When to use (and when not to use) a Teensy

[yungfalafel]

I'm new to this and still in the research/part-buying phase of my first handheld Pi Zero. I have seen builds with and without a microcontroller board, so I'm wondering when I need to use one and the benefits of doing so. Thanks.

[Fredl]

Hi there's two approaches:

1. You connect the buttons directly to the GPIO pins of the raspberry.

2. You use a teensy or the likes, which literally acts like you would plug in an external game controller. You can easily build gamecontrollers using a teensy and thats why everybody's using them. (Search google for how to.) Another benefit of using a teensy is that you can actually use an analog joystick (like found on every modern controller) since this requires an analog to digital converter (ADC), which the teensy has and the pi doesn't. You could also do stuff like implementing a "fast-fire" button, since you can freely program the teensy.

An obvious downside is that is costs extra money and requires extra wiring.

Hope this helps!

[moosepr]

also a downside of the teensy is that is requires a usb port. so you may then need a usb hub.

that said, teensy's are awesome!! so much power in that little chip!