Xbox 360 Controller Rumble

[bubushkinator]

We are coding on Windriver and I was just wondering if anyone figured out how to send force feedback to an Xbox 360 controller to make it rumble. Is it a simple digital output, is there something in the joystick class, or is there anything with the driver station?

Thanks for your reply.

[Alan Anderson]

There's no built-in way I know of in the robot joystick data for information to flow back to the controller. The best option I've heard of is to use the Dashboard to talk to the game controller via DirectInput.

[keehun]

That would actually be very helpful. Like it can tell the operator if the ball is in possession with the ball-handling mechanism or it could tell the driver the robot's aligned with the target and is ready to shoot, etc. I should try that out.

[R.C.]

Is there any chance someone who figured out the XBOX controller post some code? It would really help a lot of teams out there.

Thanks,

-RC

[MattD]

I've been thinking about doing something like this with our joystick. The best way to go about it, as mentioned, would be to write a custom dashboard that communicates with the joystick using DirectInput.

The problem I see is that force feedback requires acquiring the input device in an exclusive cooperative level. I'm not too familiar with DirectInput, so I'm concerned that doing this would prevent the DriverStation process from reading input. Hopefully, the DS opens it in the non-exclusive cooperative level. Maybe someone more familiar with that could chime in on this...

Regardless, I'll probably be playing around with this over the next week or two.

[DjMaddius]

You have to use the Xinput library from microsoft to control the 360 controllers.

Do some research and you should find it no problem. Id give you the code i stewed up the other day but i dont have my laptop with me ATM and its on that.

Ill see if i can upload it tonight when i get home.



Anyways, if you check the microsoft website & do some research form google and you should be able to get it easy. (There are a few simple ways to control the motors. Very simple ways.)
But there is one hitch, the left motor (or possibly right. Forgot which exact one) seems to rumble a lot harder than the other one. One is soft and one is hard. You can use this to your advantage if you decide to have multiple rumble modes.