PS2 style analog stick

[ivop]

Recently I acquired a couple of these PS2 style analog sticks:

 

 

I thought it'd be fun to wire them up as a digital stick for the Atari. Here's what I came up with:

 

 

 

Thought this might be of interest to some of you They can be bought dirt cheap from http://www.banggood.com/PS2-Game-Joystick-Module-For-Arduino-p-76465.html

 

Currently I'm busy getting the stick to actually work as an analog stick (pin 5 and 9 for left/right and up/down). Paddle controllers have a way higher resistance, so wiring it up directly as a pot gives way too little range (2 - 4 - 6) and basically keeps it digital. I tried an optocoupler which increases the sensitivity somewhat but is extremely non-linear. Perhaps a LED/photoresistor combo will work better (and it's cheaper ). Anyway, this could result in a 5-button analog stick, switchable to a 1-button digital stick

 

[foft]

Perhaps you could add a capacitor to slow down charging. More charge for pokey to dump, but hopefully will be ok!

 

Or perhaps do something like the touch tablet, It appears like it has a delay circuit and drives the pot input high after a delay.

Edited September 24, 2014 by foft

[ivop]

Thanks! I totally forgot that pokey discharges after every "scan". I thought adding a capacitor would mean pokey would measure the speed at which the stick was moved and then have the measured value go down again, but it's not.

 

Anyway, adding about 1 uF non-polarized between the wiper and the end of the pot that has 5V connected to it and connect the wiper to one of pokey's analog pins increases the range to 1-27-60 (left/mid/right). 27 is still fairly "in the middle". Increasing the capacitance more does not help much further. It mostly increases the upper limit and the non-linearity going right.