Arduino Joystick Tutorial

This Arduino Joystick tutorial will show you how to connect an 2 axis joystick to using any two Arduino analogue inputs. The joystick has two potentiometers one for vertical movement and one for horizontal movement.

All that happens is that you put 5V at one end of the potentiometer and 0V at the other end of the potentiometer, and the wiper adopts a value in between these voltages. Then all you do is read the analogue values using an Arduino using the Arduino adc.

You can buy an Arduino joystick module as shown below - these have the power pins and two analogue outputs, but the also have  a push button pin that activates when you push the joystick down.

For this Arduino joystick the potentiometer values are 4.4kOhm, others are usually 10k Ohms.

This picture shows the physical structure of the Arduino joystick - two potentiometers to top and right with the control stick in the middle.

The connections are power, ground, VRx and VRy (Variable Resistance)  and SW is the push button switch.

Note: Of course whether VRx is horizontal and VRy is vertical depends on the orientation of the module. That won't really matter so change it in software as needed.

The button input pin is connected to ground when pushed, so you need a pullup on that connection - that is easily done using the internal pullup in an Arduino (see the sketch below for how to do that).

Connections to Arduino Uno

Arduino Pin	Joystick pin
5V	+5V
GND	GND
A0	VRx
A1	VRy
5	SW

Software

Arduino Joystick Sketch

The following sketch does not require a library and just reads and displays the values from analogue input A0 and A1. It also displays the button push output.

Copy Sketch

const int VRyPin = A1;
const int SWPin  = 5;

int VRx = 0;        // value read from the horizontal pot
int VRy = 0;        // value read from the vertical pot
int SW = 0;         // value read from the switch

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(SWPin,INPUT_PULLUP);
}

void loop() {

  VRx = analogRead(VRxPin);
  VRy = analogRead(VRyPin);
  SW = digitalRead(SWPin);

  // print the results to the Serial Monitor:
  Serial.print("VRrx = ");
  Serial.print(VRx);
  Serial.print("\tVRry = ");
  Serial.print(VRy);
  Serial.print("\tSW = ");
  Serial.println(SW);

  delay(200);
}

Sketch Output with joystick in the middle

Sketch Output with joystick moved to limits

The values show that the joystick returns to centre values are the same i.e. they are consistent but the values can be very different for each potentiometer.

Arduino Joystick Library

This library allows you to calibrate the Arduino Joystick and makes it easy to detect UP, DOWN,LEFT and RIGHT movements.

The parameters LOW HIGH and DIVITION determine how sensitive the code is to the values from the Arduino Joystick.

https://github.com/YuriiSalimov/AxisJoystick/blob/master/examples/SerialJoystick/SerialJoystick.ino

Download it from : Here

1.     Unzip the download.
   
2.     Change the folder name AxisJoystick-version to just AxisJoystick.
3.     Paste the modified folder on your Library folder (On your libraries folder inside Sketchbooks or Arduino software).
4. Restart the IDE.

Commands in the library are:

singleRead()
multipleRead()
isPress()
isUp()
isDown()
isRight()
isLeft()
readVRx()
readVRy()
readSW()
calibrate(LOW, HIGH, DIVITION);

Instead of fiddling around with pins you can swap X and Y using:

XYReplacer(original) where original is the orignial object. Note include XYReplace.h - see example here.

Library Sketch example calibrating the joystick

Copy Sketch

/*
  Joystick axes calibration
  Reads a press of the calibrated joystick and displays information
  in the default Serial.
  https://github.com/YuriiSalimov/AxisJoystick
  Created by Yurii Salimov, January, 2019.
  Released into the public domain.
*/
 #define VRX_PIN A1
#define VRY_PIN A2
#define LOW_RANGE 0
#define HIGH_RANGE 1023
#define RANGE_DIVITION 100

Joystick* joystic;

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  joystic = new AxisJoystick(SW_PIN, VRX_PIN, VRY_PIN);
  joystic->calibrate(LOW_RANGE, HIGH_RANGE, RANGE_DIVITION);
}

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  Serial.print("| SingleRead: " + String(joystic->singleRead()));
  Serial.print(" | MultipleRead: " + String(joystic->multipleRead()));
  Serial.print(" | Press: " + String(joystic->isPress()));
  Serial.print(" | Up: " + String(joystic->isUp()));
  Serial.print(" | Down: " + String(joystic->isDown()));
  Serial.print(" | Right: " + String(joystic->isRight()));
  Serial.print(" | Left: " + String(joystic->isLeft()));
  Serial.print(" | VRx: " + String(joystic->readVRx()));
  Serial.print(" | VRy: " + String(joystic->readVRy()));
  Serial.println(" | SW: " + String(joystic->readSW()) + " |");
}

Mapping ADC values to a different range

Note If you want to map the output of the ADC to a different range of values then use the map function as follows:

outputValue = map(sensorValue, 0, 1023, 0, 255);

This will linearly map values with the minimum and maximum output:

0 maps to 0
and
1023 becomes 255.

Zero to 1023 becomes Zero to 255.

Note: See the 'arduino map' page to properly use the map function - there are some subtle problems there.