Hi I am a very new when it comes to Arduino but I have done a little bit of coding in the past.
I have a PCPanel Maple edition that I purchased a while back, which has 4 knobs that I can also click down, it was originally meant for media control. It uses an Arduino Nano (from looking online that's what it looks like at least) and their own board that has the knobs on it.
(Pictures included)
I have always wanted to try and use it for sim racing to edit values like traction control, I have managed to make my own sketch to read the values of the knobs, but I keep seeing that I need a Arduino Micro instead because of lack of compatibility with things like xinput to actually use it in game (iRacing).
I was wondering if there is anyway for me to bypass this in any way with anything like vJoy or any other software.
I doubt that. A regular Nano V3 like shown in your photo doesn't have Native USB capability needed to act as a controller.
But other types of 30-pin boards might fit into that socket, which do have Native USB capability.
Please post a link to the board you saw online that looked like a Nano.
It might be possible to build an adapter for other types of Arduino with Native USB capability using stripboard/protoboard and PCB header pins. For example Pro Micro.
Alternatively, unsolder the encoders from that board and re-use them in the front panel of a box, connecting them to a suitable Arduino with wires.
From what I have seen on YouTube its pretty cheap to build a full button box, so I might end up buying a different Arduino and seeing if I can use the pc panel board with the knobs, if not buying new encoders.
Either way the point was to see if I could get anything out of this board since I already have it, if I cant use it for this ill eventually find a use for it.
Again I have little to no knowledge on Arduino, I have figured out pins A0 - A3 give me the values of the knobs. I have been trying to figure out how to get the input for clicking down the knobs but haven't been able to.
Oh, I see. Well, that was a waste of time because it's easy to find any number of Nano clones on line .
I thought what you meant was that you had seen a picture on line of a board that was plugged into your encoder PCB, and that board looked like a Nano. That was the picture I was hoping to see. That would be useful.
I tried using Google Lens on your two images from post #1, but the only matches I got were this page.
These are rotary encoders, not potentiometers. They don't output an analog voltage you can read with an Arduino analog pin. They send out a series of digital pulses, and from those pulses the Arduino can tell which direction and how far the knob has been turned.
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