I need to hook up three joysticks to the Spider, in addition to the T35 touchscreen. The first two can be GHI Gadgeteer joysticks (preferred or the Sparkfun/Adafruit non-Gadgeteer joysticks), the third is a Lynxmotion 4D joystick (Product Not Found), which uses three analog pots for the different directions (X, Y, and rotation Z), and one digital pin for the button.
The touchscreen (socket T) uses one of the A sockets (#10) (#10 is an AIT socket). This leaves only one A capable socket on the Spider.
So far I have come up with a few options:
- separate multi-channel ADC (or multiple ADC) on a separate board (maybe the DuinoProto to get the Gadgeteer sockets)
- use the DL40 to interact with a ADC(s) (con?: would require programming the Arm processor); would this work? It’s a little foggy right now as to what it takes to program the M0 and what will/won’t work with this board.
- use a separate Gadgeteer board (cerbuino or cerberus) and connect the two over i2c - is this possible? can I just connect the two with a standard cable and write something to handle the communication between the two using GPIOs? This is my favorite idea, because it keeps everything in ‘gadgeteer’ land (except the Lynxmotion joystick).
- Wait until GHI releases an ADC or analog multiplexer Gadgeteer module
My goals are 1) perform as little soldering as possible (thru-hole only) and 2) to stay in C# land. While not mandatory, doing both will make success more likely!
Any comments / other ideas? I would especially like to hear about option #3. I did some searching in the forums, but no matter what I searched for, I always got 1000s of results.
Thanks!
– Tim
I would explore multiplexer option. #3 sounds like overkill.
That is perfect! In this case, I think I’ll use joysticks from Adafruit and keep my GHI joystick un-violated.
Can you provide more details on the Monkey Power Module? I am looking for something to handle LiPo’s.
Another joystick option that may be worth considering, I see elsewhere in these forums a link to code to read a wired USB Xbox360 controller through the USB Host module, that’d be two comfortable thumb joysticks, a ton of buttons, some LEDs to light up for visual feedback, no need to rig up an enclosure that mounts the sticks and buttons, and no analog ports used - needs one ‘H’ socket.
http://www.tinyclr.com/codeshare/entry/37
RorschachUK
Don’t forget about my Chuck module for Wii controller. Two joysticks and 15 buttons through one I socket. 
The power module is still in development. I posted it to guage interest. It is a rather expensive module to manufacture…
@ soldermonkey - well done
Are those available with the sockets presoldered? My soldering powers are tragically weak, unlike certain monkeys.
Sure! I am going on vacation for a week though. Ordering info is on the wiki page.
@ soldermonkey - (If you are still on the fence) I was anticipating purchasing the Power Shield from Sparkfun (I need the LiPo charging and Fuel Gauge functionality), which is $30. If it would be equivalent to that (ability to charge as well as tell the battery level), I would be interested in buying two copies.
I would also be up for a power module!
well since this thread is already hijacked…
The reason the module is still in development is because it doesn’t have a battery guage. And using the ‘D’ socket leaves it pin limited. I had been considering setting up a one wire interface to a guage but .NetMF was still developing it so the module ended up on the back burner. So instead I think I will be dropping a couple of ‘features’ and add an I2C gas guage.
Either way the price tag is going to be around 45 bucks… it will be able to supply up to ~2.5A from the LiPo battery( same connector as sparkfun uses BTW ).
