My Solution To Steering Wheel Controls - Page 2

Bravellir · 08-30-2005, 01:39 PM

there are a lot of other things Girder is usefull for, and there is a old free version around that works perfectly

jcdillin · 08-31-2005, 06:31 AM

girder rules, i've just recently started to use more and more of the functionality. But coupled with the generic serial plugin, the possibilites are endless for controls.

Mad Ad · 09-02-2005, 11:17 AM

eureka!! managed to figure out how to rig some resistors to mimic the pot on one of the axis of a saitek p880 while keeping the paddle button presses in range for SWC to pick up on. Winamp responds very well but ive yet to use it on the car pc, not sure how itll integrate with RR but im sure guinos exposed some keys somewhere. At least the hardwares done.

Thanks everyone for the help and thanks Jerry for letting me crash your thread

jcdillin · 09-02-2005, 05:30 PM

no worries

thats awesome you got it working

Mad Ad · 09-02-2005, 07:26 PM

thanks - im determined - bloody thing was annoying me, button presses out of range all the time... solution was so simple though, 2 resistors, just needed some lateral thinking.

jcdillin · 09-02-2005, 09:14 PM

yeah tell me about it, I fought with this remote system for 2 weeks, found out my whole problem was I needed to send $55,$55 to activate the receiver.

civic5zigen · 09-21-2005, 09:14 PM

Hi Curiosity

I too have the same car as God_of_CPU. Since I have an EPIA board it doesn't have game port and I was wondering if you were able to get it to work with any USB gameport adapter. Or should I disassemble a USB gamepad and wire to it instead?

Quote: Originally Posted by Curiosity

I actually developed that plugin using my analog steering wheel controls since I don't have a Sony stick. Any USB gampad will work as long as it has an analog stick, or a USB joystick adapter, but the one from Radio Shack is difficult to work with. They all are designed for ~100K ohm pots so 1.6K at most makes it hard to get a good reading. You have to sort of fake a pot with a couple resistors to make it think that resistance is center and the buttons pull it some % one way with a large enough difference between each button/resistance. Here's a couple threads on it. god_of_cpu made a really nice standalone app too.
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=25690
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=21978

Curiosity · 09-21-2005, 11:58 PM

Well, I don't have the same setup. Mine is a single input and may be a little more noisy so I had a lot of trouble with the USB joystick adapter and everyone had trouble with the Radio Shack one, so I'd say it's probably best to go with a gamepad. Just make sure it has an analog stick and it should work fine.

civic5zigen · 09-22-2005, 12:02 AM

Sorry but what do you mean by analog stick? u mean the directional pad?

Curiosity · 09-22-2005, 12:33 AM

No. A directional pad is digital. It's just 4 or 8 buttons. Analog is a variable position control. I think they all will have "analog" somewhere in the description.

Mad Ad · 09-22-2005, 01:27 PM

I used one of these

http://www.saitek.com/uk/prod/P880.htm

see the 2 large black knob looking things, both of those are analogue joysticks- i popped one of those out and soldered into the holes on one axis.

civic5zigen · 09-22-2005, 08:35 PM

Ah...I see.

I did more research and found out that my steering wheel control uses two data lines for 6 functions. It is a varible current signal as shown in the chart below.

Based on the volt chart above, do I need to make sure that the analogue pad is able to interprets it, or any analogue pad will do? So if I understand this correctly I should connect the two lines from the steering wheel control to the analogue joystick and then it should convert the different voltage in current into digital commands for the PC?

Then I would use the gameport plugin in girder to control apps with it?

edit: BTW, would a playstation gamepad USB converter works the same? I am trying to find a low cost yet without hacking up a gamepad method. Plus this seems to be smaller too.

http://www.x-tremegeek.com/templates...410&sk=MX51419

Curiosity · 09-22-2005, 10:25 PM

You should hook it up the way god_of_cpu says, and make sure there isn't 12V connected in any way. That would be dangerous. You just want 5V from the gamepad going to it and the 2 input wires connected to where the X and Y of the stick were connected. Unless it's grounded, then you have to reverse everything: X and Y connect the same way, but you put resistors on 5V to X and 5V to Y, and the buttons pull the voltage down.

Not sure about the PS adapter. If the PS gamepad has to pots wired directly to the connector it should work, but it probably has more circuitry in it. It probably does and would be too hard to work with.

civic5zigen · 09-22-2005, 11:55 PM

Thanks, but the EPIA board doesn't have gameport thus I cannot use God_of_CPU's instruction. I though the input wires from steering wheel needs to be connect to the analogue stick, what's the X and Y you were referring to? Also, I am not good in electronic at all but can follow instructions. Would you mind explain to me hwo to tell rather it is grounded or not?

Curiosity · 09-23-2005, 05:15 AM

X is left-right and Y is the up-down on the gamepad. These will be 2 potentiometers inside. They have 3 pins. The center pin is the input. The other 2 pins are 5V and ground. You'll need a volt/ohm meter to figure out what is grounded and what has volts... and an electronics course for the questions that come after that.