Hey guys,
Just to clarify, I also had the grounding out issue, and thought it might have been an issue with the aimtrak calibration from holding down button too long. So I increased calibration duration to 60 and it seems to be OK.
I guess I should try one of the other two pins on the trigger switch now.
I've been thinking about removing the circuit, or connecting up the LED portion of the circuit, you might note with Skyblue's excellent instructions the LED has a nice clean signal that comes thru on each of the modes, I'm guessing that it might be easy enough to get some kind of relay switch circuit that is small enough, and throw it in between the LED wires on the board. I mean after all it would be simply the case of a switch that once receiving a signal controlled the two wires of the solenoid and shorted them for only a short time, lets say 1s max duration, and then off again until trigger is released, and then pressed again, which sends signal to LED pins, and starts the whole process off again. Does anyone know what that kind of switch is called? I don't know what it's called and it's making it harder for me to solve this in an alternative way. There are many ways to do this mod after some thought and reading through all peoples contributions.
I'm kind of bummed out because I can't figure out why the solenoid isn't firing in either of my guns, I got the right pins on the solenoid, it looks like there are subtle differences on the real arcade machine guns we've all had, the PCB is obviously being revised over time, and I dunno why they all have different colours in them, but its damnright tricky sometimes to figure it out. Sometimes better to look on the PCB than follow instructions blindly.
I work with a ton of qualified technicians, hundreds, there is no doubt in my mind that one of them could solve this, and so I will subscribe them into this adventure on the understanding that the arcade machine for the entire company relies on super awesome recoil, and possibly a way to disable it.
So, I forgot to say, I've modded two guns now. More pictures of second round coming soon. As for my potential ground problem, well it's actually not a problem seemingly, although the gun bears the annoying absurdity of pressing click down, but not mouse click release, quite infuriating since you cant double click with the gun!, i take it this the ground causing this, actually I think I untick the calibration in aimtrak utility to hide the ground problem, without realising it.
Well, this is a bit rushed, but I hope that everyone can look forward to a potential alternative circuit for the solenoid. For most people with little electronic experience I can see why this could be hard, and maybe we are all over complicating it a little bit, we only need the trigger, second switch sitting on trigger, that has a relay for the solenoid power supply, so bypass the pcb board & naturally wire the theaimtrak circuit as before, the rest (apart from maybe the norgun switch, should go). Do we really need a 555? I guess, but if we're going to use it we want to get autofire working, right?
more from me soon, and maybe a more coherent update too
Best wishes,
Adam