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Author Topic: Veteran Gamer. 1st-time MAME'r (Pole Position). Help me out pls.  (Read 7516 times)

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vintagegamer

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After some time of frustration, tohret's fits, and lack of budget, I've decided to convert my non-working Monaco GP cockpit into a MAME game for Pole Position.  I have been reading up on putting a mouse wheel PCB on the steering wheel to allow MAME to see it, but since this is all new to me I'm running into some speed bumps and could use some help.

1. the orig Monaco GP steering wheel: it's a 360 wheel so that I think is a good thing from what I've read.  What is a pain though is that the encoder wheel on it looks different from other encoder wheels I've seen: the part that runs through the original encoder looks more like TEETH on a gear, than punched out square holes that I see on other encoder wheels.  Also, the gaps between the teeth are much larger than the gaps in a standard mouse encoder wheel.  Am I going down a dark path trying to mate this original wheel encoder with a PS2 mouse opto?

2. I've read multiple things regarding how to wire up the gas pedal to use a switch rather than its current equipment, but I'm getting confused as to where you would wire this to.  Does the wiring for the switch go to the same mouse PCB that I'm trying to use for the steering?  And then when it comes to the shifter, again where does that get wired to?

3. I've read up on the opti-wiz and some other U-HID thing- I was trying to do this using stuff I had lying around at home, and I have extra mice and also a joystick that I have to see what kind it is.  Am I just making it harder on myself using these other peripherals than buying the parts that are out on the market today?  


I'll try to get some pics of all that I am looking at but wanted to hear the take from all of the MAMErs on this.  I've also viewed the classicplastic site where the guy Dave built his PP with MAME internals.  I really wish I could just get this guy to come to my house.  He'd probably have my last tasks done in an hour!

Thanks,

VG
« Last Edit: April 16, 2011, 10:59:04 pm by vintagegamer »

vintagegamer

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2011, 12:36:06 pm »
I forgot to mention that I've got everything up and running PC-wise with keyboard, monitor, and PC, so I'm good to go there. 

It's just getting the shifter, wheel, and pedal set up.  I have also read about having to work out some kink regarding the shifter configuration using MAME, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it LOL

BadMouth

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #2 on: April 13, 2011, 12:49:25 pm »
Lotta good info covered in this thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108316.0

Also check out the driving cab thread in my sig.
There is a link to a spreadsheet there that will identify all the games that might be playable on the cab.
Why limit yourself to Pole Position?  :)

1. don't know anything about the GP wheel.  :-\
2. Make your pedal analogue, especially if you plan to play pole position.  (see thread above)
    The shifter can be wired to the mouse or anything else.
3. Is it the old joystick port kind?  If so, you can swap out the potentiometer in the pedal for a 100k one and wire it to the joystick.  
    How many buttons does it have?  If 4, you could wire coin, start, shift & exit to it.  If only two, you could wire the other two to the hacked mouse.
    Interfaces such as the A-PAC & Opti-Pac would make it a lot easier (and you wouldn't have to swap the pedal pot).
    Depends on how much the saved time/hassle is worth to you versus hacking what you have.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2011, 01:52:47 pm by BadMouth »

vintagegamer

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #3 on: April 13, 2011, 01:31:08 pm »
Lotta good info covered in this thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108316.0

Also check out the driving cab thread in my sig.
There is a link to a spreadsheet there that will identify all the games that might be playable on the cab.
Why limit yourself to Pole Position?  :)

1. don't know anything about the GP wheel.  :-\
2. Make your panel analogue, especially if you plan to play pole position.  (see thread above)
    The shifter can be wired to the mouse or anything else.
3. Is it the old joystick port kind?  If so, you can swap out the potentiometer in the pedal for a 100k one and wire it to the joystick. 
    How many buttons does it have?  If 4, you could wire coin, start, shift & exit to it.  If only two, you could wire the other two to the hacked mouse.
    Interfaces such as the A-PAC & Opti-Pac would make it a lot easier (and you wouldn't have to swap the pedal pot).
    Depends on how much the saved time/hassle is worth to you versus hacking what you have.

Thanks for the info, BM-

1. "Why limit yourself to PP?"   - Mainly because I want the setup to work 100% or as close to 100% as possible, and I know once I go down the path of loading multiple games, either something's not going to work right, or I'm not going to be happy with how it's working and will want to make further fixes-changes-enhancements-etc.  If I stick with PP, then all of that other pain stays away LOL
2. "Is it the old joystick port kind?"  I think so but I have to get it out from its storage cave tonight and check.

As for the pot on the gas pedal, this game actually ran an opto on it for the gas pedal.  So, I wouldn't have to switch out any pot, but I would have to install a switch that would be depressed somehow.

I will definitely check out the link you have provided to see if it's something I've already looked at before or not.  Appreciate the help!

vintagegamer

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #4 on: April 13, 2011, 01:45:23 pm »
Lotta good info covered in this thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=108316.0


So the Pole Position project dies at the end?  Damm that's a sad story!   :(

vintagegamer

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #5 on: April 13, 2011, 01:49:10 pm »
In regard to my steering wheel questions, would it be better from the PS2 mouse perspective, to remove the original optical encoder wheel from the current wheel, drill a hole in the encoder wheel from the mouse, and mount that on the existing steering wheel hardware?  That way you're matching apples with apples?  It's just a thought.

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2011, 02:01:30 pm »
this game actually ran an opto on it for the gas pedal.

you could just hook the pedal up to the other axis of the opti-pac or mouse hack.  :)

You'll have to play with the sensetivity in MAME until it feels right, but it will be better than just having a switch.


vintagegamer

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2011, 02:14:12 pm »
this game actually ran an opto on it for the gas pedal.

you could just hook the pedal up to the other axis of the opti-pac or mouse hack.  :)

You'll have to play with the sensetivity in MAME until it feels right, but it will be better than just having a switch.

Interesting, and I'm seeing in my readings that it is in fact better to have the analog-pot combo for the pedal if at all possible.

Here is where I am getting really confused: the steering wheel and the gas pedal both have their own original encoder PCBs- from what I have read, there is no way to use these in the equation when trying to set up these encoders for PC.  Is that correct?  Or can they be involved in the setup still?

The thing that I noticed on the encoder PCB for the steering wheel is, it has 4 wires, almost the same gauge as those in the PS2 mouse.  I seriously doubt that one could snip those wires and mate them with the wires for the PS2 mouse wiring, but I'm asking anyway.  Especially since the wiring is almost all the same colors as those in the mouse too!

boardjunkie

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #8 on: April 13, 2011, 02:33:57 pm »
I would buy a real cheap USB ball mouse and use the board from that. I do this all the time to interface trackballs via USB. All you need to do is identify the L/R axis on the mouse board and which connections are for 5v, clk, and dir. For the 5v, just tap into it before the current limiting resistor for the existing mouse opto before you remove it. Same for the dir and clk. I wouldn't screw with trying to replace the existing opto assy for the wheel with anything else. Its real easy to hack it to USB.....

As far as the theory that only having the 1 game will make it run better.....thats kinda strange thinking. MAME either works or it doesn't. 1 game or 1000 it really doesn't care. The only thing limiting how well games play is your available hardware and your knowledge of setting it up properly game by game. I'd set it up for driving games in general. Don't cheat yerself. Pole Position will get lame in a hurry.....

I almost did this with a Night Driver cockpit years ago, but I didn't have the space to store it at the time. Coulda got it for free....


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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #9 on: April 13, 2011, 02:44:59 pm »
As far as the theory that only having the 1 game will make it run better.....thats kinda strange thinking. MAME either works or it doesn't. 1 game or 1000 it really doesn't care. The only thing limiting how well games play is your available hardware and your knowledge of setting it up properly game by game. I'd set it up for driving games in general. Don't cheat yerself. Pole Position will get lame in a hurry.....

You guys are quickly changing my thinking on this.  :)

When you talk about a USB "ball mouse", are you referring to this kind, just in USB and not PS2?



Or are you referring to the trackball-mouse combo that usually has the big red ball thingy on top?


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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #10 on: April 13, 2011, 03:59:00 pm »
Yes, that's a ball mouse.  The other types would be optical or laser, but those won't work for this project.

vintagegamer

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #11 on: April 13, 2011, 04:39:02 pm »
Thx just wanted to make sure we were all talkin the same balls LOL

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #12 on: April 13, 2011, 09:19:28 pm »
This is the joystick I have lying around.  If it could be used for this project, then all the better!

http://www.amazon.com/Gravis-Eliminator-Joystick-USB-Mac/dp/B000052WLY

It has the cable with both the serial end on it, as well as a USB adapter.

I also checked the back of the machine and there is no serial interface to hook this up to.

Will the mouse hack work with pretty much any encoder wheel type as long as it fits between the emitter and the other thing?  I'm sure the numbers have to be adjusted in the MAME control panel for the analog settings but aside from that, is there anything else that would prevent the original encoder wheel from working with the PS2 mouse board?  I just have to make a bracket to hold the PS2 mouse board in place next to the encoder wheel.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2011, 09:21:10 pm by vintagegamer »

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #13 on: April 14, 2011, 05:15:59 am »
If money is a huge issue, you can try to hack the mouse and joystick, but the U-HID Nano would be a far better solution. For $35, you get 8 inputs and all of them can set as Digital, Analog, or Optical. I don't think you can get much easier than that. If you need more inputs than that, you could go with the full size U-HID. MOst wheels work with the UHID; the only ones that I have found so far that do not are from a Badlands machine. http://www.u-hid.com/home/uhid_nano.php

You can see in the manual here: http://arcarc.xmission.com/PDF_Arcade_Manuals_and_Schematics/Monaco_GP_Stand_Model_(420-0445).pdf

that the steering wheel uses a set of gears, and the smaller one spins the shaft that the encoder wheel is on. You can see the optic board on the right.

BadMouth

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #14 on: April 14, 2011, 09:09:59 am »
Will the mouse hack work with pretty much any encoder wheel type as long as it fits between the emitter and the other thing?  I'm sure the numbers have to be adjusted in the MAME control panel for the analog settings but aside from that, is there anything else that would prevent the original encoder wheel from working with the PS2 mouse board?  I just have to make a bracket to hold the PS2 mouse board in place next to the encoder wheel.

I think you're misunderstanding the mouse hack.  You actually leave the original Monaco GP boards in place and run wires from them to where the sensors were removed from a hacked mouse.  Do a google search for "trackball mouse hack".
If you know the pinout of the original plug on the Manaco GP parts, you can actually just make a wiring harness and not alter the original parts.

Personally, I'd go with the Opti-Pac, Opti-Wiz, or Uhid Nano option.
I just have visions of myself screwing up enough mice to buy an interface anyway.

You can adjust the sensetivity in MAME to make up for a different tooth count.
If you want it to be perfect, you can calculate it:
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Spinner_Turn_Count
But I'd just as well mess with it until it feels right on your setup.

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #15 on: April 14, 2011, 11:21:49 am »
I went with a mouse hack and a MS DualStrike hack for my driving cabinet.  Finding an appropriate mouse took several tries and a pile of hacked mice for future projects (well, probably not).  The DualStrike hack works fine, but it's going to take a little time and some research to fully understand how to make it work.

When I built my driving cab, the UHID was not available.  If I were building my cab today, I'd seriously look at the nano version since it gives just enough inputs to get things up and running.

This is a DIY hobby so building things from other things is cool.  BUT, when you can have a better result by buying a dedicated product (esp when it's not expensive)...DO IT!

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #16 on: April 14, 2011, 11:44:26 am »
Unfortunately right now I am not in a position to be able to buy any game parts.  That is the reason that I thought I might give this project a go.  I had the cockpit just sitting there, I had the monitor, I had a PC, I had extra mice, and my background is in technology so I thought it might be something I could pull off with the resources I had.

I actually disconnected completely from the arcade-gaming forum network online (here and KLOV) for the past 4 months to keep myself from wanting to look at things I simply had absolutely no disposable income to buy or fix.

If it doesn't look like the project is going to be possible with what I have, I'll just have to shelf this project and hope that better times are coming.  I know that $35 doesn't sound like much, but in my current predicament it actually is.   :(

« Last Edit: April 14, 2011, 11:46:51 am by vintagegamer »

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #17 on: April 14, 2011, 12:13:01 pm »
If it doesn't look like the project is going to be possible with what I have, I'll just have to shelf this project and hope that better times are coming.  I know that $35 doesn't sound like much, but in my current predicament it actually is.   :(

The mouse hack is worth a try. (some might even consider it free entertainment)
Wheel=one axis, pedal=other axis,coin=left button, start=right button, exit=middle button(to allow for other games).

I don't know how to tell if the mouse you have is one of the models that will work.  
Google the subject and find out what models others have used.
I've never taken the time to sit down and figure this quadrature encoder stuff out, so I'm not much help there.

EDIT: http://www.willcoxonline.com/mame/controlpanel/controlpanel.htm

Doesn't look too hard.....Power, Gnd, & two sensor wires to each board.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2011, 12:30:33 pm by BadMouth »

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #18 on: April 14, 2011, 12:45:03 pm »
Thanks BM- the mouse I currently have opened up for this project is a Microsoft Intellimouse, and I think it's version/revision 1.2.  I read on diff sites that the Intellimouse is the way to go if you have one at your disposal.  It has the left and right buttons but no center scrolly wheel.

What my original hope to do was, to mimic InsaneDavid's plan identically.  He took the mouse PCB and matched it up to the original PP encoder wheel that is on his control panel, and with some tweaks in MAME's settings he was able to get it dialed in.  The difference with my situation is, the encoder wheel on the Sega Monaco GP control panel is significantly larger than the one on the PP CP, and it also just looks more like a gear than an encoder wheel- specifically, that outer edge that basically "closes the boxes" punched out of the encoder wheel does not exist.

If I can't get the existing Sega encoder wheel to work with the mouse PCB, I was considering for a next plan to remove that Sega wheel, drill a hole in one of the small mouse encoder wheels that were in the original mouse, and see if I can attach that to the shaft where the current Sega encoder wheel is mounted.  I don't know if that will work or not though, so if anyone has a theory, now's the time.........  :D
« Last Edit: April 14, 2011, 12:46:48 pm by vintagegamer »

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Re: Veteran Gamer. First-time MAME'r. Help me out pls.
« Reply #19 on: April 16, 2011, 10:46:00 pm »
Well, here's today's update:

I removed the opto transmitter on the X-axis from the Intellimouse, and replaced it with 2 wires.  I ran those wires to the original encoder board on the control panel (pics of the encoder PCB board here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=111085.0).  I ran the +5V and the ground from one of the extra plugs inside the PC to the yellow/red wire (believed to be +5) and white wire (believed to be common) on the encoder PCB.

I powered up the machine and the 2 LED's on the encoder power board began working again as they had when the original Monaco GP components were in there.  I started a game of PP and did not see any movement of the car when I moved the wheel, even though I did enable the mouse in the command line while launching MAME, and also made sure that the settings indicated that "mouse x axis" was chosen to be used for the dial/steering.

I exited the game and looked to see if the pointer was moving on the screen in Windows if I turned the wheel.  Once in a while, I'd see a very brief movement, but the pointer definitely wasn't being moved much.  I went into the Windows Control Panel and set the pointer setting to its highest point, that made no difference.

I went back into MAME, and for the dial sensitivity I put it at the max which was 255%.  It made no change.

I tried swapping the connections going from the encoder PCB to the PS/2 mouse's x-axis as well, no change.

Does anyone have any ideas what I am missing?  This is really bumming me out.  :(   I was sure that once the LEDs were lighting up on the original encoder PCB board, I'd had it licked.  I was wrong.......

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Re: Veteran Gamer. 1st-time MAME'r (Pole Position). Help me out pls.
« Reply #20 on: April 17, 2011, 09:45:16 am »
"I had the same problem with my atari spinner, it would just "vibrate" when connected and spun. I covered every second hole in the encoder wheel with black tape and then it worked fine...  (YMMV)

(my atari optic board didn't have the chip or capacitor)"


Can someone tell me what covering every second hole would do?   My issue is basically the same thing as what happened with this person.

Source: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=6101.0

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Re: Veteran Gamer. 1st-time MAME'r (Pole Position). Help me out pls.
« Reply #21 on: April 17, 2011, 10:18:31 am »
With help from a member at KLOV, I got the info regarding the 4 wires on the existing Sega Monaco GP encoder PCB.  Thank God I guessed the +5 and the com/gnd wires correctly!  The details regarding the data coming from the remaining 2 wires on the board is represented in the attached diagram (numbers 2 and 3 in the upper right hand corner of the image).  Does this help explain to anyone why the signal isn't being recognized very well by the PS/2 hack?

Also, I want to mention again that the gear in the original encoder setup does not look like the Atari versions that have been shown in the pics of the Pole Position setups I've seen to-date.  The encoder wheel looks more like a gear with teeth than the Atari encoder wheels look like.  I didn't think this would be a point of concern if I were to continue using the original Sega encoder PCB, but since the PC is not understanding the signal coming off of this thing, I'm having trouble identifying where the hangup is.

Anyone have any thoughts?  I really am trying here LOL
« Last Edit: April 17, 2011, 10:20:18 am by vintagegamer »

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Re: Veteran Gamer. 1st-time MAME'r (Pole Position). Help me out pls.
« Reply #22 on: April 17, 2011, 11:19:28 am »
You have pwr and gnd correct...ok. Are you using the right axis on the mouse board? Make sure you're hacking into the l/r dir circuit. Since pwr is ok, all that is left is the dir and clk signals. If it doesn't work with them connected one way, switch them around. Can't hurt anything. *Do be sure you're not connecting the opto output wires to gnd pads on the mouse board. There should be 1, maybe 2 gnd pads for the receiver side.

vintagegamer

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Re: Veteran Gamer. 1st-time MAME'r (Pole Position). Help me out pls.
« Reply #23 on: April 17, 2011, 12:09:24 pm »
You have pwr and gnd correct...ok. Are you using the right axis on the mouse board? Make sure you're hacking into the l/r dir circuit. Since pwr is ok, all that is left is the dir and clk signals. If it doesn't work with them connected one way, switch them around. Can't hurt anything. *Do be sure you're not connecting the opto output wires to gnd pads on the mouse board. There should be 1, maybe 2 gnd pads for the receiver side.

Thanks BJ- the wires I ran to the mouse from the encoder board are going into the 2 outer holes of the x-axis part that had the 3 pins on the bottom (I want to say that's the transmitter piece, right?).  I got those instructions from the 720 joystick site I mentioned in an earlier post.  If I have these wires in the wrong location please let me know.

I will also go clean up the optos on the control panel and report back- when I move the wheel, the LED's on the encoder board do blink, so I think it's seeing the signal, but obviously something here isn't right or I'd be playing PP right now rather than typing this post!  :(

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Re: Veteran Gamer. 1st-time MAME'r (Pole Position). Help me out pls.
« Reply #24 on: April 18, 2011, 09:38:00 am »
SUCCESS!!!

After basically getting to the point where I wanted to throw the original Sega encoder PCB across the front yard, I decided to go back to the initial plan of using the original mouse PCB and its optos for steering recognition.  I had bailed on this original plan because it was going to require fabricating some type of bracket to mount the mouse PCB on, and when it came to that, plus the fact that I might be able to save the original encoder PCB, I chose to try saving the original PCB.  Wrong choice in this specific case!

5PM EST 4/17:

After I yanked the original encoder PCB, and sat looking at the Intellimouse PCB again, I remembered that I’d brought up 3 mice from my storage tub to use as potentials for this project.  2 were Intellimice, and one was an HP one.  For giggles, I popped open the the HP one to see if its internals were the same as the Intellimouse, and although I recognized that a lot of the components were similar, I got to see something that I’d seen during my research readings, that I’d remembered was a nice thing to have if at all possible: this mouse’s PCB is more like one of the ones you see in various mouse hack pics where it looks like the PCB had been cut in half.   When I first started with this project, and I opened up the Intellimouse, I noticed that if I went down the path of “InsaneDavid”’s project with my setup, I’d have a really tough time trying to mount this PCB in its current form against the gears for the steering wheel.  I thought maybe the board I was seeing in the InsaneDavid shots had been cut somehow, but upon reviewing the one I had, the traces on the back ran the full length of the board. So, trying to cut it down would have been troublesome with someone of my skillset who doesn’t know all of the ‘magic’ regarding adding jumper wires to the traces to keep continuity blah blah blah.

However, the HP PCB is actually manufactured by Logitech (which was the PCB some recommended to be used in some of the other mouse hack articles I’d read).  Looking it over, the only real difference I noticed (apart from the overall length of the PCB compared to the Intellimouse one) was that the axis wheels were different than the kind that was in the Intellimouse.  I removed the Logitech PCB from the HP mouse, took one of the Intellimouse wheels, and spun it in between the optos of the Logitech mouse to see if it would register: it read the wheel perfectly!  This was a great find for me, because in order for this project to work for me, I was going to have to use one of the axis wheels from the Intellimouse, rather than the HP ones.  In order for the project to be a success, I needed to remove the original encoder wheel from the Sega Monaco GP control panel, replace it with an encoder wheel from one of the mice, and then mate the PCB to that.  Well, the encoder wheels from the mice are plastic, and the bigger of the 2 options (the ones from the Intellimouse) is only .75” in diameter.  On top of that, both types of axis wheels do not have a hole in the middle, which is what is required to mount them to the steering wheel gear of the Monaco GP control panel.  I’d already been able to set one of the Intellimouse encoder wheels up for this (since I originally planned on using the Intellimouse PCB and wanted to keep apples with apples), but since this Intellimouse encoder wheel worked fine with the Logitech PCB, I already had everything I needed to make this setup work.  All I had to do was fabricate a mounting bracket for the mouse PCB, and I was on my way!

6:30PM

I wanted to make the mounting bracket out of plastic so I wouldn’t have any shorting issues, and I decided to make it out of an old plastic storage drawer-type thing I had lying around.  The drawers were all clear plastic, and had the dimensions I needed for the bracket once I trimmed away the parts I didn’t need.  Using my Dremel, I cut out an L-shaped bracked that I figured would be sturdy enough to hold the weight of the PCB, as well as be strong enough to resist the pressure from the steering gear.

7:30PM

I must have test-fitted the bracket 10x, trimming and checking, trimming and checking, drilling holes to mount it to the panel, as well as drilling holes where the zip tie would go that would hold the PCB against the mounting bracket.  Once I got that all squared away, next was to make sure that there wasn’t any binding between the steering wheel gear, the axis gear, and the mounting bracket.  I also kept checking the movement of the mouse on the screen in Windows, to ensure I hadn’t lost any of connections or functionality during my test-fitttings.

8:30PM

I loaded up my first game of Atari PP, to be played using a 32-year old Sega steering wheel, steered by a 40-yr old driver.  :)   From my prior tests with trying to get the steering wheel to be detected, I’d jacked the analog dial sensitivity up to its max setting, which is 255%.  Since I wanted to make sure everything worked, I just left that setting where it was, and started the game.  As the game kicked off, I noticed immediately that the steering was working!!  Only problem was, it looked like I’d had 6 Long Island Ice Tea’s prior to driving it- I was all over the road!!!  I immediately hit tab and launched the ‘Analog Controls’ portion of the menu, and dropped that analog dial setting back to 100%.  After I exited the menu, the controls were MUCH better, but now, in my opinion, a bit too low.  I went back in and bumped the sensitivity up again, but this time only to 150%.  After playing about 10 games back-to-back (big grin), I settled on a dial setting somewhere around the 150-mark (it may be at 152 now)- I was just so happy that it was working that I didn’t write down the exact number.  I continued playing the game until about 10PM last night, totally overjoyed by the fact that this cockpit game, which has been sitting dead in my (g)arcade for over 7 months, was now not only breathing with new life, but its original controls were being used with a NEW, and in my opinion, much better, game!

I still have to wire up the shifter and the gas pedal (which I now know how to do), and then will come the final test of trying to sort out the controls I’m using against the Shiftermame 125 software I downloaded.  Either way, I’m simply happy that the steering is working.  In my opinion that’s the hardest part to set up if you want to use an original arcade wheel.

I hope that this post/thread/article will help some others out there who, like me, were somewhat apprehensive about using this technique to get a driving game into their home lineup.  I am so happy that I went this route with this game!