Over the past year, I have managed to by two different joystick shields or circuit boards, that touted their Arduino compatibility, but I later discovered were discontinued. The 1st was the Joystick Shield, by Iduino. But, it has very uneven ranges for the two halves of the axis travel. It is like the pot on each axis is way off center, so that in one direction, it has lots of variation over the full range, and the other direction quickly goes to the end of the scale.
Then, more recently I purchased a joystick module by Tinkerkit the T000030. It looks like Tinkerkit company itself has not been around for over a decade. Not even the "Wayback machine" record of the internet has info on this particular board.
What has puzzled me about both of these boards, is that the joystick potentiometers do not seem to connect directly to the pins. If I measure resistance between random sets of pins, I can find a few pair that will vary slightly as I move the joystick, perhaps 2 to 4 ohm variation, out of 340 total resistance. Then, I can find multiple pair on the same board, that will vary a similar amount of I press the joystick and actuate the button inside the joystick itself.
Both of these boards have an integrated circuit SMD on board. So, virtually anything can be happening. Maybe the IC is just a debounce circuit? it is frustrating that so many electronics vendors do not provide documentation online, and once you buy it, you then discover the documentation is not inside the box either.
I guess I should just break down and buy a 3rd board, perhaps from an established current vendor, and one that provides some documentation online.
But, I though I would make one more last ditched effort to get one of these board that I have working. any ideas about what these boards should be doing, or how to get documentation about the circuit.
-Joe