Rotary Joystick with Retropie

Mr_Fredricksen

Hey everyone,

I am looking into building my own full size arcade cabinet, based on a retropie system. As a kid i played the game caliber 50 a lot, it is one of my favorite games and thus it needs to go on the retropie. However caliber 50 requires a Rotary Joystick to play and despite searching the web for hours I couldn't find out whether there is such a Joystick available that is compatible with the retropie.

Hopefully someone here can help me answer that question, I surely would appreciate it if that was the case.

Thank you very much in advance!

Best,
Heli

rbaker

@mr_fredricksen Have you seen this....

https://www.arcadeworlduk.com/products/Happ-Rotary-Arcade-Joystick.html

it's not about compatability with retropie but your choice of emulator from within it. I have never used one but with its 12 way switch, I'll bet it would work with Mame.

caver01

@Mr_Fredricksen you might consider the OPTICAL version of the rotary stick, as this is what Caliber 50 apparently used. They are a little more than the one rbaker linked above.

I have not used these, but there are basically three kinds of rotary sticks. The first is just a Increase/decrease mechanical switching type. The second is a 12-position rotary where each mechanical "notch" in the rotation has a different input signal. The third is optical, which effectively sends an increase/decrease input like the first one, but it is more like a spinner built into the joystick.

Mr_Fredricksen

Hey rbaker and caver01,

Thank you so much for your replies! I did stumble across the Joystick rbaker linked to. I guess my choice of words wasn't the best. What I meant with the joystick being compatible with retropie is, how to connect it to raspberry pie. Is there a board I can connect the Joysticks Input cables to and then connect this board to a USB Interface on the raspberry pie? Are these connectors, or plugs on the Joystick's cables standardised or do they differ between models?

@ caver, thanks for the tip on the Joystick being the optical Version. I will definitely get that Kind.

Thanks again for your help guys!

caver01

@mr_fredricksen You will have to do some research on the interface requirements. The joystick is like buttons--the microswitches will have to lead to some kind of controller interface like an IPAC USB keyboard interface for example, or directly to GPIO, etc. This will largely depend on the other controls you hope to use. For example, is this a single player arcade system? 2-player control panel? 4? How many buttons? I don't really need to know those answers, but you need to plan for all of your inputs and decide how you are going to handle them. The optical part is trickier. The endgame will likely look like a USB mouse when connected to the Pi. You will need to research the rotary joystick you want to get and find out what your options are for a compatible rotary interface. Maybe there is a USB board for it? Maybe they expect you to connect it to a spinner interface. I would read everything I can find via Google on the subject, as people have been building emulator-based arcades for years before retropie, so there is a lot written on the topic of rotary joysticks.

You are asking the right questions though. You definitely need something between the controls and the Pi computer. Depending on how many controls, you might need multiple somethings. You cannot, for example, just plug a rotary joystick into the Pi somehow. You need a USB interface and possibly more than one. A lot depends on your design ideas. Check out Ultimarc for some ideas, or Groovy Game Gear, or follow examples others have used in years past when building systems with rotary.