Twistygrip... How's the feel?

[telengard]

I'm contemplating building one of these as I've finished all of the easy panels for my
cab.  Anyone have any comments on them?  I'd probably use it as a yoke/steering wheel combo
if possible... I've got too many panels already.

thanks

[Smack]

I had built one, worked pretty well. I think it took me about an hour and a half to build it.

I recently built a new cocktail cab and bought a couple of Oscar spinners. After having tried the Twisty Grip and then the Oscar ones - consider the Oscar spinners. They just feel more solid, easier to mount, and spin awesome.

When you figure in your time, running around to pick up the stuff, $50 is cheap!

Just my 2 cents.

Smack

[Tiger-Heli]

I'm contemplating building one of these as I've finished all of the easy panels for my
cab.  Anyone have any comments on them?

I assume you are talking about the Twisty Yoke, they made a spinner also.  From what I understand, they work okay.  Personally, I'm not crazy about the cheap plastic PVC looks of them or the gameport interface.  They estimate the cost at $45.00, plus shipping and labor to build.  Also, they're designed to sit on a desktop, so no convenient way to mount them to an arcade cab.  Plus I would want some kind of fake center box area just for looks, . . .

Given all this, I would recommend finding a genuine yoke on http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&query=yoke&categoryid=&ht=1&category3=13715&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&BasicSearch= (E-bay, coin-operated arcade, search yoke), they generally go for $50-$100.00 and using 1-Up's http://www.1uparcade.com/project-swyoke.html yoke to Dual Strike hack.

Cost: roughly $100.  Advantages:  USB connectivity, complete arcade authenticity, probably easier to build than the TwistyGrip.

I'd probably use it as a yoke/steering wheel combo
if possible... I've got too many panels already.

Problem here is either the 1-up yoke or the Twisty is pot based (270 degrees max rotation) and many driving games were 360 degrees free spinning.  You can use a 360-degree wheel with a pot-based driving game, but not the other way around.  And there's not really a good way to make the yoke free spinning.  Again, your best bet here is to buy a wheel on E-bay (under $20.00, often under $10.00) and then gut a USB mouse to it.

I think 1-Up has some flexible mounting ideas on his site also, which might cut down on the number of panels required :-)