Joystick Controller B256A13

[brydling]

You can press all the buttons at the same time. Except for the POV-switches of course, which can only accept the combinations N, N+E, E, S+E, S, S+W, W and N+W.

[brydling]

Just want to say that I have a lot of time to solder boards this week and the beginning of next week, so to all of you that are thinking about ordering one: Make up your mind and order now for quicker delivery :-)

[Panthro]

Thanks for your response that is great news, looks like there just may be one of these in my future.

[brydling]

You're welcome when you're ready! :) And my response is a month late ;)

[brydling]

Hello all!

 

I have received some e-mails about the B256A13 in the last couple of weeks that I have not had the time to reply to! I am working a lot now on the JAS39 Gripen E project, so my spare time is very limited.

 

Some of you have been asking me if I am still selling the board, and since I haven't responded I guess you think the answer is no. The reality is that I have material for around 10 boards remaining, but as I said, no time to sell them right now. That will change in the future, so they will be available in a month or two when I have my vacation. If you really want one, the best thing you can do is nag! I will not respond to all the old e-mails on my vacation, since I assume that all of you that haven't got a reply on your e-mail has gone with another solution.

 

Good luck with the pit building!

 

Regards,

Niclas

Edited June 1, 2013 by brydling

[BIGNEWY]

Thanks for posting brydling, I will be in the market for one of your boards in a month or so. Have a good holiday and give me a message when you are ready to sell :)

[WannaBeGnome]

Please, send me PM when you are ready to sell these wonderful boards. I will certainly buy one.

[brydling]

I have five boards remaining now, and this may be my last batch. At least until I decide that I want a board of my own, at around 2020 when I have time to spend on my own simpit :P

[Deadman]

Hey Check your pm i am in for what it takes to run a cockpit including the UFC and MFCDs:thumbup:

[hoel6466]

I'll take a board if you still have one. I've sent you an email as well.

 

Thanks,

 

Luc

[moken]

I have pm you for my order of Digital-to-Synchro board , please check

[brydling]

I have pm you for my order of Digital-to-Synchro board , please check

 

I have replied to your PM.

 

I started a new thread for the project.

Edited September 5, 2013 by brydling

[brydling]

I am going to order a batch of DTS boards tomorrow. The question is, should I order some B256A13's as well? Right now I only have two boards left, and possibly got buyers for three boards, so I am one board short. I can't order one board however, because that will be a really expensive PCB. Anyone more interested?

[mariuszw]

I would like to get one of your boards. Fully assembled and tested. Is the price same as stated I post #1?

I will also sent you PM

Thanks

Ski

Edit: this is for your B256a13 board.

Edited October 8, 2013 by mariuszw

[brydling]

I have responded to your PM.

[brydling]

Current status

 

I am now one order away from having sold 60 boards :) Apart from the two software bugs that was an issue for some people in the beginning, I have only heard of one board that has broken and the guy needed to get a new chip for it. I think that is a pretty good result, so I feel satisfied :)

 

Right now the situation is this:

 

I have one board left, and that will probably be sold in the next few days. After that, I have a confirmed order of two boards from one guy, plus some guys that have asked for quotes but haven't responded anymore after that.

 

For me to order a new batch at the current rate of B256A13 orders, I need to be sure that I get four boards sold right away so that I get my investment returned. About half of the people that announce that they are interested doesn't follow through with the order, so that means I will need to have about eight orders to feel confident that I will get four boards sold when I have ordered the batch. In the beginning that was not a problem. Every time I announced a new batch I got response from about ten people. Now I think this community is starting to get a little bit saturated on joystick interfaces, so I don't think I will get eight orders in a short timeframe again. Those times have passed ;) The alternative would be to get the four orders pre-paid, so that I am sure that I will reach return-of-investment.

 

To sum it up: To make a new batch reality, I will need payment in advance for four boards. After I have gotten that, it will take about three weeks for me to get the PCB's from the manufacturer and about another two weeks for the boards to reach your home.

 

If you are interested, please type it in this thread so that others can see it. I know I wouldn't catch on something like this if I couldn't see that others are doing it as well.

 

You may of course get your money back up until the time where I place the order to the manufacturer.

Edited October 21, 2013 by brydling

[Bucic]

Few questions

 

1. What about analog inputs resolution?

2. With regard to the virtual joystick solution - will it work under Linux?

[brydling]

1. What about analog inputs resolution?

2. With regard to the virtual joystick solution - will it work under Linux?

 

1. The resolution is 10 bits or 1024 steps

2. It is a standard HID device, so it should absolutely work under Linux. I have not tested it though, so I can't give any guarantees. Do you know of any free Linux-application that I can use to test it? What distribution are you using?

[Bucic]

Thanks for such a quick reply!

 

Ad.1. How would you reason it's sufficient? Have you ever got any feedback that would suggest the resolution is not sufficient? I'm asking because Leo Bodnar moved to/offers controllers with 12-bit resolution.

 

Ad.2. I use Fedora but it shouldn't matter with Linux. I can only think of X-Plane demo. It's amateurish in packaging so I'd suggest using 32-bit distro for it. Another would be Flightgear but I strongly recommend focusing on testing the board on X-Plane. Flightgear popularity is low and it's really sub-standard, to say the least.

Here's a page that seems to be a FAQ page for Leo Bodnar's controller support for Linux

http://members.aon.at/mfranz/bu0836a.html

Edited October 20, 2013 by Bucic

[brydling]

Thanks for such a quick reply!

 

Ad.1. How would you reason it's sufficient? Have you ever got any feedback that would suggest the resolution is not sufficient? I'm asking because Leo Bodnar moved to/offers controllers with 12-bit resolution.

 

Ad.2. I can only think of X-Plane demo. It's amateurish in packaging so I'd suggest using 32-bit distro for it. Another would be Flightgear but I strongly recommend focusing on testing the board on X-Plane. Flightgear popularity is low and it's really sub-standard, to say the least.

Here's a page that seems to be a FAQ page for Leo Bodnar's controller support for Linux

http://members.aon.at/mfranz/bu0836a.html

 

1. The intention with the analog inputs on this board is not to make a control stick/yoke, but to have rotaries on panels and things like that. 1024 steps is more than enough for a panel knob. I haven't heard of anyone that have used the B256A13 for building primary flight controls. I have not got any feedback about the resolution being too low.

 

2. I will make a Debian installation on my old laptop and see if I can get the X-Plane demo installed.

[brydling]

I have now tested several joystick applications under Ubuntu with my laptop. The results are the same as if you were to use two BU0836-boards. They both show up with the same name. Applications that rely only on the name will therefore have problems seeing both virtual joysticks on the board. However, a library similar to js_serial_preload.so will solve the problem. I have already tested that.

 

I don't know if X-Plane uses the name to uniquely identify a joystick, because I couldn't get it running due to the GPU being too low-end and old. I was hoping to at least get it to boot and show the menu so I could test joystick mappings, but no.

 

When I run some joystick testing tools they report 10 axes and 64 buttons on the first virtual joystick, and 7 axes and 64 buttons on the second virtual joystick. I don't know why Linux thinks that there are two extra axes on each virtual joystick, but I don't think it should be a problem either. The "64 buttons" are more worrying. Maybe the old Linux Joystick API doesn't support more than 64 buttons on a single joystick device.

Edited October 20, 2013 by brydling

[Bucic]

Distribution shouldn't matter. Thanks for looking into it. Could you post links to the testing programs you used?

 

BTW, I doubt anyone would accomodate your project specifically by a kernel code commit but I'm pretty sure someone will look into the case if you provide information on drivers not handling some standard implementation properly, by posting on the kernel mailing list/bugzilla.

[don_sangria]

Hi brydling!

 

I will place my order now here in the forum, as it would be:

 

2x board B256A13 (Assembled or as DIY-Kit / DIY preferred)

100x diodes, 1N4148

 

I will pay in advance, as i absolutely can understand you will need some confidence for the payments, as well in regard of all the efforts and time you spent for the boards and the production process.

 

Beside that i feel also very confident that i would get my transfered money back, (minus eventuell transaction fees from your side) in case the new production batch will not become reality. But i really hope that out there were another people, which will build their simpit and see that one will not get more and cheaper such many inputs handled in a single input device.

 

So guys, its close to big childrens christmas, please order as well some boards, so i can continue on my simpit! :D

 

 

As well i would like to thank you byrdling for your board and the knowledge, time and skills you share with the community!

 

Best Regards

Adrian

[brydling]

Distribution shouldn't matter. Thanks for looking into it. Could you post links to the testing programs you used?

 

BTW, I doubt anyone would accomodate your project specifically by a kernel code commit but I'm pretty sure someone will look into the case if you provide information on drivers not handling some standard implementation properly, by posting on the kernel mailing list/bugzilla.

 

The applications are jstest-gtk, available as a package for Ubuntu, and the test application that is included with Bodnar's js_serial_preload.

 

I am compiling a kernel right now, to see if I can understand the HID drivers enough to find out why they don't find all 124 buttons per logical device.

 

I have a theory as to why there are 2 extra analog axes too. I think it is the POV hat, because I saw something in the kernel drivers that looked like it was code for exposing a POV hat as an X- and a Y-axis.

Edited October 21, 2013 by brydling

[brydling]

Hi brydling!

 

I will place my order now here in the forum, as it would be:

 

2x board B256A13 (Assembled or as DIY-Kit / DIY preferred)

100x diodes, 1N4148

 

I will pay in advance, as i absolutely can understand you will need some confidence for the payments, as well in regard of all the efforts and time you spent for the boards and the production process.

 

Beside that i feel also very confident that i would get my transfered money back, (minus eventuell transaction fees from your side) in case the new production batch will not become reality. But i really hope that out there were another people, which will build their simpit and see that one will not get more and cheaper such many inputs handled in a single input device.

 

So guys, its close to big childrens christmas, please order as well some boards, so i can continue on my simpit! :D

 

 

As well i would like to thank you byrdling for your board and the knowledge, time and skills you share with the community!

 

Best Regards

Adrian

 

Thank you for your trust and those fine words Adrian :)

 

I will respond to your e-mail.

 

/Niclas