Turning an 8 way into a mouse

[jmig]

Has anyone seen anything on making an eight way switch or a little thumb axes control, like the ones found on CD-Products and others' throttles, into a mouse?

Real fighters often use such a device to move the radar cursor. I would like to make it into a mini mouse. (mini mouse? wasn't that Mickey's GF )

[Tomlin]

Thanks, I too would like to know about this myself.

[ak49er]

I had little success with plugging a joystick into a networked computer and choosing this a s the main human interface device, but could only move the mouse with the x/y axis of the joystick.

[fweinrebe]

Here is just an idea.

If you have a old ball mouse (not the optical ones), open it and see how it actually works. The ball is connected to a shaft and at one end the shaft is connected to a wheel which has small gaps. These wheel with the gaps then go in between a LED /LED Pick-up sensor. It basically block/unblock the light of the LED on the pick-up.

Now what I would have done is take the two mouse wheels out. Connect the swith of the joystick (Assume a HAT type switch) to an oscillator that flickers the LEDs on/off simulating the movement of the mouse. The frequency of the flicker will determine the speed that the cursor is moving.

Now that I think of it, a mouse sensor probably works like a rotary encoder. It probably has 2 Leds per sensor. Will have to simulate some sort of Gray code. This is an ideal project for a PIC microcontroller or similar.

Hope the idea is clear enough. What do you think?

[fweinrebe]

Another idea:

The PIC18F4550 or the smaller PIC18F2550 has a USB interface using the HID driver in Windows. One could easy set it up as a USB mouse. When pressing the HAT switch, a mouse movement could be simulated.

Problem with these ideas is that you must be able to program microcontrollers.

[jmig]

Guess, I am looking for a software solution. What good are those mini joysticks on the end of the throttle for anyway?

Nobody is going to try and FLY the airplane with it.

[AndyT]

The hat switch (or Coolie switch) is normally used for looking around.

[jmig]

The hat switch (or Coolie switch) is normally used for looking around.

This isn't the coolie. It is a two axes mini joystick. It is located on the end of the throttle right under where the thumb falls. I know it is on the CH-Products throttle. I assume it is on (from pictures) the Thrustmaster throttle. It is also on the real F-16 throttle and used to move the cursor on the radar.

[Babalui]

For what sim do you need such thing? In Lock On you can edit commands. I have Saitek Evo Cyborg, and hat is by default used for looking around. But I assigned it to move target designator in all 8 directions. And if combined with CTRL, I can move radar scanning zone.
No need for special hardware - just edited the in-game commands.

[xCav8r]

If you're looking for a software-based approach to this, check out Pinnacle Game Profiler. It's a generic profiler for game controllers, and it has the ability you're looking for. I'd describe the program as on a par with Saitek's profiler, but it falls short of Ch Products. It lacks support for complex scripting, combining controllers, and setting response curves. That said, it's really quite functional. I was pleasantly surprised to see all that it can do.

It's at least worth a look. It's $20 USD to register, but you can evaluate it for 30 days. I'm pretty sure that you can find some freeware alternatives as well.