This project was a very long project but the really hard part was developing a skid steer using vibration proof components. If anyone is interested I will put the entire project together. This topic is just to help others that have the same need.
The problem; sorry but the qwiic joysticks are not very durable. Making them vibration and sand resistant is not practical. I cut both pots loose on the qwiic joystick loose and found that they are 10K pots. I tried all sorts of joysticks and none seemed to consistently produce a linear output. Finally one year later, I found two 10K pot joysticks available on the adafruit site. I connected to the qwiic joystick potentiometer pins. I connected the y-axis pins of one joystick to the y-axis qwiic joystick pins. I connected the x-axis qwiic joystick pins with the y-axis pins of the second joystick. The next problem was, that I wanted around 6’ of tether between the joysticks and the arduino. I have done this with a x-box controller but with a big vehicle… I want a “dead man” switch. If I let loose of the controls then I want the sand buggy to stop.
I solved the 6’ tether by using the Qwiic Bus endpoints and a 6’ ethernet cable. The connection is reliable and interfaces well with the rest of my system. I 3d printed a nice cover for a utility box to stabilize the two joysticks.
Neat! Share a video of it in action!
Hi, I thought I had everything locked down. Then a final test and NOTHING worked. I like the idea of the Qwiic system because of the connectors and the way it works with my Pololu SMC motor controllers… I thought I had a bullet proof system and then nothing. I rebuilt everything.
Is there any way I can use a really sturdy pair of analog joysticks with 10K pots and the qwiic system? Around 10 years ago I designed a system that would use the playstation remote with a raspberry pi for the robotics class I was teaching. It was a little flaky. That is why I wanted a hard wired system on this sand buggy (looks like a 6 wheel martian rover with balloon tires). If it got away from me it could cause some damage. Truth is that motorizing it was an after thought because I am now an old guy and pushing it was out of the question. So if you have any way I could hardwire a set of joysticks onto a teather and have absolute control it would be much appreciated. I would video it and publish the plans on your site.
Well after a year of attempting to make a skid steer Sand Buggy programmed from parts, My final product was not reliable. In addition if the cat 5 cable became disconnected from the qwiic cat5 endpoint my two 25amp motor controllers assumed that it was full speed ahead. My 6 wheel beach sand buggy is big and I could see a risk of it running someone over. The very reason I did not want to use PlayStation or x-box controllers. So unfortunately this was a big FAIL. I used a couple cheap reversable motor starters from Amazon and it works great. I still like the qwiic idea, but most of the equipment is for mock up purposes only and better utilized for non critical, low duty cycle situations.