I have a Penney & Giles JC 200 JoyStick that I want to hook up to a speed controller from AmpFlow.

The joystick has 5 wires.

Red ..... positive voltage supply.
Black.... Zero voltage supply.
Blue..... X-axis output voltage signal
Yellow.. Y-axis output voltage signal
Green.. Center Tap.

Now what do I do with the Center Tap.

I'm new to all this so thank you for any help you give, I dont want to burn up nice new electronics the first go around.

 

looks like the center tap is a voltage divider, that you can sample to make sure the joystick is receiving the proper amount of voltage

as far as what to do with it? you could hook it to a comparator, which would put your speed controller into shutdown if the CT voltage reads too high or too low.

or just leave it disconnected.

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Thank you, just leave it disconected.

I just need basic TANK control by use of the joystick.

Now I know the Blue and Yellow are for the X & Y axis.

It may be a very stupid question but I do hook up the Red to the 5v positive and the Black to the Controller ground ?

And one more Q..... Its called an Inductive JoyStick. What does this mean to me at try'n to use it with an AmpFlow Controller ?

 

you should read the datasheet, but I think 5v was mentioned as a supply voltage.

I dont know anything about the joystick or the speed controller, you'll have to read the datasheets for both to determine if they can work together.

__________________
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The joystick....

http://www.pennyandgiles.com/docGallery/103.PDF

The controller...

http://www.ampflow.com/motor_controller.htm

 

I don't think you can just plug one into the other and have it work.

the controller expects 0 to 5v analog control voltage, 0 being stop, 5 being full-on

notice on the datasheet, they mention "Output signals should be referenced to the center tap voltage". So this means you'll have -2.5v full left (for example) and 2.5v full right.

sorry, this is over my head - perhaps someone more experienced with robotics can chime in.

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If you don't have a planet, what good are gold bars?

want to contact me directly? gmail gordonthree
check out my project website: http://projects.dimension-x.net
Favorite numbers:
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For basic tank control you need a mixer. Since you need to control two channels (on the motor driver) using a forward and turn signal. You can only control it directly if you start out with separate left motor and right motor signals...

unless you intend on having forward-backwards be CC/CCW for one motor, and left-right be CW/CCW for the other motor.


That said, the motor driver does say it accepts potentiometer joysticks which yours sounds like it is, so the motor driver probably already has mixing in it. I think the center tap is so whatever receives the joystick input knows what "center" is, relative to the X-Y voltage outputs. Center being Vsupply/2 (this is the centertap that justDIY is referring to, except he is centering it around zero when it's going to be centered around 2.5V) due to the potentiometer forming a voltage divider inside the joystick.

Go to www.roboteq.com and look at their user guide to verify the controller has built-in mixing. It should be analogous to the AmpFlow controller since they are made by the same company (except AmpFlow is meant for BattleBots). Do you really need the full 180A current capacity of the ampflow controller? What are you building? A battlebot. If you don't, you could probably save some money by getting an original Roboteq controller.

 

Yes they have mixing of the channels.

They say it needs 5v for full forward and 2.5v for rest in center, and 0v for full revers.

They say it needs 5v for full left and 2.5v for rest in center, and 0v for full right.

The controller will mix the X-axis and Y-axis for tank drive. So I would assume I will need the Center Tap wire to read the joystick at center rest then right ?

What about the positive and negitive leads for the joystick ?

And actually this is for a heavy duty offroad power wheelchair, the stock 100 amp controller would just over heat in a matter of a few minutes and your stuck, I mounted a fan and that helped but only for a few more minutes, it finaly burned the boad and died, so I want a controller that will give me a little more power over a longer amount of time than the stock one did for only a few seconds. I really like the specs of the Roboteq AX2550HE. BUT for the same price I can just get the Ampflow.

 

No the centre tap is the reference point for the X and Y signals. It states in the data sheet you posted that the signals are wrt the centre tap.

Therefore, you need a differential amplifier with the centre tap connected to one input and the channel output to the other. It will need some gain and a voltage off set in order to create an output of 0 to 5V for the ampflow.
You need a diff amp for each channel.
The data sheet indicates that Vs (either +10 Volt or +12 Volt) goes to the red wire and the black goes to gnd.

__________________
Len

 

A differential amplifier ? Ok I need to look that up and understand what it is.
This is turning out to be more of a project learing how to wire it up than anything.... I'm sure I'll have many more dumb questions....

 

Anyone here I can just send all this to and get it back ready to plug in ? LOL.


OK I was reading about them and all I can say is I'm screw'd. Looks like I need to find someone who can just do this for m as I'll just make a mess of it...

 

Do you have a blue fetish?.

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No not really it just looks better than Black.

 

I suspect the vast majority of members think it's looks childish?.

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What the Blue text ? If you dont like it please dont read my post. I came here looking for info and help not someone like you.

I dont care if you dont like it, if so many others do than BAN me. Or dont offer a color option !!!