Thread: New Product - Force Feedback (Haptic) Encoder

How did you install the drivers? Windows keeps telling me that the drivers dont contain any information about the product and wont let me install them.

I unzipped the files in this download http://www.mp3car.com/products/PR-10...der_driver.zip then plugged in the device and pointed it there when it asked for the drivers. It installs two of them (one for the "serial port" and one for the device). Worked like any other install for me.

So I tried reinstalling the device tonight and I am still having the same problems.... it automatically installs some driver that windows provides, or thinks is appropriate. Then when I try to update the driver to the correct one it says "The specified location does not contain information about your hardware." Any way I can stop windows from automatically installing a driver for it?

Originally Posted by hybrids

So I tried reinstalling the device tonight and I am still having the same problems.... it automatically installs some driver that windows provides, or thinks is appropriate. Then when I try to update the driver to the correct one it says "The specified location does not contain information about your hardware." Any way I can stop windows from automatically installing a driver for it?

It should work just as RickS described. What default driver is it trying to load? What version of windows do you have?

In the device manager it shows up as unknown device... in the properties it says that the driver provider is Microsoft and the driver version is 5.1.2600.0

I am running Windows XP with service pack 2.... I also have the same exact problem on my other laptop with Windows XP. Is it possible I got a faulty unit?

Just a quick status update on the Managed API:
I finally had a chance to get started on the project today (work has been crazy). I should be done some time Sunday. At that point I'll post an initial release with as much documentation as I can scrape together.

There was also some talk earlier about where to get a knob for this thing... Well, as most of who ordered them know, it seems to have come with a black plastic knob that will work well if you're not too concerned about how it looks. Since I didn't know the knob would be included, I went ahead and machined one out of aluminum. I have attached a picture of it along with the cheap radio shack enclosure I mounted the encoder and USB adapter board in for testing.

More info to come.

-Matt

Originally Posted by hybrids

In the device manager it shows up as unknown device... in the properties it says that the driver provider is Microsoft and the driver version is 5.1.2600.0

I am running Windows XP with service pack 2.... I also have the same exact problem on my other laptop with Windows XP....

You just need to get the correct driver installed. Give us a call 410-526-2852 during normal business hours and we'll walk you through the process.

Originally Posted by armstrom

..... I went ahead and machined one out of aluminum. I have attached a picture of it along with the cheap radio shack enclosure I mounted the encoder and USB adapter board in for testing...

Looks nice Matt!

Sorry for the delay. I came down with a cold this weekend which slowed my progress a great deal. I have completed a preliminary release of my managed SDK for the encoder. I tried to make the interface as simple as I can by providing events for all of the important state changes and allowing easy setup of "scenes" for the device.

Also, I have tried to greatly simplify the process of creating and loading "scenes" on to the device. With the API provided you can load pr1 files saved by the Immersion Studio application as well as create some basic effects using what I call the BalanceFaderScene and the SimpleBoundRangeScene.
These two should provide a great deal of functionality without ever having to learn the native message structure of the encoder. To demonstrate this I will release a more advanced demo program as soon as I get a chance, for now, take a look at the simple demo I included and use your imagination

For those who love to hack things together yourselves you can still do that. All of the register addresses and other key values are available as named enumerations taking all of he guess work out. You can leverage as much or as little of the "advanced" features as you like.

The three configurable scene classes I provide all implement the ITouchSenseScene interface, so you can create your own if you so desire. It's pretty simple.

You can download it here and give it a try. Please, take a look at the documentation first. The critical class is the TouchSenseEncoder class. That's where all the magic happens. Aside from that, play around with the demo and let me know what you think.

http://www.mr2-power.com/downloads/TouchSenseSDK.zip

Here's what the zip contains:

• A signed release build of the DLL you need to get going.
• A CHM file documenting the entire class structure
• Source code for a very simple demo app that should give a good indication of how the API works.

Notes:

• You must develop using the .NET Framework 2.0 (any managed language should do)
• The API only communicates with the device via the COM Port interface.
• Please keep in mind this is a first pass at this hacked up over the course of a couple of days. Please report any bugs to me directly, not on here (no need to clutter the thread)

Any feedback on the API would be very helpful.

Enjoy!
-Matt Armstrong