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The evaluation board

I am talking about the FTDI EVAL232R evaluation board which can be found at the bottom of this page. It employs a FT232RL IC.

What I want to do

I would like to connect a USB joystick to the board´s USB port, then connect the RS232 interface to my PC, move the joystick and check out the incoming stream of information.

What I tried

I know that those converters usually are used to program a microcontroller over USB and similar things. There the USB port connects to the PC and the RS232 interface to the chip. In the datasheet I can not find any clues as to which extent a reversed flow of information (from joystick to PC) is possible.

Is the above board the right one? If not, could you please point out a device that would better suit my needs?

Edit: I rephrased the title to make it more general.

pat3d3r
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  • The discovery board with STM32F407VG for example should work with for your project. You need a device that can act as a host. – JavaForStarters Dec 31 '15 at 20:25
  • Have you thought about just using an Arduino with a joystick and breakout board? Here is a 2-axis one: https://www.adafruit.com/products/512?gclid=CjwKEAiAwZO0BRDvxs_1w-qFnhkSJABo10ggmH9PhA6sYTFaRynJtPYjNAjNgKJiCXFwa717PpyNHhoCTwfw_wcB – jonnyd42 Dec 31 '15 at 20:30
  • @canbus Thank you for the hint, until now I only checked AVR microcontrollers and I did not find one with host capability. – pat3d3r Dec 31 '15 at 21:04
  • @jonnyd42 Thank you also, but I really want to use my Saitek X52 joystick for this project. – pat3d3r Dec 31 '15 at 21:05

1 Answers1

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The FT232 chips are USB-UART bridges that act as USB devices. From your description, you want it to act as a USB host. That won't work.

Matt Young
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