Analogue input

[Guest PoRrEkE]

Hi folks,I got a question to ask concerning analogue or pot. input.I have currently connected my 2 slidepots to a gameport. The result is a very unstable reading in FS. Even when changing to sheilded cable which improved it a lot, but not perfect at all.What can I do to solve this ?I heard that Leo's joystick input stuff works great and gives stable readings but to build one of those you must find the chip and then be able to flash it. Which is not what I can do.Then there is FSBus. I will have an fsbus interface but I'm not planing on using it. I switched to Photon and will go on with that. And I'm not willing to put that FSbus in my cockpit just for analogue input.I will solder the thing together and either keep it for whenever I build a second sim or simpli sell it.Is there a thing I have overlooked ? An other sollution to get stable readings ? I could use a joystick but my joystick has 4 pots input. (sidewinder precision pro) However I want to keep those inputs for the yoke control and pedals.If there is no alternative I will try to work without pedals as first planned and connect the 2 pots from the power quad to it.Maybe the little instability I get now is due to bad slidepots ? I bought these and are made of black plastick so I think they are not very protected against any kind of EM radiation from PC and displays. Is that the reason ??

[rickalty 0]

The two most common causes for unstable inputs are bad pots or unshielded cables.Try buying a cheap gamport joystick - Goodwill stores are a good source for those for a couple of bucks - and using the cable from that, they're usually made with shielded cable. If you want to use slider style pots, it's worth buying some reasonable good ones. You could also try wrapping the pots in tinfoil if the shielded cables don't help.Richard

[Guest PoRrEkE]

Tnx,I'm sure i got good shielded cable. I'll try the tinfoil trick for the pots. Cuz if I have to use other pots it will need a lot of work to find ones that are better shielded but same size and replcing the ones I got now will be tricky also :s

[Guest Ceawlin BSX029]

Isn't that half the fun and games of pit building? :(

[Guest PoRrEkE]

Ceawlin,There is a limit to everything ;)I don't want to rebuild my power lever quad again now either1) for a very long time2) unless I got some VERY good reasons to do soIt's a lot of thinking and engineering that goos into a thing like that when you have limited space as I have. I sure want to keep the PowerLever quad as a module inside the pedestall. Just diconnect the wires and pull it out. That's handy to work on it but it limits the space you have to work out your system.

[Guest Erups]

Have you tried with some cheap polyester capacitor?Try in parallel then in series to every pot.100nF value.See if it helps, if it does not, you haven't wasted a lot (0.50$ should do).If it helps: good :DOther solution, as many pointed out, is costly pots, which are of higher wuality and produce less noise.Or some other interface, with antispike and filtering software/hardware.SaludosClaudio

[Guest Ceawlin BSX029]

You could try turning them by hand before you put them into your throttle, that way you can get an idea of how good/bad they are before you start doing lots of hard work...