Guides and Diaries of all things Audio, MIDI and Electronics
Showing posts with label Playstation 2 Analog Joysticks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Playstation 2 Analog Joysticks. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Joystick Wiring 1/3

Let's jump straight in, I've got my Livid Breakout board, my joysticks and my initiative!!

Below i have made a schematic for how the joysticks are to be wired to the potentiometer section of the breakout Board. I am also using sparkfun joystick breakouts. 




As you can see, each joystick has 2 signal cables, one vertical (X) and one horizontal (Y) 

The way i have wired the voltage and ground is in a daisy chain. i will explain this a little bit more in part 2/3. but for now we will just be doing some practical.

Below is some wire that i ripped out of an old PC i had laying around. this is just the HDD light cable that goes from the front bezel to the motherboard. good colours for what i want to demonstrate. red is our voltage and white is the ground, they are also pre-twisted so its not as messy!

Cut a small amount for the end so you have 2 of each colour one large and one small.

Strip these and twist together like the picture.

We now have a simple one-step daisy chain!

If you want more just add multiple little pieces of wire like a necklace.



Now, with your vice or helping hands, put the first voltage and ground wire into your joystick breakout and solder. hopefully you have a better quality soldering iron than me :(


Now find your Signal Cables, i have decided to use orange! because it rhymes with nothing! solder these connections. NOTE* if you have these joystick breakout boards, you may notice a hole called "sel" this is the signal for the built in selector switch, i have decided that its not relevant, but i am sure that it could be hooked up somehow if needs be, but would involve using the button matrix and adding voltage and ground wires.

What you want to do now is get your small daisy chain wires and hook up the voltage and ground to the second joystick, then add the signal cable, and you should have something like what i have below.



Stay tuned.... in part 2/3 i will be explaining our daisy chain and hooking up the the breakout board!

Cheers!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Midi Controller: Thumb Sticks

So as i have been staying up late at night obsessing over electronics and this controller, i have found that i have an old PS2 (not working) in the cupboard (totally unrelated you say?? i think not).

These PS2 controllers have 2 analog thumb joy sticks in them. these joysticks are 2 axis, X and Y, up/down and left/right, basically 2 rotary potentiometers per joystick package.

To explain this a bit more....

1 rotary potentiometer has 3 pins, a ground (-) a voltage (+) and a Signal.

The joystick has 3 pins per each axis, so 6 pins, easy as pie to wire up.

The thing im really excited about is that i can assign 2 MIDI parameters per thumbstick.

So, 4 effects, 4 sends, 4 pans etc all at the same time.

Today I busted the PS2 controller open and salvaged the joysticks!!
(its very easy when you get a solder sucker, just google "solder removal" for more info)

I will be using Breakout Boards for mounting and connecting these, if you would like a breakout board or you just want to buy the thumbsticks and not the PS2 controller they are available at:

US/international: www.sparkfun.com

Australia: www.littlebirdelectronics.com

Still waiting for my other parts.. so this keeps me out of trouble... for now.

Cheers!

here are some pics: