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Author Topic: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup  (Read 41194 times)

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twistedsymphony

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Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« on: January 06, 2016, 09:23:13 am »
I have been searching for one of those global vr usb gun boards to try my hand at a multi shooter and ran across this. I figured someone would like it.

I recently bought a complete Sega Type-II IR Gun setup (used in Jurassic Park, HOTD2 and every light gun game Sega has made since).

It uses 10 or 12 IR sensors around the monitor and the gun board is designed to work with a normal JST I/O board which means it's just simple analog stick signals (0-5V for x-pos and 0-5V for y-pos). I'm planning on using an A-PAC or something similar to have it mapped in the PC as an an analog joystick or mouse pointer. I haven't got the parts in yet by I'm hoping it will allow me to have legit arcade controls for light-gun use.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 03:58:47 pm by BadMouth »

Howard_Casto

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2016, 01:14:29 pm »
Keep us in the loop.  It sounds like an interesting solution.

05SRT4

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2016, 01:37:02 pm »
*

twistedsymphony

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2016, 02:19:24 pm »
Keep us in the loop.  It sounds like an interesting solution.

I'll definitely start a thread about it once I have all the hardware together and start working out the details.

DudeRegular

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2016, 05:04:35 pm »
I have been searching for one of those global vr usb gun boards to try my hand at a multi shooter and ran across this. I figured someone would like it.

I recently bought a complete Sega Type-II IR Gun setup (used in Jurassic Park, HOTD2 and every light gun game Sega has made since).

It uses 10 or 12 IR sensors around the monitor and the gun board is designed to work with a normal JST I/O board which means it's just simple analog stick signals (0-5V for x-pos and 0-5V for y-pos). I'm planning on using an A-PAC or something similar to have it mapped in the PC as an an analog joystick or mouse pointer. I haven't got the parts in yet by I'm hoping it will allow me to have legit arcade controls for light-gun use.
Interested to see how that turns out for you. That may be another option for me. I have some happ 45s that are ready to go and a big showcase cab with a 34 in monitor that i wanted to use.

twistedsymphony

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2016, 09:43:15 am »
Interested to see how that turns out for you. That may be another option for me. I have some happ 45s that are ready to go and a big showcase cab with a 34 in monitor that i wanted to use.

I don't want to derail this thread any further but I've got my research so far cataloged here: http://arcade-projects.com/forums/index.php?thread/627-shooting-gallery-sega-type-ii-ir-on-a-108-front-projection-setup

BadMouth

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2016, 10:42:34 am »
For some reason adding guns to this subforum makes sense to me, but I have a feeling we would get a bunch of people posting about their real guns and cars.
I'd like to see all the gun info in one place, but I'm not sure it needs it's own subforum.
90% of the posts would probably be from people who can't get their aim-traks working because they haven't read the instructions.

twistedsymphony

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #7 on: January 07, 2016, 11:34:03 am »
For some reason adding guns to this subforum makes sense to me, but I have a feeling we would get a bunch of people posting about their real guns and cars.
I'd like to see all the gun info in one place, but I'm not sure it needs it's own subforum.
90% of the posts would probably be from people who can't get their aim-traks working because they haven't read the instructions.

I wouldn't mind seeing a "light gun" sub forum... there doesn't seem to be any good sub-forum for it. information is scattered all over the place. If you were to merge it with this forum it might make sense to make it a "specialized controls" forum to cover everything OTHER than digital joysticks and buttons. I don't know that I'd want to muddy the great driving forming we've got here with light gun, track ball, and other stuff though.

As for the Aim-Track posts... at least if there's a sub-forum for light-guns you could make a sticky for Aim-Trak troubleshooting and hopefully curb a lot of the new posts from popping up.


DudeRegular

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #8 on: January 07, 2016, 02:07:02 pm »
Concur. Make it so please.

Howard_Casto

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2016, 02:40:03 pm »
For some reason adding guns to this subforum makes sense to me, but I have a feeling we would get a bunch of people posting about their real guns and cars.
I'd like to see all the gun info in one place, but I'm not sure it needs it's own subforum.
90% of the posts would probably be from people who can't get their aim-traks working because they haven't read the instructions.

Saint if you are listening.....

Perhaps we need a "speciality controls/cabinets" forum group and a forum for each control that people have issues with.  I'd like to see a lightgun forum similar to this one.  Out of all my apps over the years, troubleshooter 2 gets the most email and questions because lightguns, both on the hardware and software side of things are just weird.  Especially now that we are in an era where most diy cabinets use lcds and thus most simple lightgun solutions don't work, it makes a lot of sense. 

BadMouth

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Re: Re: Immersion USB arcade PCB wiring pinout and drivers
« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2016, 02:50:12 pm »
I put a POLL in the main forum asking if people want a GUN subforum.
Go vote and comment.
I'm surprised there aren't any comments.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=149002.0
(the poll doesn't show up in tapatalk)

EDIT:  I split these posts from the immersion thread to keep that thread more focused.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2016, 07:01:11 pm by BadMouth »

twistedsymphony

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #11 on: January 09, 2016, 12:13:33 am »
Interested to see how that turns out for you. That may be another option for me. I have some happ 45s that are ready to go and a big showcase cab with a 34 in monitor that i wanted to use.
I'm assuming you're planning a MAME setup? is that what the global vr usb gun board allows you to do? because I haven't heard of any solution that lets you use CRT based arcade guns on a PC.

I know a looked into a number of options for using legit arcade guns and came up with no real tangable options.  I eventually learned that even the CRT based Sega Gun games starting with Lost World used IR and that the light gun setup was essentially completely separate from the core game hardware and could potentially be used on PC.

It's worth noting that the light gun setup BEFORE the Model 3 hardware was also separate and used CRT based positioning. The Sega Model 2 Light Gun setup (Virtua Cop 1 and 2, House of the Dead 1, etc.) has a separate PCB that the video feeds through for sync. The gun position is then sent to the main game board through a normal serial interface. It might be possible feed that serial data into an arduino or similar to emulate an analog joystick or mouse pointer position.

I put a POLL in the main forum asking if people want a GUN subforum.
Go vote and comment.
I'm surprised there aren't any comments.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=149002.0
(the poll doesn't show up in tapatalk)

EDIT:  I split these posts from the immersion thread to keep that thread more focused.

Thanks for the poll, and for the split ;)

Jollywest

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #12 on: January 09, 2016, 02:28:01 am »
I'm assuming you're planning a MAME setup? is that what the global vr usb gun board allows you to do?...

Sure is buddy  ;) > https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=138723.0

Also interested to see how this idea works out you.
Your idea seems like a much better IR solution than what's out there at the minute... good luck!
« Last Edit: January 09, 2016, 02:29:58 am by Jollywest »

DudeRegular

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #13 on: January 09, 2016, 11:13:25 am »
Jollywest's thread has been the model of what I am after. I plan to start with MAME and then maybe expand from there.

My other possible idea is trying out the gun board from raw thrills games. These actually pass video through vga in to jamma out. I was able to get a pc to show video on a standard res monitor but could not get any inputs to work. It is likely a driver deal. I was borrowing the board from a buddy though.

twistedsymphony

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #14 on: January 09, 2016, 09:22:39 pm »
I'm assuming you're planning a MAME setup? is that what the global vr usb gun board allows you to do?...

Sure is buddy  ;) > https://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=138723.0

Also interested to see how this idea works out you.
Your idea seems like a much better IR solution than what's out there at the minute... good luck!


for the longest time I was planning on going CRT light-gun because I wasn't really a fan of IR solutions. I was planning on getting a HOTD2 mirror cab because That was easily one of my favorite light-gun games and a really excellent cab, compact but with a good sized monitor and the mirror adds some "distance" to keep it challenging. Then come to find out even Sega's CRT games from that era used IR so I started looking into that more seriously.  I'm sure Sega did it for ease of development. Much easier to just develop one set of hardware that works in all cab configurations. But in all my years of playing HOTD2 I never suspected that it was using IR, it always tracked perfectly and responded quickly.

I've still got a bunch of parts to collect before I can do any real testing but I've got all the difficult to source stuff already. I'm excited to see how it works but it will probably be a few weeks at least until I have something to test.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #15 on: January 10, 2016, 12:10:33 am »
Twisted where are you at? I have seen some busted gun games go dirt cheap at the winston auction before. I considered a jurassic park sit down. It went for 25 and actually worked mostly.  Just so big to grab for just parts.

twistedsymphony

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2016, 08:23:44 am »
I'm located in NH... arcade selection around here is very slim. nearly all of my machines were shipped from some place else.

the nearest auction is a 5 hour drive away in CT. I've never attended but there's a lot of really bad reviews about them not paying consignors, and having shill bidders driving up the price of the lots. Rumor is they're going to be shut down soon due to lawsuits.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2016, 08:25:50 am by twistedsymphony »

twistedsymphony

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2016, 05:27:36 pm »
since this is it's own thread now... I built all the harnesses needed and got all the gun board working with an original NAOMI unit



video of it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BBf8TNyTGM-/?taken-by=twistedchu

As for adapting this to a PC for use with MAME and other emulators, I've confirmed that the gun sense board output does indeed go between 0V and 5V. On the Y-axis 0V is at the bottom and 5V at the top, but for X axis 0V is on the right and 5V is on the left. I'm wondering if this is because they originally designed the board for use in a mirror cab where left and right reversed. In any case once I have an analog I/O for the PC to test with we'll see if the X-Axis can be inverted .

I still haven't got around to ordering an A-PAC or uHID but I want to get this setup up and running on my projector before I work on adapting it to a PC.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #18 on: February 07, 2016, 06:36:37 pm »
Yeah both x an y are inverted.... typically the top of the screen is 0. 

If it's sending a variable analog output then there shouldn't be any issues adapting it to the pc.  What about off-screen shooting (reload)?  I'm guessing the triggers just use the standard jamma harness correct?  How about force-feedback (if any)?

How much was the unit?  I'm just trying to decide if this is more economical than the wiimote solution.

Assuming they don't cost too much, the interface solution I would use personally would be a cheap 6 dollar Arduino clone.  There aren't a lot of I/O pins, just the triggers and x, y and an Arduino would allow for easy switching between dual joysticks and dual mice, allowing for maximum compatibility.  It could even handle some force-feedback or blinky lights....... basically an entire light gun cab could run on the one board. 

twistedsymphony

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #19 on: February 07, 2016, 11:15:44 pm »
Yeah both x an y are inverted.... typically the top of the screen is 0. 
top right is 00,00
bottom left is FF,FF

If it's sending a variable analog output then there shouldn't be any issues adapting it to the pc.  What about off-screen shooting (reload)?  I'm guessing the triggers just use the standard jamma harness correct?  How about force-feedback (if any)?
this system is too new for JAMMA, it's JVS based which is why it works this way since JVS uses separate boards for each function instead of integrating everything onto the game PCB.

the Gun board sends an "off-screen" signal that is tied to button 1 so if it loses track of the gun it sends position 00,00 and "pushes" button 1 for that player. The trigger is button 2. There's no provisions on Gun board for kick back but that's because it doesn't need to, those provisions are handled by the normal JVS I/O board, or in the case of a setup on a PC could be handled by something like a PAC drive.  The Gun board pretty much only serves to track the gun position, I'm honestly surprised they even bothered with passing the trigger button signal through it.

My guns don't have kick back but the mold has a slot for the solenoids, I'm honestly not sure which games offered it. House of the Dead 4 and other newer Sega games also featured an accelerometer and an additional button for an alternate fire mode. Again, none of these were routed through the Gun board, they went straight to the JVS I/O since the Gun board just does pointer tracking.

How much was the unit?  I'm just trying to decide if this is more economical than the wiimote solution.
This is NOT an economical solution, There are 10 IR emittor boards that go for $25-$35 a piece, the sensors in the guns tend to go for $90-$150 a piece and the Gun Sense board tends to go for $100-$150 if you can find a working one, and I don't think I've ever seen the Gun-protection board for sale. [There's a design flaw with the gun sensors where they tend to kill the gun sense board, the protect board fixes this, but it's also why the price of the parts is so high  (lots of boards getting killed by this over the years), would be pretty simple to build your own though, it's all just passive components.] Then you have all the harnesses and of course the gun shells and hoses. I bought all of my parts together in a lot for $250 and I've easily spent another $60 or so just on connectors and wire to build the harnesses to put it all together.

My goal was never a cheap solution, I wanted a solution that used actual arcade guns.

The cheapest method would be to pick up a Sega Jurassic Park game on the cheap. I've heard lots of stories of people picking them up for as low as $75-$150 range, which is a steal considering the e-bay prices for the gun electronics.


Assuming they don't cost too much, the interface solution I would use personally would be a cheap 6 dollar Arduino clone.  There aren't a lot of I/O pins, just the triggers and x, y and an Arduino would allow for easy switching between dual joysticks and dual mice, allowing for maximum compatibility.  It could even handle some force-feedback or blinky lights....... basically an entire light gun cab could run on the one board. 
So far it seems like my options are the U-HID, A-PAC and the Arduino based KADE setup. U-HID looks nice but not worth the $80 price tag, Feature wise the A-PAC isn't bad but I really really hate the screw terminals that Ultimarc insist on putting on everything they make... I'd rather have connectors for everything. The Kade setup is definitely the cheapest but it only supports up to 4 axis at the moment. That will get me by for now since that's technically all I'll need to get up and running with these guns, but if I do decide to add in accelerometers for support in certain games then I'll have to find another option.

Xiaou2

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #20 on: February 07, 2016, 11:31:16 pm »
 A Wiimote only has one bar... so the accuracy will not be anywhere near as good as a multi bar system.

 Aimtrac is pretty much the same way.

 Andy didnt want to add a second bar... as he stated that you would need to stand further away from the screen for the gun
sensor to see both LED bars....

 However... Im pretty positive that all Arcade guns use a wide-angle lens... allowing the gun to see both sets of IR boards without any issues.

 Someone popped a wide angle lens on their LCDTopguns.. and it worked flawlessly, and allowed them to stand about half of more distance closer to the display / bars  without any issues at all.

 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #21 on: February 07, 2016, 11:40:10 pm »
Quote
but I really really hate the screw terminals that Ultimarc insist on putting on everything they make.

 This is a simple fix.   Cut connector cables (females) and screw them into the terminals.   Then plug the male ends into the females.



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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #22 on: February 08, 2016, 12:39:34 am »
I experimented with the wiimote a few years back and with some additional hardware and custom software it does a pretty good job.  The problem has always been the pairing....  they just act funky on a standard Bluetooth connection.  Different lenses would most likely help as you are suggesting. 

The sensors.... are they just IR, or sonic or what?  That part of the setup could most likely be built for a few cents a board judging from the part count. 

I've never looked into the Jurassic World guns, but I guess I should now. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #23 on: February 08, 2016, 01:05:35 am »
Hey if someone can find it post the Jurassic Park manual here.  I'm having a hard time finding it due to the recently released 2015 game.  There's an I/O board on eBay for 30 bucks right now, but I don't have a clue what else a person would need. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #24 on: February 08, 2016, 04:44:05 am »
The Kade setup is definitely the cheapest but it only supports up to 4 axis at the moment. That will get me by for now since that's technically all I'll need to get up and running with these guns, but if I do decide to add in accelerometers for support in certain games then I'll have to find another option.
If you're referring to KADESTICK, then yes, the currently-available firmwares are 2- and 4-axis versions even though the ATmega32U4 board can handle up to 11 analog inputs.

If you want up to 8 analog axes, check out the maxArcade prototype in KADE Loader -- USB/HID Joystick 2 Player with Analog (Beta) firmware.

If you don't see the pull-down board option for maxArcade in Loader, click on "Advanced -- Beta Version -- Receive Beta Updates".

For info on ordering the correct AT90USB646 board and bootloader to "roll your own", see the KADE-compatible AVR vendors list.


Scott

twistedsymphony

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #25 on: February 08, 2016, 07:32:05 am »
Quote
but I really really hate the screw terminals that Ultimarc insist on putting on everything they make.

 This is a simple fix.   Cut connector cables (females) and screw them into the terminals.   Then plug the male ends into the females.
My gripes with screw terminals is 1, they're unreliable and tend to come lose overtime from vibration and 2, they're really messy, adding pigtails to them does not solve either one of these issues, I've looked into replacing them with pin headers but the spacing is so far apart it's just a total pain in the ass to do so.

Hey if someone can find it post the Jurassic Park manual here.  I'm having a hard time finding it due to the recently released 2015 game.  There's an I/O board on eBay for 30 bucks right now, but I don't have a clue what else a person would need. 
Here are all the manuals for all the games that I know of that use this system. They're are several revisions over time, but for the most part they're all compatible and all work the same way. The Gun protect board I mentioned I think was introduced around House of the Dead III.

From oldest to newest:
1997 - The Lost World:
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade//Manual/formated/The_Lost_World_-_1997_-_Sega.pdf
1998 - The House of the Dead 2:
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade//Manual/formated/House_of_the_Dead_2_-_1998_-_Sega.pdf
1999 - Brave Firefighters:
http://www.mamechannel.it/files_free/arcade_manuals_unpacked/braveff.pdf
2000 - Confidential Mission:
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade//Manual/formated/Confidential_Mission_-_2000_-_Sega.pdf
2000 - Death Crimson OX (Japan Only)
-- No Manual --
2001 - Lupin the 3rd: The Shooting (Japan only)
--No Manual--
2002 - The Maze Of The Kings (missing schematic)
http://www.gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade//Manual/formated/The_Maze_of_the_Kings_-_2002_-_Sega.pdf
2003 - The House of the Dead III:
http://www.crazykong.com/manuals/HouseOfDead3.man.pdf
2003 - Virtua Cop 3:
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade//Manual/formated/Virtua_Cop_3_-_2003_-_Sega.pdf
2004 - Ghost Squad:
http://gamesdbase.com/Media/SYSTEM/Arcade//Manual/formated/Ghost_Squad_-_2004_-_Sega.pdf
2005 - House of the Dead 4:
https://archive.org/details/ArcadeGameManualHod4-manual
2007 - 2 Spicy:
http://d2q2ufly9wqg0k.cloudfront.net/sharedfiles/2%20Spicy%20Manual.pdf
2007 - Ghost Squad Evolution:
http://www.playkom.ru/upload/manuals/GHOST_SQUAD_evolushion.pdf
2008 - Primevil Hunt:
https://archive.org/details/primeivilhuntmanual
2008 - Rambo:
-- no manual --
2008 - The House of the Dead EX:
-- no manual --
2010 - Golden Gun:
http://www.bmigaming.com/Games/Manuals/sega/golden-gun-video-arcade-shooting-game-operators-manual-sega.pdf
2012 - Operation G.H.O.S.T.:
http://www.bmigaming.com/Games/Manuals/sega/operation-ghost-42-video-arcade-shooting-game-operators-manual-sega.pdf



The sensors.... are they just IR, or sonic or what?  That part of the setup could most likely be built for a few cents a board judging from the part count. 

I've never looked into the Jurassic World guns, but I guess I should now. 
Sensors are IR. The small boards around the display are IR LEDS but they blink at high speed in a pattern, I think this is so that the gun can potentially only see a few of them at a time and still work since it will know which sensors in the array they are. There are 2 LEDs a Resistor a cap and a couple of ICs on each one of these boards. The board in the gun has even less components but most of it is hidden under a glued plastic cap so I don't really know what's going on under there.

On my test setup with a 21" diagonal spacing around the monitor I could play with the gun as close as 23" before it started having signal problems.

If you're referring to KADESTICK, then yes, the currently-available firmwares are 2- and 4-axis versions even though the ATmega32U4 board can handle up to 11 analog inputs.

If you want up to 8 analog axes, check out the maxArcade prototype in KADE Loader -- USB/HID Joystick 2 Player with Analog (Beta) firmware.

If you don't see the pull-down board option for maxArcade in Loader, click on "Advanced -- Beta Version -- Receive Beta Updates".

For info on ordering the correct AT90USB646 board and bootloader to "roll your own", see the KADE-compatible AVR vendors list.


Scott

Thanks for that info! I'll check it out.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2016, 10:38:56 am by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #26 on: February 08, 2016, 10:38:46 am »
I meant the earlier Jurassic Park game as you said it could be bought for cheap, but I appreciate the links anyway.  ;)

The blink pattern thing is rather brilliant.  I had been thinking of a complicated equation to determine which leds the gun is seeing, but that makes a lot more sense.  In addition, that explains the strange led assembly and I now get what is going on.  The small chips on the led boards are most likely addressable LED chips daisy-chained together.  You know, like the ones used on those controllable led light strips you see on ebay.  Inside the gun it's most likely a simple ir camera and chip to calculate the position.  (Aka a wiimote)

All you need to do is turn 3 leds on at a time, enough to triangulate the position.  The math would be different for each pattern, but other than that it wouldn't be terribly hard to do.  The distance between each of the 3 leds tells you how close the gun is (scale multiplier) and the distance the leds are from the center of the screen gives the position.  The gun would never have to see the whole bezel, just one edge, which is how it can still track when you are so close to it.  You always know which leds it's pointed at as you only turn on 3 at a time, rapidly, in sequence.   

I'm not sure if you can get a camera module for a reasonable price, but if so this is probably buildable.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #27 on: February 08, 2016, 11:27:03 am »
Some more detailed information about the actual hardware used:

LED Boards... There are 10 of these (the lost world uses 12 though I believe). 5 across the top and 5 across the bottom. I think the 12 sensor setup used an addition sensor on the left and right sides.
The lost world used a version with two verical LEDs, then with HOTD2 they changed it to 2 horizonal LEDs with a little hood:


at some point later they changed again to a version that uses 4 LEDs and no hood:

From what I understand they're all intercompatible, you can have a mixed collection of these boards in the daisy-chain and it still works fine.

I do believe the order of the sensors in the chain matters though. It starts one in from the bottom right of the screen then goes around clock wise ending on the bottom right.


Sensor Board... this is littereally the only thing inside the gun aside from the trigger switch

there are a few different revisions of this, I've seen them with longer or shorter lenses depending on the gun casing they're going in, but from what I understand you can use any sensor with any Gun I/O revision, the pin out is the same and the Gun I/O doesn't care. It has a trigger signal wire, and a ground reference and the rest of the pins are for the sensor.

Gun I/O Board:

Many different revisions of this board, the early ones for Lost world need 12 sensors, but the rest only need 10. They all have the same connectors, a 2-pin 12V power connector, a connector for each gun, a connector for the LED board daisy-chain, and an 9-pin output connector for the analog X and Y on each gun as well as a trigger and "screen out" "buttons" as well as a ground reference.

The 3-pin CN1 connector doesn't seem to be used though  mine has a connector that jumps pins 1 and 2 so maybe it's some kind of external jumper setup.

Gun Protect Board:

This connects to the gun connectors on the Gun I/O and then the guns plug into this. They started using this around 2003 and I believe they sold these board separately for people who wanted to retrofit them to older games. Newer Games use a fancier "fuse board" that also includes fuses and protection circuits for the recoil solinoid.

this board is technically not required, it's recommended that you run one if you don't want your ish to break.

If you want any detailed pictures of the boards or IC numbers let me know.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #28 on: February 08, 2016, 06:18:08 pm »
hmm... a pic of the back of the gun sensor would be helpful.....

Keep in mind I'm kind of a dummy when it comes to IC and solid state stuff, but just at first glance.......

The gun I/O board seems to do the heavy lifting.  That largish chip on the board most likely takes the gun sensor data and converts it to something useful.  Most of the other chips look like timing junk... probably used for the led array. 

Those led lights.... there might be something off-the-shelf that would work considering how much leeway you said the board gives you in terms of revisions.  Ditto for the gun sensor and those are the two most costly parts.  That would reduce the cost dramatically as the main board seems to retail for 30-50 dollars on ebay..... it's the other stuff that's costly.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #29 on: February 08, 2016, 10:02:35 pm »
I took apart one of the guns and snapped some photos:

it's pretty empty in there.


Here is what it looks like under the lens:



Here's what the sensor looks like under the lens:

kind of hard to capture what it looked like in a photo but it was a purple plasticy sub-straight that looked like it had ink blotches on it, it kind of reminded me of a solar panel. I don't think it's a camera more like a light sensor.

the back side had 3 pots (or maybe adjustable caps?) with the lens on there are holes to get to the adjusters


It's also worth noting that the Gun I/O board I posted earlier is a very new revision. mine is an older NAOMI-era board with much larger through-hole chips:

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #30 on: February 08, 2016, 10:18:58 pm »
Huh......

You know I might be more confused then before.  Unless that sensor has some surface mount chips under that copper pad that sensor has a whole lot of nothing in there.  Three pots would indicate three analog values of some kind.... X Y and Z?  9 pins could be the analog pins for each, but I'm just guessing.

I think the key to understanding what exactly this system does is to find that sensor in a regular old electronic parts catalog.  It looks suspiciously like a light sensor with the IR filter tore off. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #31 on: February 09, 2016, 07:16:35 am »
I was thinking about this more last night and assuming the sensor is just a simple light sensor it's possible that it works on simple triangulation (or even biangulation since it's a flat surface) where it reads the intensity of each LED and uses that to calculate the pointer position. For that to work though the sensor would have to be sensitive to the light distance parallel to the sensing surface as opposed to perpendicular. Then I thought, I'm not even sure that's physically possible (then again I don't know much about light sensors).

Some searching I came across a type of IR sensor called a "PIR" sensor which is used in motion detection. these seem to have two sensing surfaces such that it can detect basic movement of light from one region to the next (hence motion detection). Adafruit has a good explanation: https://learn.adafruit.com/pir-passive-infrared-proximity-motion-sensor/how-pirs-work

that coupled with the LED array flashing in in sequence could very well be used to not only tri-angulate the position of the gun but also determine the angle at which the gun is pointed.

----------
EDIT: I forgot to mention the reason the sensor board has 9 pins is because 2 of them go back out to the trigger. so 7 come in from the Gun I/O then it has 2 that go back out to the trigger. I don't think the sensor needs the trigger information, I think they just did this for ease of wiring. Technically the sensor only uses 6 wires, at least one of which is a ground reference that is shared with the trigger.

I also don't believe there is any IC under the covered part of the board, I didn't want to pull it off and risk damaging anything but it looked like only thing under there were a bunch of surface mount resistors/diodes/caps (unsure since I only saw them from the side)
« Last Edit: February 09, 2016, 08:24:44 am by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #32 on: February 09, 2016, 12:55:59 pm »
Heh.... we must have been searching the same sites.  The PIR sensor was my guess as well.  The thing is, they aren't terribly accurate, especially when detecting a x and y value.  I skimmed some patents and there are variants of these that have multiple sensors setup in a grid, but they don't resemble the part on the guns in the least.

Yeah I saw that resistor cutting off two of the pins last night. 


I'll search Arduino forums later this evening to see if I can find one that shows a PIR sensor X/Y detection example. 

This system might not be as hard to clone as it seems.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #33 on: February 09, 2016, 01:27:23 pm »
As far as Ive recall, a camera phone can see LEDs lit up. 

 The glass on the sensor appears to be a filter coating.

 It might be a camera, that is filtered to see pretty much only the IR spectrum.

 It might be that the LEDs are used to draw a constant border line.   

 And it may be, that something different happens to the LEDs,  when the trigger is pulled.

 It might be a dual sensor tech inside there..  with a camera, and a motion sensor.

 There is more than likely a Patent that explains the tech in detail.


 Other than that, use your phone to record what the leds do when the game is actually playing in-game.
Say "fire" as you pull the trigger... and see if the leds do anything different at that exact moment.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #34 on: February 09, 2016, 02:23:47 pm »
If you follow the traces on the board the trigger wire never touches any of the rest of the circuitry, it just comes in one pin and goes out another pin to the trigger switch.

If they didn't wire it this way they would have either had to run a separate ground wire up for the switch or they would have had to have an extra ground wire coming off the sensor PCB anyway. which would have made the wiring in the gun a lot more messy.

I still think the sensor is way too thin to be a camera, every PCB mounted camera I've seen including those in modern cell phones is at least 3 or 4 times as deep as this thing is, and this particular board has been around since 1997. There's no way Sega perfected high-speed camera tech 20 years before everyone else and in such a small package that no one else has managed to make one thinner yet.

Good idea on the patent though.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #35 on: February 09, 2016, 02:31:26 pm »
BTW.... has happcontrols lost it's mind?  I looked up the gun sensor on their site... it was 250 dollars!  WTF?  They do realize that you can buy many of the compatible games for that price right?

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #36 on: February 09, 2016, 02:47:56 pm »
Happ lost their mind a long time ago... most of their prices are ridiculous AND the same time they decided to start cold-calling collectors to drum up business (I've received several calls because I ordered from them before) they also instituted a $100 minimum order policy...  :lol you can't do both... you ether put in a high min order to sell only to businesses that need you, or you sell in small lots to increase your customer base.

I need to buy new nuts and bolts to hold my gun halves together, Happ carries the official parts for $7 a set, which I'd be willing to pay, but I can't buy them because there's no way I'm interested in placing a $100 order with them.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #37 on: February 09, 2016, 03:25:07 pm »
Yeah I get calls from them every once in a while, which I find odd considering the only thing I've ever bought from them is a bezel and that was in 2000.  They offered me 10% off, which would be nice if they didn't have a 1000% markup on their stuff.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #38 on: February 09, 2016, 10:51:30 pm »
attempting to figure out what we CAN identify I took a look at one of the LED boards:

Aside from the resistors and caps there are 3 ICs
The largest is an 8-pin chip with "7W74F" and "6W" printed on it.
this identifies as a D-type Flip-Flop: http://www.alldatasheet.com/view.jsp?Searchword=7W74F

The next largest chip has 3 small pins on one side and 1 fat pin on the other it has "TQ" and "6X" printed on it, on the older style LED board this chip has "TQ" and "7Z". the label is too vague to find an exact match but it looks like a typical transistor to me, especially considering the fat pin is tied directly to the LEDs. if you look at the picture I posted earlier of the newer 4 LED board it has 2 of these, probably because it's driving twice as many LEDs (on the 2LED boards they're wired in series surprisingly) The other end of the LEDs are tied to the large through-hole resistor, which is tied to ground.

The smallest chip looks like it would be a 6-pin but with the middle pin removed on one side. the chip is simply labeled "E2" and it's barely larger than the surface mount resistors... I'm not really sure what this is. and the label is way too vague.

The LEDs themselves are a bit weird too. There's a white ceramic cylinder with a gold prong in the middle and another gold prong coming up from the side (like a spark plug) and then it looks like the "lens" is created with a crystal clear epoxy that also covers the cylindrical base. it's a weird design that I haven't seen before... maybe they're highly directional?

the older style LED board with them vertically mounted they're all sticking out slightly from the board and angled toward the center of the screen slightly, and then there's a grey silicon glue holding them in position, the newer style board with the two horizontally mounted  LEDs have the LEDs mounted flush against the PCB like you'd expect, but it has the plastic hood which might help reflect the light toward the center of the screen, or maybe keep light from leaking out past the screen (there was a section in the manual about games interfering with each other if they're too close, so maybe this was done to help address the problem?) the 4 LED board doesn't have any sort of hood or any special angle to the LEDs.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #39 on: February 09, 2016, 11:08:17 pm »
I can confirm that the 4 pin chip is a surface mount transistor.... they use them in the tv I'm trying to troubleshoot.  ;)

The 5 pin chip could be another variant of a flip-flop... a gated sr latch. (Scroll down).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_(electronics)

So the pcb for the blinky lights has chips on it to make things blink.... no surprise there.  Most likely all the resistors and what-not are a complicated (but cheap) way to regulate the timing so that pcb 1 blinks before sending power on to pcb 2 so that it blinks next or however the pattern goes.  This is all good news if you ask me because it means the parts aren't terribly expensive nor is the circuit terribly complex. 

In this day and age the circuit probably isn't even needed.... an avr could drive the leds directly in whatever pattern the main pcb is looking for.  The trick no matter which method used, would be to get the timing synced up and everything blinking exactly how the main board expects it to. 

Have you tried putting a camera on the assembly while it's running to see what is going on?  Most can see IR. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #40 on: February 10, 2016, 08:29:42 am »
I posted a link to a gameplay video when I revived this thread you can see the LEDs are on but they're flashing too fast to make out a pattern.

here's the link again: https://www.instagram.com/p/BBf8TNyTGM-/?taken-by=twistedchu

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #41 on: February 10, 2016, 08:34:41 am »
I saw the video but tbh I can't make out the leds.  I'm assuming it's the white dots on the boards. 

They might not be flashing at all.  Leds often shimmer just from the oscillating power. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #42 on: February 10, 2016, 08:56:38 am »
Yeah the white dots in the center of the board... maybe I'll see if I can get better video with a different camera, I have a nice HD camcorder but I'd suspect it has an IR filter... we'll see.

As for that 5-pin chip... I don't think it's a flip flop. the 8-pin IC uses all 8 pins for a single flip-flop, so it'd be 3-pins shy.
Based on other chips I'm seeing in this size I'm guessing it's either something simple like a NOT gate or a low voltage transistor being used as a logic gate. I also see a few manufacturer using this size chip as a sort of diode pack.

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #43 on: February 10, 2016, 09:10:25 am »
Well I found a pinout for the led arrays and it is a bit confusing to me. 

The pins are:

12v
5v
C
B
A
GND

So no data lines really by the sound of that.  You've just got three lines period.  Also having 12v AND 5v is a bit odd.  If you have 12v what do you need 5v for?  I can only guess 5v to trip the transistors and 12v to actually power the leds, but if that's the case what do lines A-C do?

The boards are all generic right?  I'm having a hard time figuring out what, if any, blink pattern these could create piggy-backed using 1997 tech. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #44 on: February 10, 2016, 09:35:09 am »
but if that's the case what do lines A-C do?

The boards are all generic right?  I'm having a hard time figuring out what, if any, blink pattern these could create piggy-backed using 1997 tech.

Addressable LEDs before their time?

If they are all identical but do something different when placed in different positions, there must be some method for them to figure out where they are and what they need to output differently from the others.
I guess they wouldn't really need to know where they are.  The gun could figure that out during calibration.
They would need to know to do something different than all the other boards.

Gotta be some type of communication.  Maybe not data, but a pattern or amount of voltage or resistance.

EDIT:
Quote from: twistedsymphony
I do believe the order of the sensors in the chain matters though. It starts one in from the bottom right of the screen then goes around clock wise ending on the bottom right.

So the main board knows what pattern the chain is laid out in...
Some variable is changing as you progress through the chain which affects the pattern.
At the edge of my skill level here, but that flip-flop chip twistedsymphony sounds like it has a clock that's variable based on the voltage of an input.

My work (at work) is piling up while I'm chewing on this.
I feel like if I could sit down and focus on it for an hour or two, I could figure it out.  :angry:


The more I read up on this stuff, the more it sounds like the clock is jut there to synchronize stuff.
Are we sure that each board is flashing at a different rate?

Since the LEDs form a square, the gun could know where it was as long as a corner was in view.
Maybe any flashing is just for the sake of preventing IR light from other sources such as reflections from affecting it.

Even if that's not the case, maybe we could hack something together that uses a rectangular outline of IR LEDs and works as long as a corner is in view.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 10:35:38 am by BadMouth »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #45 on: February 10, 2016, 11:07:58 am »
"Calibration" is interesting.

there are 4 adjustment screws on the Gun I/O board I believe they're adjustable caps, not pots. everything I've read has said to never EVER EVER touch these, they're set from the factory and shouldn't ever need to be changed.  The position of these on the board leads me to believe that there are 2 of these per gun, probably an X and Y adjustment. each one of these sits next to a tiny 50Hz inductor.

The sensor in the gun itself has 3 adjustment screws, again these look like adjustable caps, not pots. and again I've been told to never EVER EVER touch these, they're set from the factory and shouldn't ever need to be changed.

The thing is this whole gun assembly is self-contained, it doesn't need to be attached to anything at all to function, the output pins will happily provide whatever X and Y voltage coordinates that match where the gun is pointing. That's what makes this system so beautiful for use with a PC. The Games that use this each have their own internal calibration, which really just adjusting how the game interprets to whatever output voltage the Gun I/O is providing.

Sega was pretty brilliant in the design because it means that you could swap out the IR guns for a set of mounted guns with POTs for X and Y and the game wouldn't know the difference. technically you could even play an analog based game like Super Monkey ball or even a racing game and just tilt the gun around instead of using an analog stick... or pedals and steering, again because the game doesn't know the difference.

The Gun I/O has a 12V input for power, and then it uses a Voltage converter to create 5V. I originally assumed that this was just for the analog output voltage since it works within a 0-5V range, it seems odd to me that it would use this on the LED matrix, even more strange that it would use it in addition to 12V.

The Circuit design on the LED board should be easy to determine, as it's a single layer/single sided PCB with mostly obvious traces.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 11:17:42 am by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #46 on: February 10, 2016, 11:50:29 am »
You have them on a 4:3 monitor.  Experimented any with a 16:9?

I wouldn't expect it to work, but it would be cool if it did.
I guess you could put them on an oversized 4:3 bezel in front of a 16:9 monitor and the extra Y axis would be adjusted for in the in-game calibration.....

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #47 on: February 10, 2016, 12:58:11 pm »
The only thing I can think of would be one of those chips (probably the flip-flop) acting like a capacitor.  Caps have to "fill" before any voltage is passed along which creates a tiny delay.  So voltage is passed to board 1, after a delay caused from energizing the chip, the led lights up allowing voltage to flow to board 2, and so on and so forth.  That would make the lights blink in sequence.  But that would only need one line and probably wouldn't even need a clock, so I don't know what the other 2 or 3 wires are for. 

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #48 on: February 10, 2016, 01:42:05 pm »
You have them on a 4:3 monitor.  Experimented any with a 16:9?

I wouldn't expect it to work, but it would be cool if it did.
I guess you could put them on an oversized 4:3 bezel in front of a 16:9 monitor and the extra Y axis would be adjusted for in the in-game calibration.....
I have no doubt that it will work. This setup came out of a Net City upright using a 27" CRT angled back about 20 degrees, and it's designed to drop into the "Delux" cabinet with a 50" rear projection screen and the board set originally came out of a "dedicated upright" which has the sensors pointing up and reflecting off of a mirror. Ghost squad and newer games all ran on 42" or larger 16:9 LCDs with the same hardware. I think you're right that any inconsistencies between setups just gets sorted out in the in-game calibration. Heck i just eye-balled the placement of the sensors in my carboard bezel and was still able to calibrate it pretty much perfectly.

We'll know for sure soon though; I'm installing this on my projector which is a 108" 16:9 screen. I just need to build the extended LED board harnesses which is a few hundred crimps that I'm not looking forward to  :lol

The only thing I can think of would be one of those chips (probably the flip-flop) acting like a capacitor.  Caps have to "fill" before any voltage is passed along which creates a tiny delay.  So voltage is passed to board 1, after a delay caused from energizing the chip, the led lights up allowing voltage to flow to board 2, and so on and so forth.  That would make the lights blink in sequence.  But that would only need one line and probably wouldn't even need a clock, so I don't know what the other 2 or 3 wires are for. 

I think you're over thinking this, I highly doubt there's any analog trickery going on with the LED boards, that just seems like it would just way over complicate things and open it up to falling out of calibration way too easily.

This is just complete speculation on my part but if I was designing this board this is what I would do:
 the flip flops are used for latching, think of it like 1 bit of memory per flip flop. If we assume that the mystery chip is maybe an "AND" gate then we could use A for a pulse signal and B to be the signal for the previous board in the chain. When A+B are both positive then then toggle the flip flop and turn the LEDs on, This means that it will turn on the LED AFTER the one that is currently list. meanwhile all the other LEDs in the chain (including the previously lit LED) will have positive for the pulse on A but a negative for the value of B and thus toggle their LEDs off.

This would in effect turn on 1 LED at a time in sequence. the C wire could just be a feedback to let the gun I/O know when the last LED in the chain has been deactivated. This could be accomplished by simply putting a pull-up resistor across B and C such that when NO LEDs are on C is low but if ANY LEDs are on then C is high.. that way the Gun I/O knows it's done one rotation and to start the sequence again.... this would also be helpful for starting the sequence since none will be on to start, and work as a check since it knows it should count to 10 before getting the "all-clear" and if it doesn't there's a problem.

This would have to happen very fast. If we assume it wants to check gun position for every frame (and the game runs at 60FPS) then at minimum it would have to make a full rotation in under 16ms.

again, this is just my personal speculation.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 01:46:31 pm by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #49 on: February 10, 2016, 02:30:58 pm »
What kind of minimum distance does the sega ir setup allow?

I experimented with the aimtrak and while I'll concede it does work very well, it doesn't work for my setup with the minimum distance requirements - I couldn't get satisfactory accuracy closer than about 2.5 - 3 feet which was just too far away for an approx. 19in screen. So I'm back at working with some crt guns.

Personally, I'm working on a tool with my brother to increase functionality of the Guncon 2's on pc. The aim being proper screen flashing for the PS2 Guncon 2's using the EMS topgun driver...

why not just use the Wingun driver, you might ask? Well, Wingun works great (and I'd actually recommend trying it!) with XP 32 bit but it can't support anything further. Same with the Guncon2PC driver. The topgun has a driver for x86 and x64 that is *also* compatible with 3rd party Guncons and works under Windows 7...but lacks proper screen flashing for darker games. Using autohotkey I've come up with a way to at least generate a directinput mouse click that is very slightly delayed to be during a flash (which is triggered off of a raw input). That, combined with a tailored control profile in the ems panel is starting to have noteworthy results. I'll definitely make a thread when that gets further along. This method won't work for the model 2 emulator (or raw input needs) ...but I may try a physical delay circuit for the trigger to send both an instantaneous key for our flasher program and a separate, slightly delayed key as the shot button. That would be the best of both worlds as it would still generate raw input for model 2/troubleshooter2 and a flash.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 02:34:34 pm by burn_654 »

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Re: Gun talk - split from Immersion USB thread
« Reply #50 on: February 10, 2016, 03:59:28 pm »
What kind of minimum distance does the sega ir setup allow?

It seems about the same as what you're seeing. The screen I was testing on is a 19" LCD and the sensors were placed 22" corner to corner and the gun could be used as close as 23" away from the screen (from screen to tip of gun). the calibration and test screen in the NAOMI was really excellent as it would tell you exactly where it would lose signal. This distance didn't really seem to be effected by gun angle or lateral distance either.

You might want to look into building a mirror cab. This is what they did in a lot of light gun arcade machines including House of the Dead 2 and Lethal Enforcers. The monitor was placed on it's back pointing up and then there was a large mirror placed at a 45 degree angle. the result is that the "effective distance" of the screen is now another 2ft or so which keep the game challenging and solves any other tracking issues you might have from the screen being too close to the gun.

check out this pic:

You can see the mirror in house of the dead 2 on the left and the result is that the monitor (and the IR sensors) look like they're a good 2-3ft away from the front glass, from the light gun's point of view that's how far away the sensor is too since that's how far the light actually has to travel.
compare that with the house of the dead 1 cab on the right which is a direct view monitor with no mirror and they have to have a pedestal in order to create distance between the player and the screen.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #51 on: February 10, 2016, 05:49:31 pm »
That's some great info, thanks for that.  :)

Clever how they promoted optimal aim distance for the hardware with the design of the cab. I suppose that's contrary to the point blank and area 51 crt/flash gun cabinets I've seen where the guns were stored much closer.

I had no idea House of the Dead 1 used IR guns? The game has a brief white flash that I had assumed was for crt gun detection, as does Lost World which used the IR setup. Why would the games incorporate a flash if it wasn't necessary - compatibility with older hardware perhaps? The ir guns should work fine without it. Unless it was purely an aesthetic thing at that point.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #52 on: February 10, 2016, 06:09:51 pm »
Don't quote me on this, but I think the earlier ones had a crt option. 

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #53 on: February 10, 2016, 06:47:00 pm »
House of the Dead 1 used CRT guns on CRT cabs, the HOTD1 cab in that pic uses CRT guns. They did make a deluxe version with a 50" projector screen and IR based guns. Completely different hardware than what I'm using though.

HOTD1 was a Model 2 game and the analog IR system wasn't implemented until Model 3 (Jurassic Park: the Lost World).

a lot of games, even those that used CRT guns and didn't need make the player stand further away for the guns to work, did so because it make the game more challenging.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 06:58:59 pm by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #54 on: February 15, 2016, 02:25:41 pm »
I've made some interesting discoveries....

I found that all of this IR equipment isn't just used by Sega, the same system was used by Namco for Time Crysis 4 as well as newer games such as Dead Storm Pirates, it's also used by Taito in Elevator Action: Death Parade and a few other games. I've found lots of people referencing the equipment as the "OMZ" IR gun board and in newer Sega Manuals (2 Spicy and newer) they regularly refer to the gun sensor with an part number prefixed with OMZ or OMJ despite it looking identical to the older sensors.

This leads me to believe that the IR setup isn't a piece of Sega equipment but rather a 3rd party "off-the-shelf" device, though even searching the OMZ part numbers leads me no where so I'm not really sure where this equipment comes from.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that in the time Crisis 4 manual the LED board arrangement around the monitor is mirrored from what Sega uses. At first I thought maybe there was difference in equipment but then I realized it shouldn't matter... if the sensors are all mirrored left to right then all that will result in is the X-Axis being reversed... and as a matter of fact Namco is likely using it properly since their sensor arrangement would result in 00,00 being top left while Sega's 00,00 is top right.

Another interesting though is that if this is indeed the same equipment then that means we should be able to use Time Crysis 4 IR guns with the rest of the sega hardware, so we could have that sweet recoil setup without having to hack anything together. There's actually a whole selection of guns available that would work... the HOTD 2 and JP used non-recoil hand-guns while HOTD3 used a pump action shotgun, HOTD4 used a machine gun, Ghost Squad used an assult rifle with recoil and two additional alternate fire buttons, HOTD EX , 2 spicy and Sega Golden Gun all used a .45 style gun with recoil and of course the Time Crisis 4 gun with the slide action recoil. finding these guns at a good price is difficult but knowing that they're available and should just work means that going forward there's a lot of potential options in the future.

here's the time crisis 4 manual for anyone that is interested: http://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/images/6/60/Time_Crisis_4_DX_Manual_issue2.pdf

----

I also got my AVR board in yesterday and got the firmware flashed, I still need to build the harness and we'll see if I can actually use this bad boy in MAME  :cheers: sadly I might not have time until later this week
« Last Edit: February 15, 2016, 02:53:53 pm by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #55 on: February 15, 2016, 04:02:25 pm »
Well maybe the thing to do is search for boards from the unpopular lightgun games.  I know when I was building my Pac-man repro I would search for sky shark parts because they were in the same cabinet, but nobody likes sky shark so the prices are low due to sellers not knowing what they have.

Chinese auction sites might be another place.  There is probably a company in China that makes the boards to all these things, so you might be able to cut out the middle man.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #56 on: February 15, 2016, 04:45:40 pm »
Well maybe the thing to do is search for boards from the unpopular lightgun games.  I know when I was building my Pac-man repro I would search for sky shark parts because they were in the same cabinet, but nobody likes sky shark so the prices are low due to sellers not knowing what they have.

Chinese auction sites might be another place.  There is probably a company in China that makes the boards to all these things, so you might be able to cut out the middle man.

I've got all the parts already so I've no need to search for cheap alternatives. but I figured this info might be useful to others who wish to follow in my footsteps.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #57 on: February 15, 2016, 06:30:28 pm »
Yeah that's what I'm talking about.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #58 on: February 16, 2016, 03:46:25 am »
Just something to think about...

  I believe the main reason CRT Gun games used a front-surface-mirror...  was not so much to do with the gun tracking..  but more so to create difficulty and to keep some people from stepping back too far.

 If the CRT is right out in the open...  anyone could just reach their arm over.. and directly pop targets at mere inch ranges.
However,  when the CRT is unreachable... and is about 4 feet away from you (2 ft due to the mirror.. and the gun 2 ft from the glass),
then you have a lot more room for error in targeting... thus, more challenge.

 Also, some of these LED bases systems may have preferred the mirror setup, as the inner cabinet area may have better blocked stray light that could have effected their tracking performance.


 As for the sequence of lights being too fast...  there are some low dollar consumer cameras that can do high speed capture.  See if you can get a local  (amateur,  a camera shop guy,  or digital photographer )  to get a capture for you.

 Not sure why, but my XP laptop does not play your Instagram vids.  Maybe consider some youtube uploads?

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #59 on: February 16, 2016, 09:09:53 am »
You might want to look into building a mirror cab. This is what they did in a lot of light gun arcade machines including House of the Dead 2 and Lethal Enforcers. The monitor was placed on it's back pointing up and then there was a large mirror placed at a 45 degree angle. the result is that the "effective distance" of the screen is now another 2ft or so which keep the game challenging...

Just something to think about...

  I believe the main reason CRT Gun games used a front-surface-mirror...  was not so much to do with the gun tracking..  but more so to create difficulty and to keep some people from stepping back too far.

 If the CRT is right out in the open...  anyone could just reach their arm over.. and directly pop targets at mere inch ranges.
However,  when the CRT is unreachable... and is about 4 feet away from you (2 ft due to the mirror.. and the gun 2 ft from the glass),
then you have a lot more room for error in targeting... thus, more challenge.

 :applaud:

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #60 on: February 16, 2016, 03:14:56 pm »
Something to note... arcade gun games used a  Front Surface mirror.   If you use a typical mirror.. you get a feint distortion which causes a ghost image.

 Ive seen a guy on youtube  (green power something... )   use paint stripper,  to remove the gray backing paint on a normal mirror... leaving the shiny silver coating ... and then of course, all you have to do is flip the shiny side to the front.


 Here it is:

« Last Edit: February 16, 2016, 03:16:50 pm by Xiaou2 »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #61 on: February 18, 2016, 09:50:50 pm »
Ok so I had semi success getting this working in mame...
hardware wise everything works lovely... the KADE board with the MaxArcade firmware interfaces with the Gun I/O board perfectly and windows is seeing it as a pair of analog joysticks.

Unfortunately MAME is taking the term "joystick" too litterally. there's a giant fake dead-zone in the middle of the screen and it doesn't track linearly so when I'm near the boarders the cross hairs line up but as I move toward the center the cross-hairs move faster than my gun and then snap to the center ...

Anyone know how to disable this crap and force mame to treat the analog data as coordinates as opposed to a suggestion? as it is now it's nearly unplayable.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #62 on: February 18, 2016, 10:17:21 pm »
Ok so I had semi success getting this working in mame...
hardware wise everything works lovely... the KADE board with the MaxArcade firmware interfaces with the Gun I/O board perfectly and windows is seeing it as a pair of analog joysticks.
Glad to hear that.   ;D

Unfortunately MAME is taking the term "joystick" too litterally. there's a giant fake dead-zone in the middle of the screen and it doesn't track linearly so when I'm near the boarders the cross hairs line up but as I move toward the center the cross-hairs move faster than my gun and then snap to the center ...
Have you tried adjusting the joystick dead zone to zero in mame.ini?  (may also need to tweak saturation)

joystick_deadzone         0.3
joystick_saturation       0.85


Scott

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #63 on: February 18, 2016, 10:47:35 pm »
+1

When I wrote those wiimote scripts a few years back I had to set the deadzone to 0 and the saturation to 1 for them to work correctly.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #64 on: February 19, 2016, 07:10:56 am »
ah, that's much better. I knew mame would have something but I was looking in the menus not the ini.
still needs to be calibrated but at least it's tracking smoothly and linearly.

what is the "joystick_map" used for in the mame.ini? is that something that could be used to dial in the calibration?


I also have to reverse the X-Axis in the tab menu. Which I'm thinking I can avoid if I simply run the led emitters counter clockwise around the screen instead of clockwise.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #65 on: February 19, 2016, 08:01:34 am »
Try using F2 in game to access the original game test menu, a lot of mame gun games have a gun calibration menu in it for better accuracy.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #66 on: February 19, 2016, 08:54:30 am »
This is like mapping positional guns.  You need to have a good understanding of all the analog settings in MAME as well as understand that you have 3 layers of calibration to deal with; windows, mame interface, game service menu.

from an old post about analog guns:

1.  Calibrate the positional gun in windows by pointing it along the edges of the screen.
2.  In mame.ini set the dead zone to zero.
3.  In mame.ini set the saturation to 1 (100%)
4.  Calibrate the gun in the game's service menu
5.  Adjust the sensetivity under analogue controls in MAME's in-game menu until the crosshairs don't lag behind the gun movement.
    (there is only ONE sensetivity setting, ignore all settings that include the word DIGITAL)

I also have to reverse the X-Axis in the tab menu. Which I'm thinking I can avoid if I simply run the led emitters counter clockwise around the screen instead of clockwise.

or just reverse the leads for the x-axis on the KADE.  ;)
« Last Edit: February 19, 2016, 09:25:00 am by BadMouth »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #67 on: February 19, 2016, 09:43:32 am »
there's only 1 wire for the X-Axis... nothing to reverse  :lol


Not all games have gun calibration in MAME. the first game I tested was Lethal Enforcers... checked the test menu... no calibration :-/

if the analog output can be mapped correctly outside of the game then any in-game calibration shouldn't be needed since MAME is just sending screen coordinates into the game.

A better solution might be to have a wrapper that re-interprets the analog data as a pointing device and allows for it's own calibration. that would theoretically remove any need for calibration within the emulators themselves.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #68 on: February 19, 2016, 10:11:49 am »
What about the calibration features in the windows gamepad control panel? could that be of some use?

It's been a while since I've had to use it but for analog joysticks you used to be able to calibrate there by moving the joystick to its extremities.

This is exciting stuff to see happening!

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #69 on: February 19, 2016, 11:06:44 am »
if the analog output can be mapped correctly outside of the game then any in-game calibration shouldn't be needed since MAME is just sending screen coordinates into the game.

Nope, that's not how it works.  You still have to calibrate each and every solitary gun game.  This sets the min and max values for the emulated hardware, which default to 0 on most games.  A few  true lightgun games don't have a calibration option as you've discovered, but other than that... yeah you've got some work ahead of you.

Badmouth's list is correct.  Calibrate the "joystick" in windows control panel first and go from there. 

I would suggest starting with games that used analog guns, like Terminator 2.  That'll give you a good idea if it's a hardware thing or what.


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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #70 on: February 19, 2016, 11:30:42 am »
yeah the first thing I did before even loading up MAME was calibrate in windows. I had to unplug the button wires because the Gun I/O has a "screen out" button that gets activated whenever it loses track of the gun and windows asks you to push a button when you're done calibrating  :lol

I get what you're saying about needing to calibrate in-game too. i guess I just assumed that mame would have mapped the pointing device coordinates to whatever the default calibration the game had.

I don't mind putting in the work as long as everything works well and I only have to do it once.

I've started listing out all the light gun games playable in mame and on other emulators... Is there a list of PC games that can be played with a light gun?

... The more I get into this the more surprised I am that we don't have a dedicated sub-forum for "shooting" games/cabs ;)
« Last Edit: February 19, 2016, 11:33:22 am by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #71 on: February 19, 2016, 11:35:08 am »
Downoad the Aim-Trak manual from ultimarc.
It lists every single gun game in MAME and instructions for setting it up if there is something oddball about it.

There is a really big thread in the main forum where we listed pretty much everything there is, then Darth Marino posted videos of most of them.
I can't be bothered to find it at the moment, but it is there.  (This is one of the reasons I wanted a gun subforum.  I'd have stickied it)

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #72 on: February 19, 2016, 11:37:42 am »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #73 on: February 19, 2016, 11:40:14 am »
I know.  Lightguns were relatively easy back in the day, but now that we've moved to lcds it's a bit of a mess. 

I wouldn't sweat Lethal Enforcers not working btw.... it's kind of a cruddy game and while looking for a solution for you I ran across several posts of the real arcade game not registering shots accurately... apparently it has issues.

There are very, very few pc games that don't have a working arcade port.  House of the Dead III is one, but that game seems to randomly not want to accept inputs, so it's kind of broken on a modern pc.  Typing of the Dead Overkill is another.... it comes with house of the dead ok.  For the most part the remaining games are just ports of the old sega games, which are emulated fully at this point.  I've done a lot of work on the model 2 games with troubleshooter 2. 

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #74 on: February 19, 2016, 01:35:36 pm »
awesome, thanks !

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #75 on: February 20, 2016, 04:37:06 pm »
So I got new hardware and disassembled both guns again to clean and grease them. The red gun was missing the tape on the shielding so I pulled it back and snapped a photo:


looks like I was wrong, there are a couple of chips under their.

I also pulled the plastic cap off the tip for a better pic of the sensor:


the sensor is a lot larger than the hole in the cover which is interesting. but we get a better look at it.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #76 on: February 20, 2016, 06:45:30 pm »
That looks like 4 photo sensors to me.  Averaging out the values of the 4 would give you the relative position.  I suppose it's a bit more complicated than that though. 

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #77 on: February 22, 2016, 09:00:23 am »
Over the weekend I made up the extended harness for the LED emitters
over 250ft of wire and 120 crimps... my fingers hurt.



I also found that there's a dip-switch on the Gun I/O board labeled "29 <-> 50" I suspected that this inverts the X-Axis... and it does.  most likely referring to the 29" monitor in the mirror cabs and the 50" monitor in the deluxe rear-projection cabs. hence why the 29 setting inverts the X-Axis (0,0 top right) while the 50 setting does not (0,0 top left)

Posted a video of Terminator 2:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BCEqJG2zGIV

Played around with calibration a bit. I found that most games simply have you center the gun but don't do any calibration for edge detection. Which means in these games that the gun will be centered properly but then be off the more you aim toward the edges of the screen the further off the calibration is. so far the only way I found to compensate for this is to tweak the saturation value in the MAME.ini. 0.83 seems to work pretty well I'm suspecting because the sensors sit further out from the screen so technically the visible area is only 83% of the tracking area.

I suspect this will cause problems when I move up to a wide-screen setup since I'll need some way to adjust the saturation of the X and Y axis independently.... I'm still thinking for some games it might be best to translate the "analog stick" data as a mouse pointer.





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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #78 on: February 24, 2016, 11:17:42 pm »
More info... So I noticed some Time Crisis 4 equipment was up for sale on eBay...

Weird that all of these parts are clearly the same exact design but they're all also completely different PCBs.

LED board is nearly trace for trace identical but the silkscren is different.

Sensor is the same but uses a smaller connector which allows for a more narrow board

Gun I/O is probably identical to one of the later Sega models but most interesting is that it has the URL for the manufacturer  ;D
http://www.ohmic.co.jp
and an email?: ohmic@ff.iij4u.or.jp

found it on their website: http://ohmic.co.jp/cat/zahyou-01.html

And if you though Happ's prices on the Sega equipment was high... don't even bother looking to see what they charge for these parts
« Last Edit: February 24, 2016, 11:23:11 pm by twistedsymphony »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #79 on: February 25, 2016, 10:12:36 am »
Following this thread for a full read through later :-)

I have Lethal Enforcers 3 with mirrored CRTs and this gun technology, but was missing the optics board for P2 and found all replacement parts to be ridiculously expensive.  Had planned to pull P1 and put into a smaller cabinet, but will need some of this information for the conversion.

I have the OMZ-2D LED from the previous post in mine.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #80 on: February 25, 2016, 10:31:08 am »
So it seems like it wouldn't be totally impossible to recreate some of the led boards diy, the issue seems to be the expensive driver board and gun 'camera'.

I wonder if any companies bootlegged stuff like this? I mean we've seen off-brand namco guns in the 'named' variety that seem to be fairly spot on copies. I just wonder if anyone tried to duplicate the driver board too, short of gutting a cab.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #81 on: February 25, 2016, 11:45:53 am »
Following this thread for a full read through later :-)

I have Lethal Enforcers 3 with mirrored CRTs and this gun technology, but was missing the optics board for P2 and found all replacement parts to be ridiculously expensive.  Had planned to pull P1 and put into a smaller cabinet, but will need some of this information for the conversion.

I have the OMZ-2D LED from the previous post in mine.

Thank for confirming, I had heard that LE3 used this tech but couldn't find any concrete info.

From the pics I've seen of LE3 it looks as though there is a separate monitor for each player. is this the case or is it split screen on a  wide-screen monitor? I was curious of how the sensors may have been arranged with two separate monitors.

Happ wants $500 for the OMZ version of the sensor module, which makes the $200 Sega version look cheap. I'd just keep an eye out on eBay, you never know a reasonably priced one might pop up.... or you could figure out how to hook up the sega one in the LE3 guns, the used ones on eBay are going as low as $75

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #82 on: February 25, 2016, 02:34:01 pm »
Yes, separate monitor for each player.  It's a double wide and the sensors (transmitters?) are maybe every 12 inches across the full width of the unit.  I think I have a couple of weak transmitters, so I was going to pool my good ones and make a solid 1 player game.  I didn't take into consideration the reflection from the mirror and possible inversion if I were to use a standard monitor config, but that would make sense I'll have to adjust for it.

Actually, you can see the 10 transmitters glowing in the video:
https://goo.gl/photos/TAZd5CgY3iRXgmYX8
« Last Edit: February 25, 2016, 02:37:06 pm by jbserra »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #83 on: February 25, 2016, 03:27:49 pm »
I think I mentioned it earlier but there's a dip switch on the Gun I/O board to turn on and off X-Axis inversion for use in mirror cabs or direct view cabs. Alternatively you can just run them in the opposite direction around the screen  ;D

I found that the inversion makes no difference as the game tends to sort it self out in calibration regardless (at least on NAOMI).

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #84 on: March 31, 2016, 03:33:42 pm »
This might be of interest to some people:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=351380

this guy adapted the Gun board for Model 2 games to work on Model 3... the important thing to note here is that Model 2 games use the standard "Happ" style Light Gun. Also, it communicates with the game board Via an RS-422 serial port.

I'm thinking if someone wanted legit Happ Light guns on a PC you could use this board and decode the RS-422 info to get the gun position.

the "Mega JAMMA" board used by Police Trainer 2, Star Trek Voyager, and Crossfire Maximum Paintball works similarly, it provides a JAMMA edge connector, works with Happ guns and outputs gun position (and other inputs) to a Parallel Port connector.

I'm not too interested in persuing this myself but for anyone looking for an arcade perfect CRT gun solution... these are two solid and reasonably priced options.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #85 on: October 01, 2016, 08:31:10 am »
Any chance there is some type of identifier or part number on those IR sensors at the tip?

Also, has anyone taken apart the Time Crisis 4 gun for PS3 that uses the IR LEDs attached to the TV?  Any similarities?

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #86 on: October 04, 2016, 02:13:14 pm »
Any chance there is some type of identifier or part number on those IR sensors at the tip?

I looked when I had it apart, there are none visible. The only place where one would fit would be the back side but you'd have to de-solder it from the PCB to check and I'm not willing to disassemble a working sensor that far.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #87 on: April 17, 2018, 03:53:29 am »
Hello, sorry this is an old thread but it's the only place on the internet where i can find something related to my problem.

I have a Sega Golden Gun and the light sensor broke in half, i've attached a picture of it.
The code is GZH200HF, i was wondering if GZH200D is compatible with my game. Would appreciate some feedback.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #88 on: April 17, 2018, 12:13:59 pm »
It looks like the part might still be good.   

 If you detach the small board, lay the board flat,  place the detached optical section back in place, and heat in a toaster oven.. you could get the soldier to re-flow,  and probably get the part to attach just fine.

 Do some research into reflow, and temperature and duration...  as too little = no reflow... and too much.. can melt plastics and or kill components.

 I do not think the optical sensor that fell off is broke in half.  I believe its actually two individual sensor chips,  based on the 4 solder ball points
on each chip.

 New non-lead based solder has a lot of problems with good smooth flow... and as such,  there is probably a 50% failure rate on all modern electronic circuit boards,  as a result.   These failures can happen immediately,  a few months,  or even years down the road.  Temperature changes,  vibrations,  can cause the already weak connections to break free.  Also, there tends to be small micro-spikes in the process... and these spikes can break off, and cause electronic shorts.

 Also, you may first want to clean the parts with rubbing alcohol, then apply some decent quality flux.  The flux greatly aids in flow and bonding.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #89 on: April 18, 2018, 05:05:55 am »
It looks like the part might still be good.   

 If you detach the small board, lay the board flat,  place the detached optical section back in place, and heat in a toaster oven.. you could get the soldier to re-flow,  and probably get the part to attach just fine.

 Do some research into reflow, and temperature and duration...  as too little = no reflow... and too much.. can melt plastics and or kill components.

 I do not think the optical sensor that fell off is broke in half.  I believe its actually two individual sensor chips,  based on the 4 solder ball points
on each chip.

 New non-lead based solder has a lot of problems with good smooth flow... and as such,  there is probably a 50% failure rate on all modern electronic circuit boards,  as a result.   These failures can happen immediately,  a few months,  or even years down the road.  Temperature changes,  vibrations,  can cause the already weak connections to break free.  Also, there tends to be small micro-spikes in the process... and these spikes can break off, and cause electronic shorts.

 Also, you may first want to clean the parts with rubbing alcohol, then apply some decent quality flux.  The flux greatly aids in flow and bonding.

Thanks for the info, will try reflowing, there are some computer services around and will ask around for a profesional opinion.
Meanwhile i ordered a new part from sega.

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #90 on: May 19, 2022, 04:08:51 pm »
I am also setting up a sega light gun to my pc.
I need some help please.
I have a Gun I/O Board for Ghost Squad Sega 838-14465R03, a UHID, a ghost squad gun, Sega LED BD GUN SENSE HOD 838-13145R02 x 10, all out of the lindbergh ghost squad arcade cabinet.
I need some help with how to connect the uhid to the gun sense board and then on to my pc via usb. Can somebody please explain the pin out to the uhid. I have attached a drawing of the board but I don’t know what f.out and “ret” is for ect
I know there is an x and y axis, and the trigger, which I can see. But the gun has fire select switch and an action button, but I can not see these and don’t know how to wire them to the uhid.
Also any information that might help me would be great. Thank you
« Last Edit: May 19, 2022, 04:27:57 pm by tangodownNZ »

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Re: Gun talk - Sega Type-II IR Gun setup
« Reply #91 on: May 20, 2022, 09:45:12 pm »
I am also setting up a sega light gun to my pc.
I need some help please.
I have a Gun I/O Board for Ghost Squad Sega 838-14465R03, a UHID, a ghost squad gun, Sega LED BD GUN SENSE HOD 838-13145R02 x 10, all out of the lindbergh ghost squad arcade cabinet.
I need some help with how to connect the uhid to the gun sense board and then on to my pc via usb. Can somebody please explain the pin out to the uhid. I have attached a drawing of the board but I don’t know what f.out and “ret” is for ect
I know there is an x and y axis, and the trigger, which I can see. But the gun has fire select switch and an action button, but I can not see these and don’t know how to identify them and how to wire them to the uhid.
Also any information that might help me would be great. Thank you