412-in-1: Spinner is acting "digital", not analog.

[BulletProof]

So I managed to take my Turbo Twist 2 and connect it to the trackball connector on the 412-in-1 board. It uses 4 wires: 5v, Ground, and X1 and X2.

To my delight this actually worked. I was concerned it wouldn't since the Turbo Twist was made for USB, but connecting these wires to the proper pins got it moving.

However, the Spinner seems to be handled as a digital input. I verified this in the IO test in the system settings of the board. If I turn the spinner left, it registers as a joystick left press. Right spinner registers as joystick right. It's a consistent movement, either on or off. If you flick the spinner super quick, the paddle barely moves at all. It's far, far from being 1:1 movement.

Am I missing a setting here? Did I fool myself into thinking that I connected it properly to the Trackball port? I should mention that I snipped the PicoWiz board off and bought a little interface block for the ribbon cable that fit perfectly into the trackball port. I assumed that PicoWiz board was just a USB driver.

Or....does the 5V pin on the spinner need to get power from the power supply? I thought that 5v pin on the board sends power to the spinner, and isn;t a power input. Did i get that wrong?

Thanks for any help.

[lilshawn]

no sounds about right. the spinner is a digital device same as a trackball. these multi-in-1 boards usually treat the trackball input as multiple short left right joystick inputs.

depending the resolution of your spinner slots will depend on how the game reacts and counts them. a trackball usually has 24 slots and will pulse a few hundred times through a full 360 degree ball rotation. you'll have to accommodate for this. you may have to custom make an encoder disc with many more slots in it to increase the # of pulses per rotation.

[BulletProof]

Ah, I see what you mean. Previously, I had this Turbo Twist 2 in a Windows MAME machine using the USB interface. That machine is long gone, so I salvaged the spinner to use in my Vertical Bartop.

It used to work so much nicer in the Windows machine (just like a mouse), felt very 1:1. Now it's just sort of wonky and weird. I wasn't sure if there was a way to get into the MAME settings on this board (since it really is just MAME).

I believe that MAME has settings for sensitivity, but I'm not sure if the MAME settings are accessible in these multi boards.

Thanks for your response!

[lilshawn]

unless you know Linux and can unmount/mount the SD card file system and don't mind bricking your board if you mess with something... then maybe.

otherwise... no

the bootloader on these SDcards are encoded to the physical card and if you change something you shouldn't and the checksum changes... brick.

it would be 1000X easier to just make a custom encoder wheel with increased "slot" count.

do a google search for "printing encoder wheel" people have been hacking encoder wheels for donkeys years.