Joystick Transmitter for EM2530

I never see this kind of joystick. I suggest you can do it by yourself.

Hi,
Can you please clarify what you mean by EM2530? Are you referring to CC2530EM?
Thanks,
TheDarkSide

Hi,
the radio joystick products I see are all DIY designs. They are based on 802.15.4 modules so they would send standard 802.15.4 MAC/PHY frames OTA. Hence, they will work with a CC2530EM as a receiver. You would just need to interpret the application payload of the 802.15.4 frame for the joystick movements if you want to re-use one of the DIY designs.
I do advise you start by radio sniffing the OTA packets. TI packet sniffer (ti.com/tool/packet-sniffer) PC tool used in combination with the sniffer dongle (www.ti.com/.../cc2531emk) will give you all the necessary infrastructure to do that.

SW-wise, for the receiver I would recommend you take a look at the basic SW examples (www.ti.com/.../swrc135) or TI-MAC (www.ti.com/tool/timac) as they provide the right SW frameworks to send standard 802.15.4 frames (PHY only or MAC and PHY respectively).

Alternatively, as YK suggests, you can design your own joystick transmitter, coupling it with a low cost CC2530 ZigBee module:

www.ebay.com/.../251214734946;hash=item3a7d90a662

www.ebay.com/.../371303800669;hash=item56736e5f5d

www.ebay.com/.../261156710019;hash=item3cce272683

www.ebay.com/.../390852322386;hash=item5b009d2452

If you are looking for certified modules and mass production quantity, here's a list of module vendors we would recommend

radiocrafts.com/index.php;ledd1=33
en.szrfstar.com/.../98.html
www.feibit.com/portal.php;aid=10 (sorry not in English)

Thanks,
TheDarkSide

TheDarkSide,

Thank you for describing DIY joysticks. That's a great idea to sniff the OTA packets. I will look into TI Packet Sniffer. I might build my own DIY joystick, but this is advanced for me at this time.

Can the CC2530EM interpret the packets transmitted from any commercial RC joystick, such as from HobbyKing, Futaba, Hitec, Airtronics or FlySky? Or do they all use proprietary encoding? I think there is a market for universal joysticks, but maybe no profit so no products.

Good idea to look for clone CC2530 modules, although I am concerned about quality and performance compared with TI. I am learning about RF with the Evalbot, so no quantity now but I will look at the vendors.

If these Joysticks don't use Zigbee or 802.15.4 standard, I think packet sniffer with CC2530EM cannot interpret those packets. However, you can try to know if it works.

Hi Blair,
I am not familiar with those joystick brands. I see those are 2.4 Ghz based joystick, but not necessarily they will be 802.15.4.
I think it would be great to create an universal HID/joystick, based for on 802.15.4 standard. I think there could be lot of re-use of technologies and protocol already designed for other applications like remote controllers for STB (please check RF4CE technology and its HID feature-set, http://www.ti.com/tool/remoti)

From my personal experience, joystick and in general gaming remote control through RF is done through proprietary protocol and not standard based one, but definitely it can be intriguing to come up with a concept of universal controller for gaming (or other) applications.
I think ZigBee or 6LoWPAN would be an overkill for that, but RF4CE or plain 802.15.4 MAC could do the job.

Thanks,
TheDarkSide

TheDarkSide,

It appears unlikely that CC2530 will receive a signal from a commercial 2.4 GHz joystick. I cannot sniff a joystick unless I buy it. I will check RF4CE and PHY/MAC. But for me to develop the HW and SW for a transmitter and receiver requires a lot of work. Maybe CC2530EM is not the best TI module for my purpose (portable battery radio joystick sends signal to TI CCxxxxEM).