Patent Application
20140083833
1. Field of the Invention
The present patent document relates generally to input devices for electronic games and more specifically to a miniaturized joystick that provides an old school fee in a small collapsible package.
2. Background of the Related Art
Portable electronic devices, such as tablet computers, smartphones and music players, increasingly include sophisticated electronics and displays Moreover, with the advent of “app” stores, video games have proven quite popular for these portable devices. Unfortunately, these portable devices lack the control inputs that game players are more accustomed too, often only having a touchscreen interface for input. Although portable shells have been created to augment these touchscreen devices with buttons, most gamers would prefer an old school joystick.
The “D-pad” with carbon contacts is the closest implementation that the prior art has provided for emulating a joystick. However, D-pads lack the old school arcade feel of a joystick, such as audible and tactile clicking that a joystick provides. D-Pads also feel soft and mushy as compared to a joystick, which is undesirable. Prior art joystick assemblies, though, are bulky and impractical to include in a portable shell for a touchscreen device.
Therefore, there is a perceived need in the art for a more compact joystick assembly that can be integrated into smaller portable form factors that also includes the
The joystick assembly provides the gamer the old school arcade feel that provides audible and tactile clicking and lacks the mushiness of D-pad type controls. The joystick assembly is also compact and includes a detachable joystick, which enables the assembly to be conveniently included on smaller form-factor devices.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings where:
Referring now to
The housing assembly 20 includes a retaining plate 22 that includes a bore 24 through a central axis of the retaining plate 22. Four microswitches 26 are secured to the retaining plate 22 around the bore 24 offset ninety degrees from one another. Each microswitch 26 includes a spring-biased switch element 28 that is positioned facing inwardly towards the bore 24.
Secured over the microswitches 26 and retaining plate 22 is an integrated housing and sub chassis 30 of the assembly 10. The sub chassis portion of the housing 30 includes structural elements 32 depending therefrom to reinforce the strength of the assembly 10 and secure the retaining plate 22 thereto.
The housing portion of the housing 30 includes a top surface 34 that includes a peripheral guide 36 extending upwards therefrom. Inward of the peripheral guide is a bowl-shaped depression 38 formed about a bore 40 through the center of the housing 30. When assembled, the bore 40 on the housing 30 aligns with the bore 24 through the retaining plate 22. The bowl-shaped depression 38 includes a number of indentations 42 formed thereon every forty-five degrees around the bore 40, for eight total indentations 42. The indentations 42 provide lubrication wells, which hold grease, for the joystick 12
Received within the peripheral guide 36 of the housing portion is a flexible member 44, made form resilient, flexible material. The flexible member 44 includes a disk-shaped surface of smaller diameter than the peripheral guide 36. A boss 46 depends from the bottom of the flexible member 44. An opening 48 in the top of the flexible member 44 enters the boss 46 with a slot shaped to receive the spindle 18 of the joystick 12. A second shaft 50 depends from the bottom of the boss 46.
A rigid member 52, a washer, is received around the second shaft 50 and a barrel nut 54 is secured to the second shaft 50. When assembled, the rigid member 52 is aligned in contact with the switch elements 28 of the microswitches 26.
Deflecting the joystick 12 towards one of the microswitches 26 causes the shaft 12 to flex the flexible member 44. The boss 46 contacts the interior of the bowl-shaped depression 38 providing tactile feedback of the joystick's 12 position to the user. The second shaft 50 pushes the rigid member 52 against the switch element 28 thereby activating the nearest microswitch 26. If the user deflects the joystick 12 between two microswitches 28, the rigid member 52 will activate the switch elements 28 of both microswitches 28. As is known in the art, with four microswitches 26 positioned at ninety degree intervals, eight effective movement directions can be determined with the joystick assembly 10.
The microswitches 26 are preferably selected provide an audible and tactile click when activated to provide an old-school feel to the joystick assembly 10. Furthermore, the spring-bias of the microswitches 26 and resiliency of the flexible member 44 are selected to be strong enough to re-center the joystick 12 to a neutral position.
For storage and portability, the joystick 12 may be removed from the flexible member 44 by unscrewing it and pulling it free from the assembly 10.
Referring to
The joystick assembly 10 may also be included in other devices that require a low profile joystick, such as laptop computers.
Therefore, it can be seen that the present invention provides a unique solution to the problem for providing a miniaturized joystick that includes an old-school feel retro joysticks that can be used in portable devices.
It would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various changes and modifications can be made to the illustrated embodiments without departing from the spirit of the present invention. All such modifications and changes are intended to be within the scope of the present invention except as limited by the scope of the appended claims.
