MS Sidewinder Calibration

[lasereyes]

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?

[Chaos in a Can]

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.

[Uberbots]

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.