Any wireless trackball/spinner options? UPDATE: ANDY SAYS YES! reply #7

[monkeybomb]

I need to make a switch from a PS/2 mouse hack to a USB controller.  Before I do I thought I would take a shot in the dark and see if someone had come up with a wireless solution.

[eds1275]

I don't think so but I don't see why not.

[AndyWarne]

We will have quite soon.

[potts43]

We will have quite soon.

Now that sounds interesting!

[monkeybomb]

I'm not sure what you are planning, but I'll let you know where I'm at with this, since I think it's a situation that is becoming very common.  I'm 12 feet from the television and using a PC that thinks it's a console.  I have wireless xbox 360 controllers and a wireless controller hack fightstick.  I have nothing for a trackball/spinner and would like to make a whole frankenpanel wireless.  2 things are that make the 360 controllers great are that they easily cover the distance and have batteries that swap out easily. I leave one battery in the charger and one on the controller.  It's a 20 - 30 second swap including walking across the room for the battery and reconnecting to the PC or xbox.  I haven't been able to find a mouse that works at gaming speed from 12 feet. The one I currently use is okay for media and internet, but not even close for gaming.  Amazon reviews of the wireless gaming mice all talk about major restrictions on distance.  If you solve that, it would be fantastic.  If it had controller or keyboard and mouse interfaces, it would be fantastic plus whatever is better than fantastic.

An issue that may or may not be on your mind is that I'm still not sure what to do about the +5 needed for the happ trackball.

Anyway is this teaser for a product coming out in a month?  10 months?  What made you chime in now?  I want to buy one!

[eds1275]

Just wanted to bump this in the hopes that Ultimarc remembers!

[Xiaou2]

I think the major problem, is that any gaming level mouse will require very rapid poling and thus a lot of communication.
That will cause the batteries to die off quite quickly.

 If the wireless controller is not polling as much,  you may suffer loss of control accuracy.  That can mean the end of your life, especially on high intensity games, such as Tempest.

 To solve this, one might consider a few options:

 1)  An optional power-cord input into the device,  to allow for non battery use... and or possibly to also charge the batteries up.
 2)  Use of larger battery pack than standard wireless controllers.   Such as maybe a  6 D-cell setup?
 

 I really despised my original Logitech wireless mouse, due to its hunger.    It only lasted like one partial day, before needing a battery swap.
I eventually stopped using it as a result.   Later I got a more modern version that boasted like a year battery life...  and surprisingly,  its still on its first set of batteries,  and has not even made it past the half way point.

 Only problem,  is that the Marathon Mouse isnt really a gaming mouse.   Its good for windows operations... but can lag for gaming application.

[AndyWarne]

Our new BlueHID board is now available and can be seen on www.u-hid.com

Although this will support trackball/spinner we dont yet have a suitable trackball for it because our U-Trak requires new low-power opto PCBs which operate at 3.3 volts. These are on the way.

We also have a package available called the Blue-PAC which contains our standard 32-wire switch harnesses. This is listed in the Mini-PAC section of our store. This currently includes the fully featured BlueHID board which also supports trackball/spinner/analog/output control.

The board is pretty much as fast as any USB interface.
It is configurable in the same way as the U-HID or I-PAC but over the air, and has OTA upgradeable firmware.

There is no need for a power switch in most configurations as it only consumes 60 nanoamps in sleep mode and it can power off attached control devices.

The board is currently undergoing Bluetooth compliance certification and is offered for test/evaluation at present.

[monkeybomb]

Will this work for my CP?  I may get one anyway, but I would like to check.  I have a happ trackball and a betson that I pulled from an x-arcade stand alone trackball unit.  With the Blue-pac kit listed right now work with either of those?  Or do I need to wait and purchase a new trackball if I want to go wireless?  The CP I want this for has an oscar vortex spinner as well.  Also, will the interface work from 12 feet away?

[AndyWarne]

The Happ trackball will work if the BlueHID board is powered from 4.5 or 5 volts.

That means the on-board LiPo battery charger cant be used. Also the current consumption of the Happ trackball will be high so you would need a large battery and the unit would need a power switch.

Although the BlueHID board can be configured to power off the trackball when in sleep mode, the board will not be woken by trackball movement because the trackball would be powered off, so it can only be woken by pressing buttons. This means you might need to leave the trackball powered up all the time.
EDIT: In fact the Happ trackball should be able to wake the board. It outputs logic levels rather than pulses and the trackball is polled at intervals during sleep and its state compared to the previous state. If a different state is found, the board wakes.

The range is 50 feet at least.

[drventure]

Please tell me the BlueHiD board will work with a gun controller like the Aimtrak?

[AndyWarne]

Please tell me the BlueHiD board will work with a gun controller like the Aimtrak?

For a device such as the Aimtrak to be Bluetooth, it would need to be designed from the ground up to be so.

Which it will be at some point.

Fact is, wireless devices are designed in an entirely different way to wired, owing to the all-important battery life. Although the BlueHID board has the same functionality as the U-HID or Mini-PAC USB boards, there is no commonality in the design at all.

[eds1275]

If my niece starts behaving, perhaps she can get a trackball addition to her arcade machine!