I've been frustrated lately with the performance of a certain 2-axis joysti ck, I'm sure we all know the one, it's sold at the only retail parts store in the USA. A cute little thing - 2 10K pots, one for each axis - mounts n icely on a breadboard or a PCB.
It's really meant to interface to a microcontroller. That's a pretty undem anding application. Wiper current into a high-impedance ADC is pretty negl igible, and occasional intermittence is not a big problem either.
Unfortunately, I'm looking to use it as a dual rheostat to control an analo g audio filter circuit. In this application this common part has given not hing but trouble. Audio current can easily fry the pot wiper, even the out put of a little TL072 must be carefully limited. And mechanically - the th ing goes 'crackly' after being wiggled around for a few hours, regardless o f whether it's had current ran through it or not. A few-microsecond dropou t is not a big deal in a digital control application, but it's painful to t he ears when introduced into an audio circuit.
Is there anything better for this? A 2-axis analog joystick controller wit h some electrical and mechanical resilience, that I can fit into a square i nch of PCB space?
PS: For the "Use a PIC" guys. Okay. I COULD. And then I'd need a couple fairly pricey optoisolators too, to actually get the PICs to control the a udio circuit. And I still need the analog components. The existing circui t is dead-simple and this triples the parts count, easily.