Difference between Mini-Pac and Mini-Pac Opti. ?

[GeoMan]

Besides the Harness & USB cable, what are the differences between these two Mini-Pacs, as listed on Andy's site?

Mini-Pac Standard - Board Only and Mini-Pac Opti. with Harness & USB cable

For example, can you connect a Spinner/Trackball to Mini-Pac Standard, assuming that you use a USB connection? Or you need the Mini-Pac Opti.?

[Nephasth]

It says right on his site. The standard is for joysticks and switches only. The opti can be used with optical devices such as trackballs and spinners.

[GeoMan]

It says right on his site. The standard is for joysticks and switches only. The opti can be used with optical devices such as trackballs and spinners.

Still it is not clear if the difference is only the harness/USB - the general diagram for Mini-Pac shows trackball & spinner connections. And the main Mini-Pac page says that if connected by USB cable you can connect 2 trackballs & 1 spinner. (Trackballs require +5V for the led)

I'd like to hear from someone who actually uses them.

[Nephasth]

Seems pretty clear to me.

[happyfunball]

I have like 4 or 5 minipacs and the only difference is the trackball/spinner harness. they are identical otherwise, but it is confusing.

[GeoMan]

I have like 4 or 5 minipacs and the only difference is the trackball/spinner harness. they are identical otherwise, but it is confusing.

Are you using any of the basic Minipacs to connect a spinner/trackball? I want to place an order and i must be absolutely sure what to order. I make my own harness, so there's no need to pay extra for a ready made one.

I sent an email to Andy just to be sure and i am waiting for his answer.

[LeedsFan]

/

[Nephasth]

There's a $22 difference between the Standard and the Opti. Common sense would tell you there's an obvious reason for this, but then again, so would a pic with the descriptions circled...

[GeoMan]

There's a $22 difference between the Standard and the Opti. Common sense would tell you there's an obvious reason for this, but then again, so would a pic with the descriptions circled...

Sure, but i prefer to hear from someone who actually uses them or Andy. I don't want to order something that may be of no use to me.

Also the difference between the Mini-Pac Standard: Board Only and the Mini-Pac Standard with Harness is $18. And that price difference is for the harness only... I know because i already use a Mini-Pac Standard: Board Only with my own harness...

My basic board Mini-Pac has 36 connections on the right side: the WinIpac software recognizes 32 joy/key connections (the other 4 are Ground)

But it also has 30 unused connections on the other side. Since these aren't reported by the WinIpac software, i guess that they are used for Trackball/Spinner connections as per the diagram here:

[BobA]

On the old mini pac all functions were on the board.   Just needed to wire it to use via USB.  Why don't you ask an expert?   Just email Andy to see if the board is the same board with or without the connectors?

[GeoMan]

So, i just wired my Spinner to a basic Mini-Pac i had laying around. The Spinner works, so that means that the basic Mini-Pac supports trackball/spinner connections. 

I checked with MouseRate and the average polling rate of the SpinTrak connected through the Mini-Pac is 250Hz. Not bad, but not very good either. My other SpinTrak with it's own dedicated USB circuit reports 500Hz...

I don't know if the Mini-Pac Opti offers better polling rates, but i doubt it...

[Nephasth]

So this whole time you haad the hardware in front of you, but were just too lazy to wire it up and find out to begin with?

[GeoMan]

So this whole time you haad the hardware in front of you, but were just too lazy to wire it up and find out to begin with?

I had to take out the Spinner from my control panel, solder it to a pin header and risk damaging the spare Mini-Pac or the SpinTrak. I would prefer it if someone knew the answer, instead of experimenting... 

[Nephasth]

So you'd rather someone else "risk" their hardware?

[GeoMan]

So you'd rather someone else "risk" their hardware?

No, but someone could have asked Andy before. I got a reply from Andy a few minutes ago, that you can use the bare-bones Mini-Pac to drive the trackball/spinner if you are willing to make your own harness.

[PL1]

I checked with MouseRate and the average polling rate of the SpinTrak connected through the Mini-Pac is 250Hz. Not bad, but not very good either. My other SpinTrak with it's own dedicated USB circuit reports 500Hz...

Don't worry about the polling rate.

Andy addressed that issue here.

I don't know any of the polling rates of anything off hand, but what I do know is that every bit of mame gear I ever saw polled the controls way more often than any of the emulated hardware did.

That's correct. But I think the issue of poll rate comes up because historically using low-speed USB devices and also 8 bit data packets there is a possibility of the data "overflowing" if the device is spun fast.

On our boards, 16 bit data packets are used and also a faster poll rate than low-speed USB because they use full-speed USB so there is no possibility of this happening.

Scott

[RandyT]

I checked with MouseRate and the average polling rate of the SpinTrak connected through the Mini-Pac is 250Hz. Not bad, but not very good either. My other SpinTrak with it's own dedicated USB circuit reports 500Hz...

Don't sweat polling rates.  There is no useful benefit for high polling rates in gameplay, after about 2x the polling rate of the controls used on the original machines, which was ~60hz or less.  With very high resolution devices, which need to be downsampled for accurate play, there is the potential for "backspin" at low polling rates.  Even so, for it to do this requires using the control in a way well outside the boundaries of what gameplay requires, and any possibility of "backspin" can be eliminated by other means internally within the interface.

If you are using a high resolution encoder on industrial machinery for counting cans in a high speed production line, that's a different story