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Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: griffindodd on September 10, 2012, 06:38:37 pm

Title: How do I wire up a joystick with pots?
Post by: griffindodd on September 10, 2012, 06:38:37 pm

I'm looking at some bits and pieces for some experimentation.

I'm trying to work out what I need to wire up an analog joystick with pots (~5k) to emulate a mouse movement or X/Y axis for Mame control. I'm not very good at this electronics stuff, so if you keep it very basic I'd appreciate it. I do own an optipac if that's usable for this situation.

Here's the pins on the stick pots

1) x-axis output
2) +5V
3) y-axis output
4) gnd

Thanks for any help

Title: Re: How do I wire up a joystick with pots?
Post by: Nephasth on September 10, 2012, 06:47:31 pm

Joystick to emulate a mouse?... Just plug it in to the USB port (http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_info.html).

Title: Re: How do I wire up a joystick with pots?
Post by: griffindodd on September 10, 2012, 06:58:08 pm

Quote from: Nephasth on September 10, 2012, 06:47:31 pm

Joystick to emulate a mouse?... Just plug it in to the USB port (http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_info.html).

Not what I asked

Title: Re: How do I wire up a joystick with pots?
Post by: Nephasth on September 10, 2012, 07:03:37 pm

I believe you would need an A-PAC (or similar device), rather than an Opti-PAC.

Title: Re: How do I wire up a joystick with pots?
Post by: griffindodd on September 10, 2012, 07:05:23 pm

Quote from: Nephasth on September 10, 2012, 07:03:37 pm

I believe you would need an A-PAC (or similar device), rather than an Opti-PAC.

Thanks I will research that

Title: Re: How do I wire up a joystick with pots?
Post by: BadMouth on September 10, 2012, 07:58:50 pm

A-PAC, U-HID or U-HID Nano.  All from Ultimarc.

Title: Re: How do I wire up a joystick with pots?
Post by: Le Chuck on September 10, 2012, 08:38:42 pm

Or change the pots to 100K and hack any windows controller.  Do a search for star wars yoke controller hack.  Same principles apply.  I have a UHID I'll be using on the speeder build but I've done multiple board hacks and they are very straight forward, plus, if you miss wire it you're not really going to fry anything, you can just fix it. 

Title: Re: How do I wire up a joystick with pots?
Post by: MacGyver on September 11, 2012, 02:54:12 am

I use 5k pots, and an U-Hid Nano.  The Nano's inputs are configurable, so I program the Nano's pins so that one is +5v and put it on the outside of the three leads on the pot, one as -5v (gnd) and put that on the opposite side of the pot's connecters, and then configure one pin as analog input and wire it to the middle lead on the pot.  I repeat this for the other axis.  I then program 3 more pins, one as the common, and wire it to my buttons common (2 of them), then each of the other pins to the button wires, and program them as button inputs in the Nano.  I then adjust the gains (in the Nano programming utility), and calibrate it in windows.  Then I'm done, I just configure MAME (Afterburner and the like) to use that analog input.