• EMC2GamePad

What is it about

This howto explains the configuration of a gamepad (joystick) for the Axis GUI of [http://linuxcnc.org EMC2]. It allows to control the basic operations of a 3-axes machine without a keyboard. The following approach is based on the joystick module of an [http://x.org xorg] server. Thus it is applicable for Linux or *BSD systems.

3-axes machine

usually a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milling_machine milling machine]

EMC2

the most common [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html free] machine controller software. It is used for turning toolpaths (GCode) into electric pulses for the drivers of the three axes.

Axis

one of the available graphical user interfaces of EMC2

gamepad

a small hand-held device with a few buttons and one or more joysticks. It is usually connected to a computer via USB, bluetooth or another serial connector.

Hardware

The following description is based on a gamepad labeled by Hama as Black Force. It is identified by lsusb with the following attributes:

• Bus 002 Device 009: ID 0079:0006 DragonRise Inc. Generic USB Joystick

Preparing the system

You need to install the joystick module for your xorg server.

Debian or Ubuntu users should run the following command as root:

apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-joystick

Keycodes for useful Axis commands

You can use xmodmap -pke for determining the keycodes of the Axis hotkeys that you want to emit via the gamepad. The following selection should be a good starting point. See [http://www.linuxcnc.org/docs/2.4/html/gui_axis.html#r1_4 hotkeys of Axis] for a list of important keys to be used within Axis.