Arduino Joystick 2.0 Library - Beginners Guide 

what's the different using "range" and map?

@@CapungPlastik In this example the guy is mapping the normal 10 bit analog range of 0 to 1023 to 0 to 255, because he wants the resolution to be bigger (less sensitive). The Joystick library, expects (by default) that the numbers will be 0 to 1023, so you will end up with a Joystick that has only 25% of if it’s full travel. That is why you need to specify that your range is 0 to 255. If however, you use the full 0 to 1023 resolution, you don’t need set the range, and you also do not need to do any mapping. In this case the range command is still useful if you need to invert an axis, then you go: …Range(1023, 0) instead of …Range(0, 1023) .

Please let me know if you ever figure that out!

8 data is dat mean it just have 0 to 255 step/precision n how could it has 16bit precision without have latency so much sir?

Legos! Haha great

Thanks Gary! I plan on doing some vidoes on the basic concepts of arduino and sim controls, but just started a new job so squeezing it in when I can :)

It will be coming soon! Will be doing a video on propper button coding and debouncing next, along with probably a tour of the Due, and my experiences with it so far.

@@danstechbox7077 Looking forward to it, and thanks for engaging!

Thanks for the complement! I do actually do some voice work at times! As for your question, thats fairly straight forward. Instead of defining the Axis as X,Y, Rz, and Throttle as I did in the video, you can define the axis as any of the avalible in Windows HID, as shown in the avalible axis when you define your joystick (I have them listed out in the example code in the description). In your case, you could make a pedal set using Accelerator and Brake as Axis, with possibly a Digital Button for a Clutch (depending on your use case), and then using the Steering Axis for the steering wheel - really depends on how complicated you want your setup to be. The reason you would use the Steering, Brake, and Accelerator axis as opposed to just using an X and Y axis on seperate physical units (such as two potentiometers) is that Windows joins these two together - the Steering, Brake, and Accelerator axis are reserved axis, and are seperated in the HID system so they dont have any dependancies on eachother. While most games can seperate them, there is no guaruntee as different generational implementations of the HID system can get veeeery messy, so it is better to approach it correctly from the HID controller end to avoid any overlaps in the HID software and game decoding. You can pretty much use any potentiometer, or even magnets and Hall-Effect sensors (Will be doing another video on that now my 3D printer is working again), to give you an analog input, however you will need to add a hardware return device (such as a spring or something) to make sure it goes back to reading the middle of the axis, however there are some deadzone tools in both the Windows HID setup and the Joystick 2.0 library (I think) to enable a wider middle section if you cant get an exact centre and find your wheels/rudder/other steering device is slightly leaning when it should be central. This is something I would like to approach in another video with my own Joystick and Flight Control system, but I'm still designing that so in the meantime that should give you a good idea of what to consider when designing/building your own steering wheel and possibly pedal set. You can also make digital buttons work as analog axis at 100% using some clever coding, which I will do in another video shortly, if you want to have a button on the steering wheel for brake but dont want to use a digital button, and would rather use the Brake Axis - but that depends more on how you're building your steering wheel and what games/software you want to use it on. Hope that answers your question well enough, but let me know if you have any more specific questions or would like me to clarify anything.

@@danstechbox7077 Yeah ty for all of the information is really helpful but I have 1 more question I have no problem with the steering wheel and pedals with an optical encoder and potentiometers but the strange thing is in the game f1 2020. I have a very hard time setting the controls and sometimes it does not even detect it. but in the game Asseto corsa I have no such problems and it's working wonderfully. If you have any idea why it's doing that its going to be amazing ty again for the help. Also, I want to have force feedback and I have found a joystick library similar to that one but I am not sure how the schematics go and what should I do if you can help me it will be amazing. This is the library github.com/YukMingLaw/ArduinoJoystickWithFFBLibrary

i've been trying to figure this out, how would I go about it?

Hi, I can get a Unojoy device with Mega and Uno, but can you personalize the setup, (Name of HID in PC)?

Fernan, u should save all that effort and hours u will spend on that, and just buy any board tih atmega32u4 like leonardo or yue @@fernank017

Will be doing one on button arrays (both binary and row-column) soon. I will also be doing input/output multiplexing using muxing boards (might also be called shift registers but that’s the name I know them under). I am currently writing a series called: “How to (Properly) Arduino to cover the basics of wiring and coding inputs and outputs in an appropriate and board-safe manner, so keep tuned! Waiting on some parts but will be recording soon!

EDIT: Don't worry, I've sussed it after going over the end of the vid a few times. ^ThumbsUp^

Glad it helped you! It could be a number of things. I know XPlane has a few reserved USB device ID's, so you might need to change the device ID as I outline in the video to something further along, just to ensure that it's not clashing with anything. With Toggle Switches, it could be the continous signal - in a few of my games I know i've seen this issue. I am currently working on a function module to take a toggle switch and get the code/windows to treat it as two discrete button presses, but I'll need a bit of fiddling to make sure it works, and likewise will also require some input on the user end to make sure that the switch position matches up with the simulation position. For now, try removing the toggle switches and using push buttons instead - see if that get's XPlane to play nice. Otherwise, try shifting the USB device ID along a bit in case you've hit a reserved value. Hope that helps.

Joystick 2.0 take inputs in and spits them out to the OS as a dedicated HID input device, which is recognisable by most kinds of OS. The XInput library emulates control input by pretending to be a Xbox 360 controller, and triggering command presses on that virtual controller. XInput is limited to 10 + 1 Buttons, 2 Two-Axis joysticks, Two analog triggers, and a single D-Pad hat switch. Joystick 2.0 gives you 32 buttons, 10 Axis, and 2 Hat switches depending on your configuration. In theory, it should be able to work with both Joystick.h and Xinput.h as they both produce controllers using the HID interface, but I'd test it on your system as they both use the same family of boards. From there, depending on your use case, choose which library fits your purpose.

@@danstechbox7077 Thanks for your answer. In the meantime I've tried both libraries. It's only recognised as a XBOX controller with the XInput.h library. It's not being recognised as a XBOX controller with the Joystick.h 2.0 library.

I've seen a few issues with the Leonardos, particularly between different revisions - not sure if its a USB handover issue or what. If you can, try a different MEGA32u4 board to see if that resolves the issue. I'm personally looking into the Arduino Micro based on the 32u4 (not the Pro-Micro. This one has 6 Analog Pins) as it's similar to a Leonardo but is smaller form factor and doesnt have the USB Handover issues. Have you tried removing the drivers in Device Manager and re-installing them? Could be a COM issue too. That's all that springs to mind at the moment. I will be doin another video soon on some revisions I've made to my parts of the code, along with some more testing on using two controllers at once in the same game/HID instance.

Hi, i was looking here for same reason but i've found by myself. You should intervert 0 and 255 value like this exemple : (xAxis_,0,1023,255,0). i hope it can help you and other people as us :) PS: i'm french so apologize if it's not very clear.

@@lewild Or in the setup section >> Joystick.setXAxisRange(0, 255); // for normal direction Joystick.setYAxisRange(255, 0); // for reverse direction

Ok scratch that 2nd question I installed the Arduino IDE from the App store and that comes with its own can of worms when it comes to permission's I have a feeling the board.txt file is in there I just need to figure out how to get access to it. Windows is such a turd... cant wait until I can use Linux as a game box.

@@Vintage_USA_Tech Just create the hardware folder in Documents>Arduino alongside your libraries and sketches folders, then create a named folder inside that, copy the avr folder from the google drive link (unzipped) into that named folder and edit the boads.txt as required. Profit??? Just learned myself so thought I'd chime in :)

If you watch the video and follow along with the way I've wired up the joystick, and when you're defining the code you only need to have the X and Y axis included (along with a button press if you want that in there too), that should do the job.

Make sure you're using the right USB port - the Due has a Native USB port and a Programming USB Port. While you can program through both (providing you make sure the correct port is selected in the Arduino IDE), the Due will only work as an HID using the Native USB port as a connection.

@@danstechbox7077 Wow, I'm totally overlooked that. Since it was registering as connected I didn't think to use the Native port for testing, I just assumed the Programing port would be fine. Thanks!!!

Assuming a centre- off- 3 position switch and using A2 input and RzAxis. Connect a 10kΩ resistor from A2 to Vcc Connect a 30kΩ resistor from A2 to Gnd Connect top terminal of switch to Gnd Connect middle terminal of switch to A2 Connect bottom terminal of switch to Vcc In your Sketch: In the setup section use: Joystick.setRzAxisRange(0, 1023); In the loop section use: Joystick.setRzAxis(analogRead(A2) - 512); This should give you (in your flight sim) a control surface that is centralized when the 3 position switch is in up position, half way down when switch is in middle position, and all the way down when switch is in down position. If your control surface is moving in the wrong direction, simply use Joystick.setRzAxisRange(1023, 0); instead.

add how many you need arduino board to usb port, usb can working many board sametime.

Renaming a second Leonardo is much more complex now. On Windows10 the ACTUAL boards.txt file is in the WindowsApps folder which is one of the most heavily protected locations and uneditable without complex permissions changes which are dangerous for other windows apps. The intermediate solutions seems to either use a Linux system OR us an earlier non-admin installation of the IDE. Working on that now.

@@brianpaavo8192 My Arduino Pro Micro can be programmed as a Board: “Arduino Leonardo” ; or as a Board: “Arduino Micro”. Both works fine as a Joystick. This gives you 2 different names in Devices. *(and that is just using the standard installation, without adding a boards.txt of your own)* I do not have 2 Arduino Pro Micro boards so can’t test if both will work at the same time. But this is something you can try, and please report back to say if this is a good alternative method.

It seems I was able to change an Arduino Micro name by finding the boards.txt in the Hardware folder that resides in the Arduino IDE program files. When I added my own boards.txt under the documents/Arduino/Hardware, the boards.txt there was ignored and uploading the sketch would revert back to the boards.txt in the IDE’s program folders.

There's a difference between highest resolution possible and a useable resolution. The max possible resolution on an Arduino based Analog pin is 10 bit, returning a value between 0 and 1023 - this is done as a function of a referance voltage (ideally from the VCC/Vref pin on the arduino board) and a common ground, done via a voltage divider using a potentiometer or a resistor array. The problem with using that resolution of value is jitter, where the returned function voltage is not stable, due to interferance along the wires, manufacturing tollerances on the potentiometer, dust in the contacts, etc... As a result, you get a continually moving input, which can cause a lot of issues with calibration, phantom data values, or inconsistent data. To solve this, we re-map the data to give a smoothed average (otherwise known as debouncing), from the 0-1023 range to another subset. This can be done easily using the map() function, and then taking this value into the Joystick input. As for the value to use, the best way to imagine it is how many "steps" of data you want to be sending. The default would be 1024 different data steps, which at the tollerence as a pedal would be way too much, however you may want different ranges for different pedals. For example, the accelerator and brake would probably be good to start at a 64-value step range, whereas the clutch might be better with a lower resolution range of 32, or maybe even 16. Start with values like that, and then test from there - if it feels too "stepped", use a higher step range. If it feels too "jumpy" or "slippery", use a lower step range. I would suggest working in base 2 for these ranges (4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc), but you can slip down to intervals of 5 or 10 if you really need to. I hope that explains the general concept, I am working on a small series of videos introducing basic concepts of arduino and microcontroller coding, but just started a new job so will be fitting it in when I have time. Any other questions, just ask.

Hi Chirag Jeram! Thanks for the comment. Hope i can answer your question properly. To use the arduino leonardo, you literally just need to change the board - the only difference between the two in regards to this project are the number of pins and the pin numbering. Nothing in the code would change apart from adding in the extra buttons and removing your unused axis. HOWEVER, although the technical spec says that the board has 20 Digital Pins and 6 Analog pins, a number of these pins are shared due to the nature of the chipset, and as a result you can have a maximum of 20 Digital Pins, 14 Digital Pins and 6 Analog Pins, OR Any variation of the above. For this kind of setup, you would be limited to 18 Digital Pins for buttons, and 2 Analog pins for the X/Y of the joystick. If you reeeally need 20 buttons, you could either go for a button matrix (more complicated option) or swapy the board out for the Arduino Due, which has significantly more Digital Pins, but that may be overkill depending on your project. Below I'll go into the changes for the code, regardless of your board choice (I wont go into button matrixing as that is a video unto itself) In the Joystick Initialisation section, reduce your axis to just including X and Y, everything else for false, and change the number of buttons to 20 (or however many you want). For the Joystick - In the beginner Guide Sketch, you would use the X/Y axis of the Joystick as A0 and A1, set up with the hardware how I wired the joystick up in the video - Just comment out or delete the "#define joy####" lines with whichever axis you dont wish to use, and likewise the Axis Initialization and Axis Reading sections for the axis you are not using. For the Buttons - Duplicate the "#define joyButton####" lines, changing the button number and pin inputs for your buttons to the button number (in this case 1-20) and the pin you are putting it in to in the Arduino board. Likewise, set up the "pinmode" of the extra buttons as demonstrated for button 1-3 in the code, and make sure to do the same for the "LastButton#State" section per button, or none of them will work. You will then need to copy the "Current Button State" IF loop per button in the "Button Reading During Runtime", changing the button Number for every copy. If you want to, rather than copying them individually, you could subnest the IF loop and do a for loop to cycle the test between buttons 1 and 20, but only if you feel confident doing that. Otherwise, everything else should be as it is in the video. Let me know if you have any more questions.

@@danstechbox7077 thank you very much for detailed reply....i will make it practically and then let you know how it goes........have a good day !

The Four Axis wouldnt be an issue with the Leonardo, however with the buttons you'd hit the pin limit pretty quickly. The way I see it, you have three options: 1) Get a board that has the right number of pins AND is USB HID complient and do a One-to-One pinmapping approach - in this case you'd be limited to the Arduino Due 2) Do a Row-Column approach for the buttons using standard keyboard matrixing - there are several guides on how to do this online. 3) Use a Button library, such as AceButton, which has compatibility for Binary button mapping (using base 2 binary as pin inputs) - you'd only need 6 pins for 32 Buttons, in this case. There are approaches using resistor ladders and analog inputs, however depending on your board and other circuitry, this could just complicate things, especially if there's any noise on the wiring or switches. I personally would consider looking at the AceButton library for this, as it has excellent de-bouncing support for button presses too - however, if you want to keep your wiring and code simple, get an Arduino Due. They're avalible on Ebay for about £10-£15 a board. I will be doing a video at some point soon about Binary Button Mapping as I think it's a very valid approach in comparison to Row-Column matrixing.

I think this should work for your issue. www.instructables.com/How-to-access-5-buttons-through-1-Arduino-input/

@@tom_gtom6580 Thanks Tom for the link. Reading it now.

@@danstechbox7077 Thanks for the answer, after some reading, i finally decided to go with the matrix. The third option is completely new for me, but i will start to research about it now,. At first glance it seems the best solution.

That is probably related to the mechanical limitations of the setup. Example: You have built your own rudder- pedals. The travel in the potentiometer you are using is limited, only giving a voltage output from 1 to 4 volts (not 0 to 5 volts). If you put this into your sketch (without any range or map) and print out the values you are getting, it will be something like 204 to 818. The rudder in your Simulator (expecting 0 to 1023) will not turn its full range. So what you do to fix that, is set the range like this: Joystick.setRudderRange(204,818). Then everything will work fine.

@@Johan-ex5yj Hi, sorry if discussing this within the comment section. So I build a wireless drone simulator dongle using this library for the input. Its recepting values within 0-1023 for AETR input. While other simulator accepting the input as like in the game controller tab (after calibrated), some other simulator only works on certain values of input. like 0 to 127 or 180 to 360.. eventually I could manage this using Range and mapping, but when I connect the module to Android, it needs 0-1023 input. So using a mapped values will limit the stick movements. So, is there a way to recognize or manage the input for different device or OS (computer and mobile phone/Windows and Android)? (beside adding a button to switch value based on device 😀) Regards

@@CapungPlastik Yes, if you have simulators that expect other input ranges than the standard 0- 1023, you will have to use different range settings in your Arduino sketch. If you want to use the same Arduino micro for these different simulators, I would add a DIP switch connected to some digital inputs as a way to select the range to use. If you are developing your own simulator- interface in Windows or Android, you could use the serial port that the Arduino provides to communicate to your Arduino sketch to specify what range you want to use.

@@Johan-ex5yj hello sir can you help me? i am planning to use the potentiometer as a roll and pitch for my diy yoke. It doesn't obtain the full range. I tried the original code from this video, it is 0-1023 , 0-255. In the properties of my arduino, the value is flickering/changing even after I calibrated it. What should I do about this? What value should i use then?

@@MonicaYap Do not calibrate, use the min/max numbers obtained from Serial.println(Val) command in your sketch, entering them into Joystick.setRyAxisRange(Min?, Max?) afterwards. If this still gives too poor resolution, you need to find pots with smaller electrical angle (90deg or less), as is used in joysticks. Another way to go is to use Hall Effect Sensors. See this video >> ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SgqflcHBTwc.html