Strongly recommending against Aimtrak

[Garage Battle]

Bought a kit to build 2 guns, have them in PS1 guncon shells.  Install went smooth.  After fighting for a few hours I got one of them calibrated, kinda working with Area 51, but I could tell that for my install I needed a more powerful sensor bar (using a projector), so I bought the super/ultimate sensor bar one for $22.  Tried it today, and instantly it worked better.  No more cursor dropping, extremely confident.  However my guns were out of calibration (because of the limitation of the old sensor bar/original calibration) so I've been trying to get them calibrated.

Ive now been fighting with both guns since 4pm (its 10pm now).  Both guns have the cursor stuck on the far left of the screen, even though both the sensor preview and the X/Y data are showing correctly. 

Fresh installed Windows 7 and still no luck - same issue.  I see no firmware on the website to download and try and restore the guns. 

The configuration utility is beyond sketchy.  You put settings in for button assignment, sensitivity, and it just helps itself and changes all of the settings whenever it wants.

Im seriously done with this.  How is this even a product?  Ive got $25 out in used guns, another $22 for the upgraded sensor bar, and then $70 in parts to build guns, along with aprox 18 hours invested in this so far.

[SavannahLion]

Have you contacted Ultimarc directly? He's really quite good with his support.

I've been here long enough to see him go to great lengths to get his products working for his customers. I haven't bought anything from him since I tend to program my own hardware.

Have you read through the webpage? https://www.ultimarc.com/aimtrak.html

He does mention a few tips that might address a couple of your complaints.

[severdhed]

Have you contacted Ultimarc directly? He's really quite good with his support.

I've been here long enough to see him go to great lengths to get his products working for his customers. I haven't bought anything from him since I tend to program my own hardware.

Have you read through the webpage? https://www.ultimarc.com/aimtrak.html

He does mention a few tips that might address a couple of your complaints.

I agree...contact Andy at Ultimarc.  Their customer service goes above and beyond anything i have ever seen. 

[aldub516]

^^^^ co-signed

[Slippyblade]

You haven't been on the site in 12 years and you show up to complain about a product that lots of folks have no problem with by a vendor that is a pillar of the community?  Good luck with that.

[Xiaou2]

You haven't been on the site in 12 years and you show up to complain about a product that lots of folks have no problem with by a vendor that is a pillar of the community?  Good luck with that.

 That has no bearing on the issue.    You should not make things personal.
People do have the right to be upset and frustrated.

[romshark]

I can also vouch for the Aimtrak as a quality, working product. Some may complain about a little accuracy error (compared to traditional Lightgun / CRT setups), but for a casual like me, it's fantastic.

I'm not sure about the super/ultimate sensor bar, as I don't think that came from Ultimarc, so that might be something. Similar to how the Aimtraks don't work with a Wii sensor bar, but my Wiimotes work just fine with the Ultimarc sensor bar. If the sensor preview is working OK with it, you can probably rule that out.

A few things to try:
Do the guns work correctly on the windows desktop? If so, then there's a problem in the emulator setup. If the cursor is also stuck in the corner on the destop, then there's an issue with the hardware setup.
Are the guns set up for the correct player? I ask this since there was a clean install done (probably including MAME), as well as issues of controllers getting different hardware IDs when booting. That's a whole other can of worms, and topics abound in the software forum. It's more of an issue with Windows than anything.
And finally, is the gun calibrated in the test menu of the game? Some, like Carnevil, will not work until calibrated within the game. Dunno about Area 51 off the top of my head. But if MAME's built-in cursors don't work correctly, then this is probably not the source of the issue.

You say the sensor preview and X / Y data are providing correct data. Sounds like you're halfway there. There's a guide from Ultimarc here on setting MAME up for the guns. Make sure your mame.ini has the correct options set.

[DarthMarino]

How big is the screen you are running on?

[CheffoJeffo]

You haven't been on the site in 12 years and you show up to complain about a product that lots of folks have no problem with by a vendor that is a pillar of the community?  Good luck with that.

 That has no bearing on the issue.    You should not make things personal.
People do have the right to be upset and frustrated.

Being upset and frustrated are integral elements to this hobby, so I agree with "have the right."

OTOH, this wasn't "I am upset and frustrated -- help me!" It was an attack and dismissal of a product and vendor that people here like. Of course they take it personally.

To the OP: take a breath, e-mail Andy. I don't think I have ever seen him fail to make a situation right.

[Sky25es]

I have an Aimtrak gun and it works flawlessly....
Andy is a very helpful & nice guy. As said before: Ask him first. I'm sure you can work it out.

[yotsuya]

Wait, you bought USED guns? Are you sure they were 100% working when you got them?

[yotsuya]

Edit: nevermind - the used guns were probably for the shells.

[AndyWarne]

Just spotted this.

If the OP had contacted me about this I could have supplied firmware which fixes the "stuck on the left" issue.

So, I am awaiting email at andy@ultimarc.com and I will send the fix.

Andy

[CheffoJeffo]

And there you have it ...   

[lilshawn]

I've never bought anything from you Andy, but rest assured if I need something that you offer... i'll be coming to you for it.

A+ job man. 

[pbj]

A+ would have been shipping products that didn't have firmware issues with the world's most popular desktop operating system.

[CheffoJeffo]

Why do I see this in my mind's eye?