mini thumb slide joysticks

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Interfacing
1

Has anyone here used one of these small resistive analog joysticks with an arduino?

It looks like it has four pins, two take power and two you could take a reading from, one for each axis. Other than that I know nothing about it. If anyone has any details on the wiring or code I'd use to take a reading from it, I'd be very grateful.

2

I think you just hook them up like two potentiometers, what i'm missing is the ground tab, maybe it's the big metal part in the center?

3

the center strip is probably connected to something, the sony psp uses one that looks like the same setup and it fits against the metal cage (or at-least in the 1000 models)

all else fails it's probably intended to be wired up like a rheostat

each pad is a "end" to a variable resistor (*2 for x and y)

that's a common joystick thing from the old days

apple //, c-64, and pc used that setup to change the clocks on 555 single shot timers, depending on how long the clock was high was representative of position

4

From the description:

"If you supply power to pins 2 and 4, you can use an ADC to read the other two pins for the x and y axis values."

Looks like pins 2 and 4 are the outer pins of both potentiometers wired in parallel. Pins 1 and 3 are the wipers. It sure would be nice if they told us the resistance.

5

I have used this mouse but it is not so sensitive and the centering I mean return to center is not precise. You can find the wiring at the link

Here is the my Arduino code

const int Left = 1;
const int Right = 2;
const int Up = 3;
const int Down = 4;

int xpin = 4;
int ypin = 5;

int xAxis;
int yAxis;
char* myStrings[]={"Left","Right","Up","Down"};
int button;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
}


void loop() {
 xAxis=map(analogRead(xpin), 0, 1023, 0, 10);
 yAxis=map(analogRead(ypin), 0, 1023, 0, 10);
 
 if (xAxis < 4 ) { button = Left; }
 else if (xAxis > 6 ) { button = Right; }
 if (yAxis < 4 ) { button = Down; }
 else if (yAxis > 6 ) { button = Up; }
 if ( button > 0 ) Serial.println(myStrings[button-1]);
 button = 0;
 delay(50);
}

Thanks,
Nadir

6

How did you get those header pins on there? the holes on the back are very tiny.. did you solder directly onto the pads?

7

I mean return to center is not precise

Ive never seen an analog joystick that would (thus calibration)