What is an electronically controlled industrial joystick? The electronically controlled industrial joystick is a human-computer interaction device used in various electromechanical devices to sense the action of the hand on the handle through a potentiometer or a Hall sensor, and send out corresponding electrical signals to control the direction, speed, and distance of the device. Before the advent of electronically controlled industrial joysticks, there were two other types of joysticks in history. In 1835, the American Otis designed and built the first single bucket excavator driven by a steam engine. The operator pushed the operating lever to control the excavator through gears, levers, belts and traction ropes. This operating lever is a manual operating lever, which is still used on some simple mechanical equipment. Its advantages are low cost and simple maintenance. However, with the further development of machinery and more and more functions, the structure of this purely mechanical manual operating lever is also becoming more and more complex, and gradually cannot meet the needs.
In the 1940s, mounted excavators appeared with hydraulic backhoes on tractors, which were driven using hydraulic operating levers. The hydraulic operating lever is directly connected to the hydraulic valve to control its opening (closing), and the hydraulic energy is converted into mechanical energy to control the machinery, which is used in many engineering vehicles.
The development of hydraulic operating lever has a history of more than 80 years, the product is mature, and all parts have been standardized and serialized. Compared with the manual operating lever with complex and huge structure, it is small in size and light in weight, which can realize large-scale stepless speed regulation, stable transmission, strong anti-interference ability and good low-speed performance. However, correspondingly, the hydraulic operating lever has low efficiency, high heat generation, cannot obtain a fixed ratio transmission, and has hidden dangers of leakage, and the hydraulic oil inside is flammable and explosive, which is contrary to the increasingly strong demand for safety and environmental protection. Therefore, with the development of technology, the hydraulic operating lever has also begun to be slowly replaced by another operating lever, that is, the electronically controlled industrial operating lever.
Electronically controlled industrial joysticks were originally used in the control of large and high-end equipment such as aircraft and ships. In the 1960s, the aerial work platform came out in the United States. Because the distance between the control platform and the driver of the aerial work platform (about 50-60 meters) was much larger than that of the general construction machinery, the hydraulic operating lever could not output the control smoothly, so The aerial work platform adopts the electromechanical-hydraulic integration technology, and applies the electric control lever in the control system. By 1985, in order to save energy, many excavator manufacturers began to use electromechanical-hydraulic integrated control systems for mass-produced excavation.
With the popularization of digitalization and higher requirements for environmental protection, more and more construction machinery also began Use an electronically controlled industrial joystick. Compared with the hydraulic operation lever, the electric control lever can set the safety range, realize long-distance remote control and continuous control, low requirements for operators, high control precision, high response speed, linear relationship between input and output, and can be output according to customer requirements. Voltage, current or digital signals are easier to apply to intelligent operation. At the same time, with the development of chip technology and handle design, the electronic control lever can get rid of the interference of temperature and electromagnetic interference on the output signal, and the electronic control handle will surely shine in more fields.
