Best and easiest home built spinner plans

[NoBonus]

Okay,

In your expert opinion, what is the best and easiest home-built spinner plan?  I like Twistygrips plan, but an a bit hesitant about the "Quik-spin".  Additionally, I do not have a hard drive to sacrifice nor a bunch of cash to spend on anything, much less a pre-made spinner.

What do you think?  

NoBonus
Experienced Rookie, Professional Neophyte, Pesty Pesk

[bigmoe]

The spinner problem is an interesting one.

I've not built a homemade spinner or purchased a commercial one.

I've thought about this a lot, and have narrowed my thoughts to something like the following:

a) Given my handiness, making one myself would be prone to error, either in time, redos, or quality.  Maybe not an issue for you.

b) Even given a successful build, I would be inclined to think that the quality of specifically-machined parts in a professionally designed and built spinner would still be greater than the hacked parts I can find lying around.  (I've never seen one of OSCAR's spinner, but the mounting plates are a force to be reckoned with.)

c) Moreover, It seems to me, from some of the research I've done, that if you don't already have tools and/or some parts (like a viable non-working HDD), it's nearly a toss-up pricewise to just buy, say, an OSCAR model 3 or something.

d) Even if you build one yourself, you still have to procure a top; new you're looking at $15-20 plus shipping all by itself.  (There IS thenasty's interesting bunnytop (http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=10;action=display;threadid=17522); it works surprising well, but might throw off the arcade experience for the purist.)

d) Another possibility is to buy used (see the buy/sell forum) or to buy a real arcade spinner and hack it.  I seem to recall a lone Tron spinner on ebay a few weeks ago going for like $10 to $15.  You should be able to rig one of those up with one of OSCAR's decoder boards ($7.50) (plus a wiring harness if you can't build one yourself) and be good to go.  Shipping could be a killer going that route.

Given the presumed quality of OSCAR's spinners (which are cheaper than the SlikStik one, not trying to imply anything there, just presuming an inexpensive route), you would likely be happiest just saving your quarters for another month or two and going with one from there.


But perhaps the more adventurous folks who have actually built a spinner should chime in here .

b

[nighthawk2099]

I build the Nasty Spinner and I'm really happy with it... works great...

[pmc]

Does it have to be a Western Digital Caviar drive to have bearings that will work? I have lots of old (and probably broken) 10MB to 40MB Quantum and Apple SCSI drives circa 1987-1992.

My feeling is, if you have the bearing mech already, why not try it? You can always save face by buying and Oscar after failure. ;-D

[mahuti]

http://www.arcadecontrols.com/files/Miscellaneous/spinner.pdf

There's a good one by Nathan Strum. I don't know if it is EASY, but it works VERY well.

[DeathDealer]

Im building one, not yet finish, out of VCR parts, that part that spins inside the VCR that has the head, if you find a VCR in the street and open it you will see what Im talking about. Its a Shining silver "wheel" about 2.5"  diameter. will post picture when done.

[Lilwolf]

I liked the idea someone had using a inline skate wheel.

[nighthawk2099]

Does it have to be a Western Digital Caviar drive to have bearings that will work? I have lots of old (and probably broken) 10MB to 40MB Quantum and Apple SCSI drives circa 1987-1992.

My feeling is, if you have the bearing mech already, why not try it? You can always save face by buying and Oscar after failure. ;-D

I used an old Maxtor 500 mb drive, so it doesn't really matter.  I tried a couple of 4g/6g drives (don't remember the make) and they didn't have the correct spindle/bearing thingy ( love that tech talk) you see in the pictures.  It's sort of a trial and error.  I'd try the older ones first (don't have to worry about screwing them up) then work your way up.

[ErikRuud]

I read through all the spinner plans that were available at the time.

I liked Nathan's Cheep spinner the best, but I simplified things a little.

I did not want to have a mounting plate at all, so I used a piar of flanged bearings that I got at Ace Hardware.  They are mounted in a 1-1/8" hole in my CP.  I also hand cut the encoder from a flat sheet of plastic using the template from nathan's instructions.  The way Nathan did it seemed to be a lot more work.

I don't remember the exact total, but I spent less than $35.00 on my spinner, including the knob and mouse.

[Edgedamage]

Im building one, not yet finish, out of VCR parts, that part that spins inside the VCR that has the head, if you find a VCR in the street and open it you will see what Im talking about. Its a Shining silver "wheel" about 2.5"  diameter. will post picture when done.

"silver wheel"=Scanner