Joysticks....

[Moloch]

Does anyone know if the Logitech extreme digital 3D will work on the FIRST robotics systems? If not, does anyone know where to find ambidextrious joysticks that will work.

Thanks.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Moloch

Does anyone know if the Logitech extreme digital 3D will work on the FIRST robotics systems? If not, does anyone know where to find ambidextrious joysticks that will work.

Any joystick that follows the old 15-pin game port pinout should work. The only place I know of to find them reliably is eBay.

[Moloch]

I found a 15 pin joystick but when we plug it into the OI all four of the wheels spin. Is there something in the program that I need to write??

[dez250]

Originally Posted by Moloch

I found a 15 pin joystick but when we plug it into the OI all four of the wheels spin. Is there something in the program that I need to write??

Look for an adjustable potentiometer or wheel on the joystick for the x and y Axis's. Normally there is a small calibration wheel that is used to adjust the joystick so it can be offset from the origin and that is what it sounds like your problem is. If you can find those calibration wheels and center them your problem will probably go away.

[Moloch]

Thanks. I will try that as soon as I get to my robot!

[Moloch]

There are no trims on this joystick. Any other options to go for??

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Moloch

There are no trims on this joystick. Any other options to go for??

Use the Dashboard program to make sure the joystick controls the x and y axis values. If the values change enough (a difference of 200 or more from min to max) when you move the joystick, it should work okay. Then calibrate the Victors to match your joysticks.

[Moloch]

As soon as we turn on the robot all four wheels begin to spin, but when you move the joystick nothing changes.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Moloch

As soon as we turn on the robot all four wheels begin to spin, but when you move the joystick nothing changes.

Use the Dashboard program to see what does change, if anything.

What kind of joystick are you using? The Logitech Extreme Digital 3D you mentioned at first is a USB device. It appears to have a 15-pin game port adapter and associated software driver to let it connect to a Windows PC lacking hardware USB support, but it does not use the standard "15-pin game port pinout". The IFI Operator Interface cannot work with it.

[Moloch]

Thanks. It seems that the only joysticks that do work are the old flight sticks you can get off of E-Bay...

[stephenthe1]

where is a diagram of the buttons and their aliases/lines of code used to access them.

I need to know what the aux. switches in the code are called.

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Any joystick that follows the old 15-pin game port pinout should work. The only place I know of to find them reliably is eBay.

Be careful... just because a joystick or gamepad has a 15-pin connector doesn't mean that it will work with the OI. Many modern joysticks, even with an old-school connector, use an incompatible protocol, such as the Microsoft Sidewinder. The older the joystick, the more likely it will work, but there are no guarantees.

[raptere]

on the topic of fifteen pin joysticks i bought a new set of joysticks with the game port but they are labled as digital joysticks. i took apart one of them and found that the normal properly operating sticks have a single variable resister for each axis and the wires go straight to the connectors. The digital ones have one sensor with two separate wires comming out of them but insted of the wires going to the plug they first go to a computer chip, and then to the connector. I find my self wondering if the circuit board needs power to operate but i am finding no changes out of the connectors any ideas that can be shared?

Thanks everyone,
Eli
Raptere