U-HID Update

[AndyWarne]

Latest firmware for the U-HID board adds capability of interfacing mechanical rotary encoders. This means low-resolution encoders can be connected, which activate a pair of gamepad buttons, one button for clockwise and another for anti-clockwise.
In fact the button functionality can also be used for high-res encoders (spinners) such as the SpinTrak, where it will pulse the button when rotated.
The button "speed" is configurable.
The Happ rotary joystick can be wired-up to the U-HID using 4 diodes as an alternative to our Rotary Interface board. There is an application note for this here: http://www.u-hid.com/appnotes/AN1001.pdf.

All existing U-HID boards can be upgraded to add this functionality.

There is now a range of pre-made wiring harnesses for the U-HID for connecting switches, trackball and spinner.

There was an earlier undocumented change which increased the resolution of analog devices to 12 bit.

Next task on the list is to improve the documentation for this board with a PDF manual and a range of application notes. I'm afraid docs comes lower on the priority list than development which it probably shouldnt!

Details on http://www.u-hid.com

[whammoed]

Nice.  This will make changing system volume with an encoder a lot easier.
So, I assume the u-hid handles the debouncing of the mechanical encoder and there's no need for a debounce circuit?

P.S.

I'm the one who sent you an email request for this feature back in September...not sure if I'm the one who sparked this development or if you already had it in the works...

[AndyWarne]

I did have several requests for this feature. The de-bounce is handled.

Andy

[u_rebelscum]

Nice.   

There was an earlier undocumented change which increased the resolution of analog devices to 12 bit.

I knew I saw this somewhere, but when I looked & looked recently, I couldn't find it.  Glad to see I wasn't just dreaming, but...  I still can't see this feature on the web site (24 of Nov, 2008).  This is, IMO, a major feature for the flightsim/drivesim crowd, and should be included in the feature list to get them.  (OTTOMH, the only arcade games that used more than 8-bit were harddrivin/racedrivin.)

Is this configurable?  ("Programmable analog offset and scale factor for all analog axes.")

[Paul Olson]

Very nice, I will try to test the rotary function out next month; I don't think I will get to it before then.

Do you have a estimated time for 64bit support?

Thanks,
Paul

[AndyWarne]

The board does work on 64-bit OSs but not the U-Config utility yet. We are working on this. No estimated time yet.

The resolution of the analog axes is not configurable, its always 12-bit. But I cant see why you would want to configure it to be less than 12-bit.

Andy

[u_rebelscum]

The resolution of the analog axes is not configurable, its always 12-bit. But I cant see why you would want to configure it to be less than 12-bit.

Some people like to be able to change everything.   However, the range can easily be changed in directInput (software) rather than in firmware, so no need to have the res changeable IMO.
Others, OTOH... might feel differently 

I was just wondering if the line I quoted implied something about changing the res or not.  But now that the page includes the line "12-bit analog axis support", explicitly saying 12 bit, nevermind.

[AndyWarne]

I suppose the scale factor and offset adjustments accomplish the same thing as reducing the resolution. Although 12 bits would still be sent, not all would be used if the axis is down-scaled.
Andy