Leo Bodnar BBI 32

now, now chaps.... you are way off centre here. maybe i didn't explain it right.
please remember there are ONLY 32 inputs on the card. so that is the amount of inputs you can get.
in my example above, remember i set the switch at 6 positions and by using B1 to connect the switch up, the switch will pulse button 1 to 6 as it passes each position. so, that has taken care of 6 inputs which leaves another 26 to go.
so, attaching another switch (set to 6 positions) to the B7 input will pulse B7 to B12 which leaves another 20 to go and so on.
i assume that the start position option has something to do with this, but as i explained i haven't tried that out yet because i 1. haven't had time and 2. haven't had a requirement for it yet.
what you can do is after allowing a 'range' for your rotary (6 stops will pulse B1 to B6 and 12 stops will pulse B1 to B12 etc), you may connect any type of switchy to the next consecutive input. for a 6 position switch, that would be B7 and for a 12 position switch, that would be B13.
you would NOT be able to for example set a switch at 6 stops connect to B1 and then attach a second rotary to any of the inputs that your original rotary will use. so you could not attach a second rotary to any of the B2 to B6 inputs, you will just
confuse the board as it will be seeing inputs which it doesn't expect.
hope that's sorted it now chaps.....
rgds

ian

Aah, so it saves only on the number of wires coming from the rotary. You could only connect 3 rotaries with 10 positions for example.

I have been following this thread with great interest.

I thought that limit was the case given a 32 button controller but then figured maybe there might be some voodoo in the card to allow for virtual switches. Maybe, while limited to 32 electrical inputs for buttons the firmware could emulate virtual buttons with what it fed to the pc.

Here's what made me think that. The description on the site, under inputs, say:

Quote:

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• Input capability:
  Up to 32 buttons or switches.
  Up to 16 encoders. All popular encoder types - one, two and four transitions per "click" (CTS, ELMA, ALPS.)
  Up to 11 rotary switches (12 positions each.)

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The first two lines are literal, and in sync with the other Leo Bodnar cards, so it would seem reasonable that the third line was literal as well and implies what was said in prior posts about getting 132 buttons. If the 32 buttons is a literal hardware and firmware limit, why would such a misleading statement be made???

interesting. That would be easy to test if you have one of these, how about it Bobby ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tom_G_2010

I have been following this thread with great interest.

I thought that limit was the case given a 32 button controller but then figured maybe there might be some voodoo in the card to allow for virtual switches. Maybe, while limited to 32 electrical inputs for buttons the firmware could emulate virtual buttons with what it fed to the pc.

Here's what made me think that. The description on the site, under inputs, say:


The first two lines are literal, and in sync with the other Leo Bodnar cards, so it would seem reasonable that the third line was literal as well and implies what was said in prior posts about getting 132 buttons. If the 32 buttons is a literal hardware and firmware limit, why would such a misleading statement be made???

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That was my original chain of thought too - You can connect up to 11 rotarty switches of which each having 12 positions :) - However since thinking about it I think the limitation *may* apply to the standard joystick drivers that Windows has? - I've never seen another joystick with more than 32 buttons (inputs)

I'm no electronics guru but as a professional software developer I would *assume* that the rotary switch PCB has some embedded diodes which basically are used to create a 'checksum'/'check bits' kind of thing (in the programming world) to determine which 'bits' and in this case pin's on the rotary PCB are turned on. - I don't know though! lol

I do respect Ian's response and has a lot of experience with Leo Bodnar's equipment so don't get your hopes up guys ;)

@tiburon - I certainly can test this theory... I'll get around to this at the weekend hopefully!

I'l post back my findings....

hi chaps.....
well i got as far as experimenting with two rotary's connecting the second into the range of the first and the card just did not want to play ball at all. crazy pulsing and one button permanently on. so because i didn't have an application for it (as yet, but i'm sure i will), i 'spat the dummy out' and concentrated on more urgent tasks.
but, i have only been playing with this, i haven't sat down and seriously experimented as yet to see what i can do with this.
the only real answer is i'm going to ask leo.
there's no instructions on his site about connecting, but i'm sure he's working on it :o
if i find out anything, i'll post it here.
rgds

ian

Thanks Ian!

That'd be great, Ian

Like Ian, I have been experimenting with these cards and the BBI 12 position switch. I can certainly confirm the various points that Ian has made. Basically the board has 32 buttons available, and no more. It's a pity that the statements on Leo's website about the multiple options are a bit ambiguous, and rather misleading. It's aggravated because he doesn't provide much information, or respond to emails.

Each BBI 12 position switch only uses 2 wires to connect to the card. But it still takes up as many of the 32 available buttons as are set on that particular switch, to maximum of 12 for each switch. Those buttons are, so far as I can establish, unavailable for anything else, even though there are no wires attached at those positions.

It shows clearly when you go to the control devices calibration screen. The screen shows 32 buttons. When a BBI rotary is connected no buttons are lit until the switch is rotated. It then pulses each of the buttons in turn, depending on the number of positions set on that rotary.
Please note it does not give you up and down ranges. Each button pulse will have the same function whichever way the switch is rotated.

Ian mentioned the start position could be varied in the configuration software. It can also be set to Auto. I think the point of setting the start position to anything other than Auto, is that the BBI rotary can then be connected to any available position on the card, but the range of buttons allocated to it can be any group of consecutive free buttons. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I can't see much point in this.

But however many switches you use, the maximum number of positions available, spread over all the switches, appears to be 32.

My conclusion is that the BBI card is a very useful way of connecting up to 32 buttons or switches at a reasonable cost. And like all Leo's cards it seems to be rock solid and reliable.

However the rotary switch function seems to have very limited use in a simulator. In fact so far I cannot think of any use for it.

Hope this info is of use.

John.

John, thank you. That's very informative.

Martin