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n64 analog stick help

donkey

Feb 26, 2011
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i "borrowd" an analog stick from a 64 controller and am trying to get it to drive 2 motors. up/down on the stick will drive one motor forward reverse and l/r will drive other. anyone able to help me fgure this one out?
 

donkey

Feb 26, 2011
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i put this in the parts help not circuit diagram cos i am hoping someone can show me the stick works. i am guessing its a variable resistor of sorts...... but i could be hugely wrong
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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Jan 21, 2010
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Check this out. It describes how the n64's controller works. The analogue joystick consists of a pair of photo-interrupters.

A circuit to decode the output would not be trivial I expect. It would certainly involve much more than just wiring it up right.

If all you want is up/down, left/right, then you should consider a digital joystick.

It may also be easier to look for a joystick that consists of a couple of potentiometers to give position info, and they may be easier to interface to something.
 

donkey

Feb 26, 2011
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does that apply to the gamecube and wii controllers or is that different tech? the reason i want potentimeters..(pots) is so i get control of how fast the motor moves, move the stick a lil the motor goes slow, move it alot the motor goes fast
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
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I'm not sure about other controllers, I just googled the N64 one. I found that description of it, but I could not find any circuit diagram that used them to interface to anything else.
 

MattyMatt

Mar 24, 2011
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You may have better luck with a PC joystick (like the actual joystick part), but I don't know how big you want it to be....

Then again I would imagine a lot of this kind of stuff is probably done with the photo-interrupters... I know they are pretty small, which seems to be the goal a lot of the time.
 

donkey

Feb 26, 2011
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where would be a good place to get a joystick with a pot then?
 
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