For the 3D printable accurate joystick a new hard and software exists, that works via USB as a ordinary HID (Human Interface Device). This connects the Joystick via USB to the RaspberryPi that runs the bechele software. If you try to connect a ordinary USB joystick to a Linux box (like the Raspberry Pi) , the operating system adds a quite large dead zone to the middle area of the stick. Because ordinary Joysticks are usually used as gaming input devices, the stick has centering springs. Then the value in the middle should be steady and not moving at all as long as the stick is not moved by the operator. Because of mechanical and electrical inaccuracies, this is hard to acieve without a dead zone. So stick manufacturers and even the operating system add a dead zone. The dead zone coming from the operating system in the middle is about +/- 3 % of the complete drive way. Though dead zones may be acceptable or desired with gaming, for the bechele software an accurate joystick without dead zones is very important, if you want to achieve smooth and natural acting movements. In other words, if you try to use an ordinary joy stick for the bechele software, you have to live with unwanted inaccuracies added to your animatronics scenes !
The proposed USB HID Hard and firmware together with the 3D printable accurate joystick overcomes these limits, because the firmware outwits the operating system, so the complete movement way of the stick has no dead zones. The 3D printable accurate joystick has a extemely high repeatabiliy because of its simple design. Together with the arduino pro micro based on atmega32u4 the joystick is perfect for the bechele software, using a standard USB interface. This means the quality is compareable with the serial joystick hardware you find on the Joystick page. Both the serial and also the USB based joystick hardware work with a resolution of 10 bits, reflecting a value range of 0 to 1023. Soon you will find USB and even bluetooth based joystick hard and software here on this web site using 12 bit resolution (0 to 4095) based on ESP32C3 super mini boards (Bluetooth) or RP2040-zero boards (USB).
Wiring of the Arduino Pro Miro based on Atmega32u4 to be used as Joystick:
Firmware:
The firmware and installation description you may get from github: https://github.com/bechele/atmega32u4 You will find the hex file to upload to the arduino pro micro in the main folder of the github repository.
Alternatively download from here:
