Custom Control Box

[geomapguy]

We found a cypress control board in our storeroom and we are interested in making a custom control box opposed to using just joysticks. How would we go about doing so if we program in LabView?

[connor.worley]

I would recommend using this rather than the Cypress. You can wire buttons switches, etc. to it and it will appear as a joystick to the PC.

[rachelholladay]

Originally Posted by connor.worley

I would recommend using this rather than the Cypress. You can wire buttons switches, etc. to it and it will appear as a joystick to the PC.

I echo that sentiment many times over. Our team had been using the Cypress chip and it wasn't that the chip was hard to use, but with the extra programming and firmware, it was just more of a pain. I'm really a huge fan of the eStop board and used it all last season (and will again this season). It programs exactly like a joystick, which makes it really easy. Plus, if anything were to happen to the board, I could have substituted a joystick in a pinch. (although the little board did not / would not break).

[ferret_guy]

if you want to work with the cypress board this is the quickstart guide

[Greg Young]

We've done this the last two years and it has worked well for us. It's been most of a year since I did this so the details are a little fuzzy.

You need to get a Cypress Carrier board from either AndyMark or eStop to make connecting switches and potentiometers much easier.

First you need to download the proper firmware to the Cypress board. The instructions are in the 2012 control system quickstart
http://www.usfirst.org/sites/default...ystem_RevA.pdf starting on page 39.

Once you've run through the instructions and your driver station sees the board you can start by wiring up a switch. The digital inputs have pullups so you ground the input to get a low. Check on the driver station enhanced i/o to make sure that flipping the switch changes the input.

Look in WPI Robotics Library -> Driver Station -> Enhanced IO for the vi's that will get the digital and analog input arrays. You can get the input you need out of the array.

This is the quick and dirty version since I don't know how familiar you are with the board or electronics in general. Ask if you have any questions.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Another option that's cheaper than the estop board is highlighted in this paper.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2666

It was very easy for us to use.

[geomapguy]

Thanks guys for all the info.

Allen: Is the Teensy compatible with the Joystick VIs within LabView?

[BigJ]

Throwing some more stuff out there, you could always check out a place that sells arcade/fightstick parts like http://www.focusattack.com/


This PCB looks like it would work fine as a detected PC joystick but I have not used it: http://www.focusattack.com/toodles-c...i-console-pcb/

[ming08108]

I don't know much about this stuff, but a while back I saw this on kickstarter.
http://makeymakey.com/

Perhaps you could control your robot with bananas?

[inkspell4]

Or you could use the new arduino leonardo/micro/due they now all allow for usb emulation and there are arduino vis that can be downloaded for labview