MODE button led on or off ?? this toggles the joystick input between joystick and left analog/POV hat switch input but should not effect buttons just which place the joystick movement shows in testing.

[twitami]

Your first picture didnt come thru.

I thought the wiring was like that. And I used the same setup on each button (blue wire to ground, white to NO). Only the red LED comes on, so I think mode wise I should be ok. But still nothing when I try to adjust settings in Windows. It shows a controller, but no actual controls on it.

Thanks for ll the help by the way!

[JDFan]

Try connecting one set of the wires to the cle (clear) button and press the button or touch the 2 wires together -- this might clear the settings and return it to default settings. Then try the buttons again.

[twitami]

Tried the CLR button idea, didnt do anything. Here is what I get, with 1 button or 10 and a joystick:

It shows three buttons only, all the time, and none of them do anything.

[JDFan]

that seems to be a razr deathstalker mouse driver -- not the encoder !! Do you by chance have a razr mouse installed on the system ? ( or perhaps keyboard - with the pad with buttons - try pressing the buttons on there and see if it detects those presses ) Does that controller dissapear if you unplug the encoder from the USB port ?? If it does then it seems the thing is being detected incorrectly - if not then see if there are any other Generic Joysticks being detected as it might be you are in the wrong driver !

[twitami]

Hmm, I do have a Razer. Never noticed that. it does make the detected sound when I plug in the encoder though, and when I unplug in. Maybe I will try another PC, see what happens.

[twitami]

Well son of a ---smurfette---, it worked on the other PC. Its the Razer drivers messing it up I guess.

SWEET!