Connecting 3 Optical Device To Opti-Pac

[Skipp2k]

I am building a control panel for my cab, on it there will be 2 8-way joysticks a happ optical rotary joystick, a happ trackball and a oscar spinner.
I be using the i-pac and optipac to connect these to my pc.

Q1. Is can I connect the P1 joystick and the rotary joystict to the same connectors on the ipac, therefore letting me use any of the two joysticks for player 1, will not be using them at the same time.

Q2. Will I be able to connect all three of my optical controllers to the optipac for player 1 only,

I know that the optipac will allow a trackball and spinner/rotary to serial port 1 and auto switch between then but is it possible to connect all three and auto switch between them.

will connecting the spinner/rotary to the same connections on the optipac,(like with the joysticks), work.

or will I need 2 optipac to get all three optical devices working in Windows.


Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer me.

P.S. Also is connecting the happ optical rotary joystick to the optipac easy, is it like the trackball.

Thanks again for your info.

[cdbrown]

Skipp2k,

Wiring the microswitches of both joysticks to player 1 should not cause problems.

I've been doing a bit of checking up on the optipac of late for my own cab and from what I understand is there is no reason to get two optipacs as you will have to use both serial ports (which require additional drivers) and I think that is what you're trying to avoid because the second serial is for player 2.  

I can't see any problems having the spinner and rotary on one input as they do the same thing, just make sure the spinner rotary are spaced apart so they aren't hit accidently.

Don't know how easy they are to connect but seems like cutting off the connector and inserting the right wires into the optipac.  I could be wrong though.

Hope this helps

Cheers
-cdbrown

[Lilwolf]

1) STRONGLY consider a hotswappable control panels... ie, have one control panel with trackball and buttons... one with the optical joysticks and buttons... and one with the spinner and buttons...  Main reason... you will want to add more later... (star wars yoke, classic 4way, robotron/4player,  ect)

2) YOu can have one trackball and two spinners for each serial port... Then you have the other serial port... so you can do it...   What happens is if you are using the trackball, it ignores the spinners... then if you want to use the spinner, you have to stop using the trackball for a bit, then use the spinner...

3) If you aren't going to do two trackballs for marblemadness... then I would try HARD not to use the second serial port... The drivers suck to setup since mame doesn't support multiple mice... and no XP at all.  

4) But then again... if you have two spinners on one mouse... you are stuck with specific mame builds... (analog+ I think does it.)


goodluck