Joystick in the Obsy

[MarsG76]

Hi all,

I'm posting this in case someone has a similar situation with a joystick  control setup with a CGEM mount and perhaps has given up on adding a joystick to NexRemote.

 

As a gimmick I wanted to add a joystick to the obsy for lining up objects through APT screen preview. A couple of weeks ago I placed a $0.99 bid on eBay on a Logitech joystick, I was the only bidder so won it.

 

When I plugged it in, Windows recognized it and installed the drivers but unfortunately it wasn't supported by NexRemote.

I didn't want to give up so easily, so I opened up the "Joysticks.ini" file and copied one of the other joystick profiles, renaming the header to "WingMan Attack 2".

Initially it did not work, when slewing, the scope just started to move in RA and DEC at max slew rate, and didn't stop when the joystick was released, it stopped when I hit a arrow key.

The code in the ini file looked very simple so I moved around the commands "ScopeX" and "ScopeY" to Joystick 1 and 2 from the already set Joystick 7 and 8 to see if there will be a difference in the response and what the effect will be.

To my joy it worked as intended, now the scope was slewing in the correct axis only as I was moving the joystick.

After this worked I programmed "Buttons 1-6" where the top trigger is Enter, thumb up/down button is up/down menu scrolling, Button 5 and 6, the big option buttons on the pad are "Menu" and "Align".

The front trigger is set as "Shift", giving extra functions to the same buttons, so when pressed along with the thumb up/down button, it increases or decreases the Slew rate, the top trigger becomes "Undo" and both of the big pad option buttons become "Info".

Testing the setup worked great, although at times the CGEM was only responding intermittently with the down joystick movement. Initially I though that the joystick is faulty but after playing with it, it seems like it's a software bug, re-plugging the joystick and re-running NexRemote fixes the glitch, there must have been a combination of button presses that caused the fault.

Before finishing up, I tested the joystick with various functions, menu selections and slewing, and it all worked perfectly, even the down movement glitch didn't happen.

For about $10 of fuel it's not a bad gimmick for the home observatory.

 

So if anyone is in a similar situation, open up the "Joysticks.ini" file and move the commands around, it is a really simple fix.

 

Clear skies.

MG