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Trackball Resolution
Ropi Jo:
I'm not suggesting using the 1200 wheel or the optos in the 1200 encoder. Just wiring my optos in place of them and using the 24 tooth wheel.
I won't know till I crack them open if it's possible.
PL1:
--- Quote from: Ropi Jo on October 19, 2022, 03:21:15 pm ---I'm not suggesting using the 1200 wheel or the optos in the 1200 encoder. Just wiring my optos in place of them and using the 24 tooth wheel.
I won't know till I crack them open if it's possible.
--- End quote ---
Don't bother cracking them open because there's nothing in there that you can wire to trackball-style optos and align those optos with an encoder wheel . . . or did you miss the part where I explained the engineering reasons why it's absolutely not possible to mix and match the two types of hardware.
- Different methods for producing quadrature waveforms.
- Different hardware.
- Different specs.
If you want try using trackball-style optos, just build your own optical board on perf board.
- Check the opto spec sheet to see if there's a sample circuit design for optimal performance.
Scott
Ropi Jo:
Understood. Cheers Scott.
Ropi Jo:
Trackball has been redesigned and reprinted. Mechanically it works a treat.
Plan is to print the encoder wheels and spin them up connected to a scope and see if I get the effect Scott described at high speed.
There are no options to purchase the happ red boards in the UK that I can find, and searches for circuitry to do the same thing are proving fruitless.
My 1200 encoder modding thoughts were rightly and savagely slaughtered (Thanks Scott!).
So my next thought...
If I hack an optical mouse to see the ball movement, connected to a USB socket, would this seem viable?
My old mame cab had a PS2 trackball that worked flawlessly. BUT... it was permanently connected.
This build has hot swap CPs. The trackball CP will need to be hot swap-able.
I have an Ipac, Apac, and Optipac permanently connected to USB and they they do not get lost.
Would a USB mouse get lost by hot swapping?
It would make my life a damn sight easier if it wont
System runs on W7
Thank you.
PL1:
--- Quote from: Ropi Jo on October 21, 2022, 03:54:30 pm ---If I hack an optical mouse to see the ball movement, connected to a USB socket, would this seem viable?
--- End quote ---
StefanBurger used this approach several years ago for this trackball design.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,161771.0.html
When you flip a mouse on it's back with the "tail" toward you and mount a ball over it, the X-axis works right but the Y-axis is reversed.
Reversing an axis is easy with optos -- you just swap data lines A and B.
Two possible approaches to reversing an optical mouse axis:
- The easy way is to reverse the axis in MAME. (Analog Controls -- Track Y Reverse) Obviously, this doesn't work outside of MAME.
- The hard way is to modify the optical mouse circuit like StefanBurger did.
--- Quote from: Ropi Jo on October 21, 2022, 03:54:30 pm ---Would a USB mouse get lost by hot swapping?
--- End quote ---
No, assuming your trackball panel doesn't have two trackballs or a trackball and a spinner or two.
- By default, Windows adds similar axes so a mouse and a trackball can both control a single cursor. For example, moving the mouse 5 steps right while moving the trackball 2 steps left moves the cursor 3 steps right.
- As long as you only need one of each axis for gameplay you're fine.
You can keep Windows from adding similar axes by using raw inputs ("-multimouse" option in MAME), but you might run into the Windows device renumbering issue.
Scott