Minimus Joypad

Minimus USB AVR for use in a simple HID Joypad

• NB: the pages for minimususb.com have now gone - for the manual just google minimus_v14.pdf (or ask me!)
• http://www.minimususb.com/
• http://www.minimususb.com/minimus_v14.pdf
• pinout: http://www.makestuff.eu/wordpress/?p=2375

LUFA HID Joypad

• good descriptive page and a joystick project: http://jamie.lentin.co.uk/embedded/minimus/

• LUFA
  • "Lightweight USB Framework for AVRs"
  • http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php

An exercise in moving on from the Arduino: -

• use of a more flexible IDE: Eclipse CDT (C/C++ development tools)
• cross-platform development: -
  • on windows boxes using WinAVR
  • on Linux boxes using avr-gcc

Setting up Eclipse on Linux

Largely the same as on Windows - not too surprising really since Eclipse is nicely platform neutral. There are certain GCC AVR packages required but they're well explained and a doddle to set up.

Setting up Eclipse on Windows

Eclipse CDT (C/C++ development tools)

The AVR Eclipse Plugin: http://avr-eclipse.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/The_AVR_Eclipse_Plugin

http://avr-eclipse.sourceforge.net/user%20manual/concepts/toolchain.html

Alternatively for Arduino only development, there are efforts to create an Arduino Eclipse plugin that does a lot of the annoying manual setup for you and may be quicker to get going initialy (since it just points to all the tools and settings under your Arduino installation)

• http://eclipse.baeyens.it/Arduino%20eclipse%20plugin%20FAQ.htm

TODO: I should write a specific wiki page on this subject.

Setting up Eclipse on Mac

If I could ever afford a recent MacBook I'd just hire someone smart to do it for me :)

TeensyDuino Game Changer!

Using the Minimus with TeensyDuino means the Arduino IDE and APIs can be used! Amazing!

http://wiki.nottinghack.org.uk/wiki/Arduino_IDE_with_Minimus

http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/teensyduino.html

Progress

• I have a few minimus units to play with.
• flashy lights hex upload with FLIP on Windows XP - worked OK.
• WinAVR build of various test apps OK
• I was able to program these test apps fine using FLIP
• on my Debian laptop I had to install a more recent dfu-programmer package and I was able to use a simple makefile to build and program various test apps
• on XP at work I set up AVR Studio 4.19 (free download when registered) with the WinAVR gcc and make to build and debug various test apps
• 2013-06-24 update: now used on my BMO project - the LUFA joystick demo patched by Jamie Lentin (http://jamie.lentin.co.uk/embedded/minimus/) was easily altered for my 3-button + 4-way D-pad BMO controller. Simply built from the shell and uploaded using "make dfu". Works well on Debian but has issues on Windows XP, 7 & 8 (known problem and now reportedly fixed in LUFA).