USB joystick to control plane
- Thread starter joneill4
- Start date
Option is available through APM Mission Planner and a High Power Telemetry radio set.
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-rfd900/
It is NOT plug and play as is NO APM driven system.
Thurmond
http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-rfd900/
It is NOT plug and play as is NO APM driven system.
Thurmond
What issue are you trying to address by using the USB joystick?
@ Tritium-Thanks for the response. I have seen a lot of these type threads from 3 or 4 years ago, and I was hoping someone had figured out a simple and cheap solution.
@ joshuabardwell-I grew up with flight simulators. I can work the sticks on my transmitter just fine, but I would greatly prefer to fly with a PC style joystick.
@ joshuabardwell-I grew up with flight simulators. I can work the sticks on my transmitter just fine, but I would greatly prefer to fly with a PC style joystick.
Maybe using a simulator such as ClearView that uses a USB joystick interface by default?
http://rcflightsim.com/
People use a PPM to USB device to connect their RC transmitter to use ClearView, but if you just plug your USB joystick in, you can at least see what it's like to control a RC plane with a USB Joystick. I tried it with a XBox joystick and didn't like the loss in resolution.
http://rcflightsim.com/
People use a PPM to USB device to connect their RC transmitter to use ClearView, but if you just plug your USB joystick in, you can at least see what it's like to control a RC plane with a USB Joystick. I tried it with a XBox joystick and didn't like the loss in resolution.
Got it. So you don't actually need the USB-to-PC component. That's what I was trying to figure out.
Okay, so here is the deal: inside a PC joystick are some potentiometers. Inside the gimbals of your transmitter are some potentiometers. At the end of the day, you can pretty easily re-wire an RC transmitter to take its input from the pots of a joystick, vs. the pots of its own internal gimbals. Just open up the transmitter and disconnect the wires from its pots, then open up the joystick and disconnect its pot wires from the circuit board, and splice them together. Boom. Done. The devil is in the details (making it neat and tidy) but the actual process is dead simple.
Have to make sure the pots are the same voltage or bad things will happen
I don't understand. Vcc in the transmitter is surely 5v or 3v3. Likewise for the joystick, since it runs off of USB, which is a 5 volt spec. What device is going to use higher voltage for a basic application like reading a pot? If this were an audio application, we would have to think about the power dissipation of the pot, but it isn't. It's a simple voltage divider attached to an analog input of a microcontroller. Current through the pot is nil. Likewise, since it's being used as a voltage divider, the actual resistance value is moot. I don't see how there could be a problem.
Idk just some of the things I've read about doing this. Most articles or how tos I've seen recommend making sure the voltage is the same or things go poof
rcspaceflight
creator of virtual planes
You could always remove the pots from the USB joystick and replace them with the Tx pots. You only have to solder if the wires aren't long enough. A Dremel and some CA should be the only tools you need to modify.
As far as plugging a USB joystick into some sort of radio seems like it would require far more customization. I doubt there would be enough of a market there for anyone to even attempt to sell a plug and play set up.
As far as plugging a USB joystick into some sort of radio seems like it would require far more customization. I doubt there would be enough of a market there for anyone to even attempt to sell a plug and play set up.
I saw this:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...r_Joystick_FPV_1_5_Interface_X_Gyro_1500.html
but I see several people saying it does not work. Also not exactly cheap.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...r_Joystick_FPV_1_5_Interface_X_Gyro_1500.html
but I see several people saying it does not work. Also not exactly cheap.
SnowRocker88
Amateur pilot and builder
I wonder how hard it would be to use your phone or computer to connect to a USB throttle/joystick combo and just use a WiFi receiver and run like that...?
Under most conditions, WiFi doesn't have enough range and reliability to use for RC plane control. If you really wanted to do something like this, the approach I would explore is using something like an Arduino Leonardo (with built in USB support) to read the joystick and generate a PPM signal. Then feed the PPM signal into the trainer port on your transmitter.
SnowRocker88
Amateur pilot and builder
That's a smart way of doing it! Not sure what the protocol is for the trainer port tho.
It's PPM. Generating PPM for RC control with Arduino is a problem that others have solved for you.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1808432
SnowRocker88
Amateur pilot and builder
Let's take this one step further...
http://flitetest.com/articles/fpv-full-scale-cockpit-ground-station-w-42-tv
So do what that guy did but instead of pulling apart a controller, just do your Arduino to trainer port setup!
http://flitetest.com/articles/fpv-full-scale-cockpit-ground-station-w-42-tv
So do what that guy did but instead of pulling apart a controller, just do your Arduino to trainer port setup!
rcspaceflight
creator of virtual planes
Arduino sounds like a lot of programming. Hacking apart a cheap Tx and a cheap joystick sounds more straight forward and simpler. But that's just my opinion.
I see the benefit of both sides. The Arduino approach would allow one to use any USB joystick with zero hardware modification to either the transmitter or the joystick. This has some advantages. Realistically, the coding should be pretty simple, since the PPM generation code has been incorporated into a library, as well as the code for reading the joystick. It could be less than fifty lines of original code.
Drake600
Member
I had a look at that code you linked, and while it would cover the PPM side of the challenge, I think it would be a whole lot more challenging to implement it using an unmodified USB controller as this would require an arduino with a USB host and the associated code to handle that side of things. Far simpler would be to get an old analog stick (probably cheaply as support for analog ended with Windows XP) and fit an arduino into the housing to read the pots and generate PPM using that code with minor modification.
Even simpler (code wise) would be to graft a joystick onto a cheap tx, but there's no guarantee the joystick's pots would have the same range of output as the tx (i.e. how close to min/max the wiper reaches, could be less or more).
At the end of the day, each approach would work but the more effort you're willing to put in, the more flexible and customisable the end result will be. Generating the PPM with an arduino would allow any mix/expo/feature you can imagine and code, even on the cheapest tx. Probably should have warned you that flying is my second favorite hobby - can you guess the first? Flying is catching up, trust me
SnowRocker88
Amateur pilot and builder
I had a look at that code you linked, and while it would cover the PPM side of the challenge, I think it would be a whole lot more challenging to implement it using an unmodified USB controller as this would require an arduino with a USB host and the associated code to handle that side of things. Far simpler would be to get an old analog stick (probably cheaply as support for analog ended with Windows XP) and fit an arduino into the housing to read the pots and generate PPM using that code with minor modification.
Even simpler (code wise) would be to graft a joystick onto a cheap tx, but there's no guarantee the joystick's pots would have the same range of output as the tx (i.e. how close to min/max the wiper reaches, could be less or more).
At the end of the day, each approach would work but the more effort you're willing to put in, the more flexible and customisable the end result will be. Generating the PPM with an arduino would allow any mix/expo/feature you can imagine and code, even on the cheapest tx. Probably should have warned you that flying is my second favorite hobby - can you guess the first? Flying is catching up, trust me
In my mind you'd hack the joystick and just pull it's outputs straight from the source (pots, buttons...etc) and go that route. I agree that taking the time to have standard USB communication between the Arduino and a joystick/throttle would be a lot of effort for little gain.
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