Aimtrak guys - wireless guns?

[TopJimmyCooks]

Would it be possible to run aimtrak guns or other usb guns wirelessly with pairs of these usb wireless things?

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1337



and a battery?  It probably wouldn't all fit in the pistol shell, but is the concept sound?

[Ed_McCarron]

For starters, even if the link would carry all the needed data (didn't really dig) -- you'd need to write the code to pass the USB data.

Warning about radio regulations: The Wixel has not been tested or certified for conformance with any radio regulations, and the Wixel is shipped with only a bootloader that does not use the radio. The 2.4 GHz band is relatively unrestricted in many parts of the world, but it is your responsibility to comply with your local regulations if you program your Wixel to use its wireless capabilities.

I just stuck a 10' extension cable on mine.

[bkenobi]

I'd be a little worried about lag, but they look like they're worth a try.  You'll need 1/gun which could get a bit spendy beyond the $80/gun price tag (assuming you go with the Aimtrak gun housing as well).  On the other hand, if you're already in $80/gun, what's another $20 plus $20/gun (1 receiver for PC + 1 transmitter/gun)?

I'd probably wait till you hear from Andy on whether there's any specific incompatibilty that he may see.  

[drventure]

If the aimtrack had this as a daughterboard option, I'd be all over that. Wireless guns would just flat rock!

[TopJimmyCooks]

No idea here of the throughput required for the guns or the lag this would create.  I just saw the product and immediately thought of USB guns.  as far as cost, if I was doing aimtrak at $80/gun I would def. consider wireless at $120/gun.  I don't think this would fit in the aimtrak shells but It would in some of those nerf conversion shells.

there's no positional information sent from the gun, that's given by the reciever, so it's just like keypresses being sent.  seems like it could be worked out to keep that on track for speed.

it's strange that the thing requires coding to even pass what it gets via usb straight through?  The usb must just be a programming interface but not necessarily the source of the signal it's radioing.  I would pick up a couple to mess with but I don't have any guns.  maybe use the analog inputs to test a wireless joystick+ 1 button controller or something.

[AndyWarne]

This would not work as the wireless module would need to have a USB host controller for the gun to connect to, which of course it doesnt have.

If you compare a wired to wireless mouse, the design is totally different. The dongle which plugs into the PC is actually the mouse as far as the PC is concerned. The actual mouse just sends positional data over the wireless link but the mouse itself has no USB functionality. The gun would work the same way.
There are two possible enhancements to future versions, namely recoil and wireless but they are unfortunately mutually exclusive, at least as far as a proper recoil goes, so there might at some point be a recoil and a wireless version but not a wireless with recoil.

I am at present designing a wireless mouse for a client, and we might use the same dongle for a future Aimtrak version which will make it more viable.

Bluetooth is another option but that is quite impractical unless millions of them are being made.

[Ed_McCarron]

there's no positional information sent from the gun, that's given by the reciever

Wait, wat?

On the aimtrak (at least mine...) the camera that mounts in the gun IS the 'receiver.'  The other part is just a few LED's that the camera tracks.  The brains in the gun (or in the PC... not sure where the math actually gets done...) convert the position of the blobs visible on the camera to mouse coordinates that get passed to the PC.

At least thats how I understand it.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Ed, I was wrong on that.