Home LearningBasics Connecting a basic joystick

Connecting a basic joystick

by shedboy71

This example shows how to connect a joystick to your Arduino. This could be used for games or perhaps navigating through a menu for example.

This is a basic analog 2-axis joystick which has two 10K ohm pots for vertical and horizontal direction and a push button function.

Here is a picture of the joystick I am using, this is commonly found for sale on many sites. Usually part of a sensor kit, links at the bottom

joystick

joystick

Here is the pinout and where I connected it

Pin Number Label Signal Arduino Connection
1 GND Ground
2 +5V 5V
3 VRx Voltage proportional to X position Connected to analogue pin 0
4 VRy Voltage proportional to Y position Connected to analogue pin 1
5 SW Joystick pushbutton Connected to Digital pin 2

 

Code

Nothing fancy in this example, we will simply output the values from the X and Y pins. Typically you would read these values and them perform actions based on the various positions such as left, right and up and down. A later update will show this.

 

[codesyntax lang=”cpp”]

const int SWITCH = 2;
const int X_PIN = 0;
const int Y_PIN = 1;

void setup()
{
pinMode(SWITCH, INPUT);
digitalWrite(SWITCH, HIGH);
Serial.begin(115200); //watch the baud rate in the serial monitor
}

void loop()
{
Serial.print(digitalRead(SWITCH));
Serial.print(" - ");
Serial.print(analogRead(X_PIN));
Serial.print(" by ");
Serial.println(analogRead(Y_PIN));
delay(100);
}

[/codesyntax]

 

Links
Arduino joystick at Amazon UK

Arduino joystick at Amazon

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