Got a Wingman Warrior that I want to hack only for the spinner

[bobotech]

Any suggestions?  All I want to use is the spinner.  I got the stick for 2 bux at goodwill and the spinner has a nice feel to it, spins well even after you let go, has a flywheel I suppose.

The optical board is just a board with traces leading to a 5 pin plug so it will be easy enough to hopefully mod a ball usb mouse to, has anyone done that before?

And is it possible to remove the spinner from the joystick?  I have no idea how to remove it otherwise I will just cut off as much as plastic as possible and somehow just mount it to a board so I can play tempest.  It isn't really for cab, just for me to play a few games like tempest on my laptop.

[bobotech]

This is the joystick:

[bkenobi]

If you can get the joystick to recognize in MAME, you could just use it as is.

[Necro]

Does that thing freespin?  (meaning, can you keep spinning it around over and over and over)?

[bobotech]

Does that thing freespin?  (meaning, can you keep spinning it around over and over and over)?

Yes.  This is an old crappy gameport/serial port game controller.  I assume the serial port is for the optical encoder on the spinner and the gameport is obviously for the joystick side.

I don't really care about the joystick, I just want to make use of the spinner for mame games.  I am needing a ball mouse that is USB, i don't want to deal with PS2 or serial on a modern computer.

[D_Harris]

Do you really need the Wingman Warrior's optics or is there a way to just use the spinner with the optics of a USB mouse?

And what other hackable controllers are there that have the electronics needed for allowing use of a home-built spinner?

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[Necro]

Take the bottom off the joystick, take some pictures, and post here.  Might make it easier for us to assist...as it is now, not sure.

[bobotech]

Here are the pictures:









I found an old PS2 ball mouse (an hp brand) that I'm going to rip apart and solder to the wires on the optical board on the joystick spinner.

I am rather concerned though that the PS2 to USb adapter that I'm going to use will cause a noticeable lag which I hope doesn't happen.
I have not been able to find a USB ball mouse which is what I really would like to use.

[bobotech]

The optical board on the spinner only has the optical sensors, no other electronics so that is rather helpful to start.

[Vigo]

If you don't mind a little scrounging and thrift shopping, you should be able to find a cheap usb ball mouse. The old dell standard mouse was USB and Ball, and I come across it quite a bit.



I bet you could keep the same encoder wheel on the end of the spinner as well. and just line up the mouse board to the wheel.


You could probably keep the board from the wingman, but I don't know what you would be able to hack off from the main board and still keep the spinner working. I am guessing you could probably chop off at least a bit from the main board and still keep the spinner functional.

[bobotech]

I'm going to start hunting donw a usb ball mouse.

My thinking is that I will keep the original optical board from the wingman and just desolder the optical sensors from the mouse b oard and jumper the proper wires over.  Hopefully that should work.

I just wish to hell I knew how to remove the spinner from the joystick.  I can't firgure out how to remove the knob.

[alfonzotan]

I'm going to start hunting donw a usb ball mouse.

They're all over eBay for $4-5 shipped.  Here's one for $4 (but only a few minutes left):

http://cgi.ebay.com/DELL-0F4177-BLACK-USB-SCROLL-M-UK-DEL3-3-BUTTON-MOUSE-/290562537675?pt=Mice&hash=item43a6e078cb

[bobotech]

Okay, got a cheap usb ball mouse at goodwilling.

The usb mouse optical parts have 3 and 2 wires on the transmitter/receiver.  The transmitter/rec eiver on the Warrior optical board have 3 and 4 wires on them.  I just gotta kind of figure out which is which and hopefully I can get wire them together.