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Simplest and cheapest wat to get A "Pole Position" to play "Pole Position"?

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tommyinajar:
1 pretty fair cab with a corner broke off.

  What is the best combo of money and time?

The guts are all there but I'll ebay those I guess, Ebay and Freight charge the Arc Welder of a power supply, save the controls, at least the plastic wheel and pedal.

 I loved PP,  It will get dull. but I'm thinking Mame with all the Analog driving games? Add a button or 2? Raspberry pi it? run a Pentium 2?

I'll move the junk and take a pic--.................        Gentleman, Prepare to Qualify!

BadMouth:
Driving cabs aren't simple like joystick cabs.
Start by reading the stickied Beginners Start Here thread to get an idea of how much of a PITA it will be.
There was no standard like JAMMA for driving cabs, so there is no consistency in how the controls are set up or how sensitive they are.
Every single game has to be tweaked.

The first problem is that you'll have to decide between playing "360 degree wheel" games where the original wheel used an optical encoder and spun endlessly
or "270 degree wheel" games where the original wheel used a potentiometer and had limited travel.

Being that your cab already has a 360 degree wheel, it would be cheapest to stick with that.
bkenobi posted a solution for using a 360 degree wheel with 270 degree wheel games here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,92363.0.html
It is is 14 year old info.  I do not know if it works with modern versions of windows.

I'd steer clear of the Raspberry Pi  unless you are very familiar with how to set up analog controls on whatever version of MAME it is using.  I haven't messed with it in a long time, but remembered having much more limited options for tweaking  the controls.

You'll need an interface that can simultaneously read an optical encoder for the steering wheel and a potentiometer for the gas pedal.  My knowledge is getting pretty outdated.
PL1 will probably be along and can recommend something.

Fursphere:
To echo what BadMouth has said, be prepared for a little frustration.  :)

If you choose to build a dedicated 360 degree wheel cab, this thread may be of use to you:  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=28960.0

You may end up with multiple interfaces - one for the optical encoder (spinner with a wheel attached essentially), then another to support the buttons and analog devices (gas / brake).

But the best 360 wheel game is Ivan Ironman Stewart's Super Offroad - which has 3 wheels and 3 pedals.  So you need to think bigger.  :)  (just kidding.....   )

MrThunderwing:
Or, you could just cut your losses and get one of these...

PL1:

--- Quote from: tommyinajar on July 31, 2023, 11:52:35 am ---  What is the best combo of money and time?

--- End quote ---
Depends on your perspective.   :dunno

There are many ways to approach this project.

Here are some things to consider.

  Steering wheel:

The original Pole Position steering wheel optical board is an "active high" device so you'll need to either:

1. Use an encoder (OptiPac, U-HID, etc.) that can handle "active high" optical devices.



2. Replace the original optical board with the "active low" Happ Red board (P/N A052-1011-00) which will work with almost all encoders. (OptiPac, U-HID, OptiWiz, Arduino, etc.)  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,160884.0.html

  Gas pedal:
The gas pedal uses a potentiometer so you'll either need to use a composite encoder that can handle both optical (steering wheel) and analog (potentiometer) inputs or use separate encoders for optical and analog.

  Shifter:
Use a gamepad button on the analog gamepad encoder instead of a keyboard key for this so your computer doesn't throw an error if the shifter is in the wrong position when you boot up the computer.


Scott

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