lightguns, how do they work? looking to mod act-labs

[tony.silveira]

hi all,

i am looking to mod the two act-lab guns that i have but don't want to break anything.  they curently work fine but those damn triggers get stuck.  i have opened them up and tried to fix but ultimately, they always go back to getting sticky.

so i had the wonderful idea of buying some arcade lightguns on ebay but from what i understand, they can't be directly wired to work with mame.  so, i have a couple of questions:

1. can they guns be wired to the internal board of an act-lab gun?  my thinking is no, so...

2. how do the optics in a gun work anyway?  my second thought is to gut the act-labs and put the guts into an arcade gun housing but not sure if the lens on the front needs to be a certain distance?

as always, thank you for any help.

t

[SavannahLion]

In a nutshell there are generally few different types.

One type is mechanical. Always linked to the cabinet via some sort of mount. Targeting is accomplished via some form of pot or grey encoder to determine what position the gun is held at. If anything these are most similar to how fixed steering wheels or analog pedals work. They are not like mice.

Another type has an optical eye in the muzzle and is tightly integrated with the CRT commonly used. In short these types of guns are non functilning with any modern flat panel screen. Consoles typically use that technology.

Another type uses similar technology as the Wii in that the sensor in the muzzle is far more sophisticated but does require additional "sensors" around the monitor to get a "fix". This is the preferred method as it is a fair compromise on cost.

I haven't seen too many of the final design but it leverages a camera on the cab and some sort of tracker in the gun. Think 360 or PS3. It is the opposite of the Wii method and more importantly, it moves the bulk of the processing to the computer inside the box.

There are a few other, lesser, designs but you are unlikely to come across them. Nearly any gun can be retrofitted from one type to another. Thing is it helps to know what type hou have and what type you want to switch to as that will indicste what options you'll excercise.

If the trigger is sticky or problematic but the gun works fine otherwise I would diagnose and fix that problem first. Changing gun technologies is, IMHO, a hassle and I've got more than my share of unfinished gun mods on my work bench.

Transplanting guts also works but, it too, is a lot of work if you don't choose a good gun housing for it.

[BadMouth]

First off, what are you using to lubricate the triggers?
You should be using a lubricant that's ok for plastics, like Superlube.
It can be found at Harbor Freight or online.

Your Act Labs guns are optical guns.  CRT screens draw the picture on the screen really fast top to bottom, one pixel at a time.
The guns work by "seeing" which pixel is being drawn when the trigger is pulled. (That is made easier by the screen flashing white)
The Act Labs guns are accurate to within 3 pixels.

There isn't a whole lot to the Act Labs gun.  You can de-solder the optical sensor and place it wherever you like.
You can remove the trigger switch and run wires to the Happ gun.
You can cut down the board to make it smaller, as long as you don't break any of the traces.
It doesn't matter how far back in the gun the sensor is mounted as long as it's view isn't obstructed.
I'm not sure if the clear lens on a Happ gun would cause issues.

Attached is a pic of the board from one of the little silver pistols (not the ray gun).

Someday I plan to transplant these into Happ recoil guns, but I haven't even messed around with them enough to see if they will fit.
I don't really know enough about the arcade guns to know if they could be wired up to the Act Labs boxes.  I doubt so.

[tony.silveira]

thanks guys for the informative posts.  i have a basic understanding of the different gun types, i was asking more abut the physical gun themselves.

there is a lens at the end and the optical sensor in the guts.  i'm more curious if the optical sensor of a crt gun is calibrated in any way to the sensor inside or can i take the sensor from my act-lab and hack it into the case of an arcade gun with it's own lens?  is there a distance that the sensor needs to be from the lens.  etc. etc.

thanks for the feedback so far!

[tony.silveira]

just an update if anyone is interested.  opened the gun, used a product called "krud kutter", a degreaser, to clean the trigger and the guide that it rests in.  next up, i sprayed "rz-50", a dry film lubricant, onto the trigger and guide.  re-assembled and it's like butter now!

thank you for the suggestions!