MS Sidewinder Calibration
 

Has anyone ever been able to correctly calibrate a Microsoft Sidewinder joystick? In the dashboard, the inputs are somewhat erratic. Both axes change when I move the joystick forward and back. Other places on ChiefDelphi say it's impossible to program it because the sidewinder uses some sort of auto-centering optical encoder.

But I have seen an FRC team use Sidewinders before. If anyone knows how to calibrate or use a Sidewinder on an FRC robot, could you please help?

Re: MS Sidewinder Calibration
 

Based on messing with one today for a couple of hours, it seems to auto-calibrate when it is connected.
Unfortunately, it seems to auto-calibrate off center.

The closest I got to making it work was to hold the joystick off center and plug it in so that when I let it go back to center, the values were closer to 127.

After opening it up and messing with it some more, I'd say it's not worth trying to use.

Re: MS Sidewinder Calibration
 

from our experience with joysticks using optical encoders, weve found that joysticks like that draw too much current from the oi and cause it to behave erratically. now i dont know if this is the exact problem, considering that ive never used a sidewinder before, but its worth a shot.