Cheapo Optical Spinner

[Vocalitus]

OK if I am posting this in the wrong section please move it.

I am poor and do not have money to buy a cool nifty spinner from GGG.  I have about 10 IDE hard drives from old Xboxes that are taking up space.

I want to make a spinner out of a hard drive spindle and having successfully destroyed one that was ticking like an alarm clock when plugged in.  I took a look at the WIKI on hard drive spinner hacks (somebody needs to go in and fix the links) and my hard drive spindle typically doesn't have any hole in the bottom to stick a ball mouse encoder wheel in.  What I do have is a flat circular part that I can cut out some cardboard or plastic and stick it on the bottom of the spindle and place a old optical Microsoft mouse (tiny one) and have it read the card/plastic whatever to make the cursor move.  I will stick some big washers on it to make the inertia better.  So why not go and do it, instead of posting this you might wonder?

Well I have a problem of attaching the hard drive spindle to the control panel.  I have a 1Up vertical cab and I want to either place the spinner knob through one of the speaker holes or mount in where a button once resided.  I want the speaker option as I need the button.  How do I do it?  The screws that held the platter plastic part is super tiny and I cannot find screws long enough to fit.  The hard drive motor spindle thingy is just missing the buttons and it free spins and I can position the optical mouse using the same holes that the speaker used.  I am using an old stereo knob to operate the spinner.

I am kind of stuck on how to mount the spindle.



Similar but without the wires.

[Thenasty]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,17522.0.html


Check this thread 14 years ago.

[baritonomarchetto]

The cheapest spinner you can get is made by an optical encoder and an arduino clone board. It asks for some work on your side, but that's for free

[mahuti]

The cheapest spinner you can get is made by an optical encoder and an arduino clone board

I think you'd find that grabbing a mouse from goodwill and hacking it for less than 50 cents would be even cheaper. At least... if you have the tools at hand.

https://www.digitpress.com/library/techdocs/how_to_make_a_spinner.pdf

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah that's my goto method.  Pull out an old ball mouse and buy a $1 ps2 to usb adapter.  These days it's hard to find donor mice though. 

[Vocalitus]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,17522.0.html


Check this thread 14 years ago.

Yeah this is very detailed but I do not have a ball mouse.  I have a PSX ball mouse but that is a curiosity I keep in my controller collection.

I'm 80% there, and I need a way to spin the hard drive motor through the 1Up speaker grill.  The optical mouse works great, the speaker knob sucks and the part that held the hard drive platters on looks like an old 45 record and is too big.  Should just use hard as nails to secure the motor to the control panel?

I went to Fry's looking for screws and the place looks nearly empty.  I don't want to fast for a week to buy a spinner.  Please help.

[KenToad]

Goodwill is a great way to find a ball mouse. That's what I did when I made cheapo spinners. I printed the encoder wheel on a transparency and used a caster wheel mounted through a carriage bolt threaded through skateboard bearings.

I wrote this article about the build back in 2006: https://www.retroblast.com/articles/hillbilly-04262006-01.php

[Thenasty]

Vocalitus, don't know what state or town your from but, if you are in North NJ, I'll give some Ball Mouse and some Hard Drives motor spindles.

[Vocalitus]

Vocalitus, don't know what state or town your from but, if you are in North NJ, I'll give some Ball Mouse and some Hard Drives motor spindles.

Thank you for the offer but I cannot for the life of me,  get this  drive motor mounted.  So I will have to drill another button hole in the control panel.  The last drive was a Seagate and I have an old WD 8gb drive.  On the plus side I can use another set of magnets to secure the control panel and some wooden dowels.

In the old days it wasn't this hard....

[pbj]

Just spin something with texture in front of an optical mouse sensor and you’re good to go.  I had really good results with scotch tape wrapped around a bolt.

 

[Howard_Casto]

I tried that but I could never get the sensor mounted in that golden area where it's close enough to read the texture but still not touching it. 

[leapinlew]

I tried that but I could never get the sensor mounted in that golden area where it's close enough to read the texture but still not touching it.

I've had to use a larger surface, like larger than a paper towel roll. I did the printing on a transparency and running it through the mouse encoder and it worked great. See image

[Howard_Casto]

Is that a regular ball mouse lew?  I was talking about a non-ball type. 

[Thenasty]

I still have the Old MS Mouse that did not use encoder wheel, it uses Potentiometers.

Wondering when I'll get to it and see what it can do.

[baritonomarchetto]

Going the mouse way isn't, how can I say that... Anachronistic?
You will be limited to the mouse firmware and need to create a franken structure to hold the components... Wouldn't it be better to rely on something small and "clean" like a rotary encoder? It's essentially a scaled down mouse if coupled with a microcontroller. The price is less than 5 usd for both the components

[Howard_Casto]

Well I mean you are only going to use a spinner in mame.... there really aren't any non-mame games  that'd use such an interface.  Mame does a good job of letting you adjust the sensitivity so however the mouse is or isn't accelerated doesn't really matter all that much.  Mounting the optic pcb is going to be an issue regardless of what kind of interface board you use. 

[baritonomarchetto]

You have no optic pcb with a rotary encoder: its all into the chassis. As you know, it's made like a potentiometer. Mounting it directly on a metal control panel or via metal plate on a wood cp is a joke. No need for home made alignments between optical sensor and disk is the main advantage in my opinion

[Howard_Casto]

Well those have friction.... there's a reason the optical wheel doesn't touch the pcb on a spinner.... to reduce friction and allow that bearing to spin as well as possible. 

[PL1]

Pretty sure that baritonomarchetto is talking about this type of rotary encoder.
- They come in a variety of resolutions from 100 to 1000 P/R. (pulses per rotation)
- I've worked with a 600 P/R encoder like this.
-  It's plenty sensitive for an arcade spinner and friction is not an issue, unless you're trying to keep it going for two minutes on one hard spin.      
- Make sure you get the wire colors/connections right.  Applying 5v to an output data line will fry the encoder.



It's pretty easy to make a parametric 3d printable wood panel mount in OpenSCAD.
- LMK if anyone needs help with the code.
- The M3 screw holes are 120 degrees apart with one set of three 14mm from the center of the shaft and the other set at 15mm.


Scott

[baritonomarchetto]

I was not referring to this particular encoder (not supercheap I think), but there are plenty of models you can use with the same principle of operation. The smaller may have some friction, but no more than a genuine taito spinner from the 80's. I can see only pros with respect to a hacked mouse

[PL1]

That depends on how you define "super cheap."

- Compared to this type of rotary encoder, it's more expensive, but has far superior resolution and performance.



- Compared to a TT2 or SpinTrak, you get very decent performance for about 1/3 the price once you add a Pro Micro, knob, and mounting screws.   


Scott

[Vocalitus]

Well I am still working on getting the hard drive motor attached to the control panel via one of the speaker holes. 

Home Depot yielded some washers and rubber grommets that didn't fit without breaking a finger, so I looked online and stared at another possibility.

Using the above rotary encoder could I not attach the wires to the scroll wheel of a mouse?  Amazon sells the unit for $20 for the encoder (could get it cheaper) and $6 for the Pot.

My birthday is coming up and instead of the soap on a rope and sponge combo I usually get I could ask for:

That depends on how you define "super cheap."

- Compared to this type of rotary encoder, it's more expensive, but has far superior resolution and performance.



- Compared to a TT2 or SpinTrak, you get very decent performance for about 1/3 the price once you add a Pro Micro, knob, and mounting screws.   


Scott

I was going to use the 1up spinner but they are out of the controller boards and most likely will not work with an original xbox.

I do have a logitech ps/2 marble trackball and a xbox converter.  I was going for cheapo and cheerful, and probably several years too late too.

[PL1]

original xbox

That's an important bit of information that completely changes what you can do and use.

You mentioned in another thread that you're planning on using an original KADE with your Xbox.
- KADE never really got the firmware right for optical controls. (trackballs/spinners)
- IIRC it kinda'/sorta'/almost worked with a low resolution trackball, but had really bad backspin with high resolution optical encoders like the 600 P/R one above, a TT2, or a SpinTrak.   
- Maybe someone else can help you, but interfacing optical controls with an Xbox is way outside my area of expertise.


Scott

[Vocalitus]

original xbox

That's an important bit of information that completely changes what you can do and use.

You mentioned in another thread that you're planning on using an original KADE with your Xbox.
- KADE never really got the firmware right for optical controls. (trackballs/spinners)
- IIRC it kinda'/sorta'/almost worked with a low resolution trackball, but had really bad backspin with high resolution optical encoders like the 600 P/R one above, a TT2, or a SpinTrak.   
- Maybe someone else can help you, but interfacing optical controls with an Xbox is way outside my area of expertise.


Scott

I was under the impression that the Xbox only recognized USB 1.0 and 1.1 standards, with the XBOX Media Center mouse driver being the exception.  I'm going to use the Joyfrag inferface with the Logitech Marble and see if the latency is workable.  I remember a USB dongle that worked withe the Xbox 360 and PS3 with keyboard and mouse having latency issues, so we will see. This box looks similar.  I think Ultimac makes a Xbox encoder...

Thanks for the KADE help looks like I have a dead duck.  I thought of pushing 6v through the KADE to see if it would have some sort of internal reset as the reset button on the AVR is not responding.  It can only go pop and smoke. 

[PL1]

Before you give it a smoke test, check around the solder joints for flux.

It could be that the board wasn't properly cleaned after soldering, leaving a continuity path.

If so, a Q-tip and some isopropyl alcohol is your friend.   

Also check that the AVR/daughterboard headers are properly aligned -- it's easy to be one pin off when connecting them.


Scott

[Vocalitus]

Before you give it a smoke test, check around the solder joints for flux.

It could be that the board wasn't properly cleaned after soldering, leaving a continuity path.

If so, a Q-tip and some isopropyl alcohol is your friend.   

Also check that the AVR/daughterboard headers are properly aligned -- it's easy to be one pin off when connecting them.


Scott

Thanks Scott I plugged it into my laptop and installed the Kade Loader and it is working now.  Maybe it doesn't like Windows 10.  I have these 3 pin EG Starts LED buttons I am using (same color combination as the Happs and same button placing) and if you wanted to know what each pin did top to bottom (I could not find any information on the net, all was a two pin variety) 5v,data,gnd.  Anyways I think I solved my Cheapo Spinner issue.

I went into the cable hell area of my garage and located my bag of Xbox controllers to get the joyfrag (which doesn't work with CoinOps and I found a HAMA encoder too) and low and behold a little basic brand new ball mouse was there.  I had a Maxtor 60gtb that was doing the rumba when plugged in and I de-motored that one and it fits the mouse encoder wheels which I broke one  but the other fits in the bottom just fine and occupies the button hole I wanted to keep.  Since it is becoming a PINTA to get a spinner working in CoinOPS 8 I will use a Pi zero for all the spinner games in Mame 2003. I just need a tall screw and a Pepsi bottle cap filled with hot glue and I am done.

So thank you all for your help in getting a poor guy like me on the right track for the cheapo spinner.   

[PL1]

Glad to assist.   

I have these 3 pin EG Starts LED buttons I am using (same color combination as the Happs and same button placing) and if you wanted to know what each pin did top to bottom (I could not find any information on the net, all was a two pin variety) 5v,data,gnd.

The EG Starts kits use ZD encoders which are almost always active high devices.  (apply 5v to an input to trigger the output)

Vestal chased down the wiring for the 4-tab version in this thread.

If I'm understanding correctly, you've narrowed down the three pins to 5v, data and ground, right?
- When you press the button, does the data pin connect to the 5v pin (for active high devices) or the ground pin? (for active low devices)
- Which goes to which pin in the button picture below?
- Which goes to the PCB group 2 outer pin?  Middle pin?  Inner pin?





Based on your testing, I'll make diagrams for this type of button and encoder.


Scott

[Vocalitus]

Glad to assist.   

I have these 3 pin EG Starts LED buttons I am using (same color combination as the Happs and same button placing) and if you wanted to know what each pin did top to bottom (I could not find any information on the net, all was a two pin variety) 5v,data,gnd.

The EG Starts kits use ZD encoders which are almost always active high devices.  (apply 5v to an input to trigger the output)

Vestal chased down the wiring for the 4-tab version in this thread.

If I'm understanding correctly, you've narrowed down the three pins to 5v, data and ground, right?
- When you press the button, does the data pin connect to the 5v pin (for active high devices) or the ground pin? (for active low devices)
- Which goes to which pin in the button picture below?
- Which goes to the PCB group 2 outer pin?  Middle pin?  Inner pin?





Based on your testing, I'll make diagrams for this type of button and encoder.


Scott

Yes these are the buttons I use.  Looking at the connector with the three wires moving the button shown in the image with the connector on the left side the wires are  5V (red dashes on the cable), Data (smaller red dashes on the cable), Ground (red dots on the cable).  The buttons are wired up to the KADE but the 5V on the KADE doesn't light the buttons.  I will get a multi meter out and see if the 5V on the KADE is working. The middle pin (DATA) connects to the lower pin (GND)to operate. so active low devices.  Looking at the EG Starts encoder board underneath will show all traces joined for 5V, so I am not sure how the demo light buttons work on the KADE if they are connected in series.  I have a 12/7/5V Fan connector I can attach to the Xbox to give out a solid 5V.  I will need fans in the cab as it is a sauna in the back of the 1 Up cabinet.     I wired up a cordless headphones for audio (neighbor friendly) and it sounds superb.  Cannot wait to hook up the PS3 to this cab, as the EG Starts encoder apparently works with the PS3/PS4 too.

I would like to know how the original xbox uses the 4 controller ports as they are just USB minus the yellow lightgun wire. All I know is port one is controller, port two lightgun, port 4 DVD controller.  Not sure if port 3 is the same as port one but nothing works in that port unless you are using linux.  Maybe you need more voltage for port 3...

Hope the above helps, and I wished there was a lock on the shift button feature on KADE so you can map both analog controllers for games like Halo.

[PL1]

The buttons are wired up to the KADE but the 5V on the KADE doesn't light the buttons.  I will get a multi meter out and see if the 5V on the KADE is working.

The Minimus AVR can only provide a limited amount of current (50 mA?) from that 5v pin.

Typical LEDs draw 20 mA each so you'll need an external power supply if you're running a bunch of LEDs.

I wished there was a lock on the shift button feature on KADE so you can map both analog controllers for games like Halo.

Some of the firmwares have a "double-click HWB to shift lock" feature, but I don't see that note on the Xbox firmware.

If nothing else, you can use a rocker or toggle switch on the HWB input to constantly enable shifted functions.
- Switch open for normal functions.
- Switch closed for shifted functions.
--------------------------------------------------
Let's try this part again.   

Looking at the connector with the three wires moving the button shown in the image with the connector on the left side the wires are  5V (red dashes on the cable), Data (smaller red dashes on the cable), Ground (red dots on the cable).

The button picture shows no red markings on the wires.      

To be clear, let's assign a letter to each wire in the picture below:
- Left wire in the picture = A
- Middle wire in the picture = B
- Right wire in the picture = C

Which letter is 5v?
Which letter is Data?
Which letter is Ground?

The middle pin (DATA) connects to the lower pin (GND)to operate. so active low devices.  Looking at the EG Starts encoder board underneath will show all traces joined for 5V, so I am not sure how the demo light buttons work on the KADE if they are connected in series.

I'm guessing that this part of your post is referring to the bottom row of twelve 3-pin "Group 2" connector pins on the PCB, right?

It sounds like you're saying that as you look at the "Group 2" connectors in the picture below:
- The 5v pins are toward the center of the board.
- The data pins are in the middle of the connector.
- The ground pins are toward the outer/bottom edge of the board.

Does that correctly describe each pin's function and location in this photo?




Scott

[Vocalitus]

So if I look at the encoder board and not the button connector image the pins are:

5v
Data
Ground

You will see the connector reversed on the image (right) and the encoder diagram (left).

****

So I will have to either use a secondary power supply to light the buttons or use the PC/PS3 encoder which could create a back feed voltage spike (whatever the true 5v variance is from the Xbox rail) going to the KADE and I should see a small light show and smoke effects for my efforts.   

Could I not use a buck converter from the xbox PSU 5v rail to the buttons to ensure correct voltage?  Or don't power the buttons and/or use Happ style buttons instead...

Do they still make leaf buttons, as the ones I have click too loudly?

[alfonzotan]

Goodwill is a great way to find a ball mouse. That's what I did when I made cheapo spinners. I printed the encoder wheel on a transparency and used a caster wheel mounted through a carriage bolt threaded through skateboard bearings.

I wrote this article about the build back in 2006: https://www.retroblast.com/articles/hillbilly-04262006-01.php

Yep. Although I bought an encoder ring for less than a dollar from one of the well-known vendors (I've forgotten which one, though) and repurposed the optical board from a broken Arkanoid spinner.