MEGA BREAD - IR Linking - Atari Joysticks
I will have my secret robot control device to get em good. :

Published May 4, 2017 © MIT

Mega Bread - Atari Joystick Linking for Robotics Control

The oldie but goodie returns in the form of the infrared joystick set from an old Atari game system. These will control multiple things.

IntermediateWork in progress1 hour4,121

Mega Bread - Atari Joystick Linking for Robotics Control

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Arduino Mega 2560

Any Arduino based card will work

Adafruit RGB Backlight LCD - 16x2

Any type of readable display device

Analog joystick (Generic)

The Joystick you select must have Infrared Capabilities, but you may also use almost any Infrared remote device.

Solderless Breadboard Full Size

Jumper wires (generic)

Resistor 10k ohm

IR receiver (generic)

Be sure to check if you need to install an inline resistor. Some have them built in.

Single Turn Potentiometer- 10k ohms

For LCD brightness and contrast control

9V battery (generic)

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Story

MEGA BREAD - IR Linking - Atari Joysticks

For use with robotics control when completed as a whole project. The joysticks are recovered from a bygone era of my time, '80s when computers were just taking off. Anyway, these joysticks are infrared, they work, and both have different signals, but on the same timings frequency.

One of them is a master having the reset, next, and select menu buttons on it. The other does not.

1 / 4 • The oldie but goodie joysticks

Now to the usage video. These joysticks send out some funky monkey types of signals as you will see, I traced it down to three variables that needed to be worked out.

Receive the IR signal from one of the joysticks.

Set a slight delay to allow the IR device to decipher the signal, for these joysticks it was around 15 to 20 milliseconds.

Await the joysticks "End of Transmission" code. This set sends out a third IR pulse at the end, and it is always the same. It is an end of activity signal of sorts.

Watch the video to see what I am talking about:

Now in the near future, and after robots take over the world.

I will have my secret robot control device to get em good. :)

I tested this setup with all of the below pictured Infrared remotes and devices.

ALL of them worked first try.

All of these devices were able to be decoded first try.

I will update the code for this shortly.

Code

This code will receive an IR signal, decode it, send to serial monitor and LCD, then reset.

// MEGA_BREAD_IR_CONTROLS
// 5-4-2017

#include <IRremote.h>
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>

int RECV_PIN = 2;
int CONFIRM_PIN = 3;

IRrecv irrecv(RECV_PIN);
decode_results results;
LiquidCrystal lcd(22,23,27,26,25,24);

void setup()
{
  pinMode(CONFIRM_PIN, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600);
  irrecv.enableIRIn(); // Start the receiver
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  lcd.clear();
  lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
  lcd.print(" IR Recieve and ");
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
  lcd.print("then output test");
  delay(2000);
  lcd.clear();
}

void loop() {
  digitalWrite(CONFIRM_PIN, LOW);
  lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
  lcd.print("Ready to Recieve");
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
  lcd.print("Press any button");

  if (irrecv.decode(&results)) {
    Serial.println(results.value, HEX);
    Serial.println(results.value, DEC);
    digitalWrite(CONFIRM_PIN, HIGH);
    lcd.clear();
    lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
    lcd.print(" HEX = ");
    lcd.print(results.value, HEX);
    lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
    lcd.print(" DEC = ");
    lcd.print(results.value, DEC);
    delay(3000);
    irrecv.resume(); // Receive the next value
  }
  }

Credits

Pigeon-Kicker

19 projects • 31 followers

Computer guru from the 80's, currently disabled veteran. Building this stuffs for my son to learn robotics.

Thanks to Mini Pigeon - My son.

Mega Bread - Atari Joystick Linking for Robotics Control