I'll be todays vidiot: # of spinners on a minipac?

[Tweaked]

OK, I'll be todays vidiot:

I read the minipac can control spinners and I am a huge fan of super offroad and super sprint and the spinning steering wheels...  What I need to know is how many spinners (spinning steering wheels) I can put on a Minipac, and can they be double wired with the joysticks to save inputs or give players the option to use either stick or wheel?  Would a minipac be able to control 2 spinners and 1 trackball?

oh, can minipacs be daisy chained the way Ipac2's and Ipac4's can be using usb?

Thanks

[Tiger-Heli]

For simplicity - minipac=I-pac+half Optipac.

Nope, scratch that, just looked at the schematic - http://www.ultimarc.com/mp_inst.html

I read the minipac can control spinners and I am a huge fan of super offroad and super sprint and the spinning steering wheels...  What I need to know is how many spinners (spinning steering wheels) I can put on a Minipac

Two - but they will have to be connected as Trackball Y and Trackball X and you will probably need MAME Analog + to get them working together.  (Actually, looking at the schematic, it implies you could have 3 hooked up, but I think it will autoswitch between the trackball and spinner inputs, so the best you could do is probably 2 using the trackball inputs only)

, and can they be double wired with the joysticks to save inputs

No, the spinners and joysticks wire up completely separately, but

give players the option to use either stick or wheel?

You can do this in MAME by assigning either Trackball X - or Left Arrow to Left.

 Would a minipac be able to control 2 spinners and 1 trackball?

Yes, but what you would need to do is hook both the spinners and trackballs together to the same inputs and use a DPDT switch like http://www.oscarcontrols.com/DPDTswitch.shtml

oh, can minipacs be daisy chained the way Ipac2's and Ipac4's can be using usb?

Supposedly so, but there was a recent thread where someone was having problems with it.

[Tweaked]

Thanks alot, that was fast... appreciate it!

[Tweaked]

My main objective is to have a control panel with 4 controllers (16), with 6 game buttons (24),  start buttons (4), Coins (4), Pause (1), Escape (1), Mouse/Trackball (2 or 3), 1 Trackball, and finally 2 spinners.

What I was looking at was using 2 minipacs like:
minipac 1:
player1 with all associated buttons
Player2 with all associated buttons
trackball

minipac2 or ipac2:
player3 wtih all associated buttons
Player4 with all associated buttons
spinner1
spinner2

To me it doesn't matter if  have to use USB or PS2 or possibly even a combination of this to make it work.  Basically I was trying to save a buck by not having to buy an Ipac4 and an Opticpac.

Maybe I should also ask if there are any known or foreseeable shortcomings to this type of setup.

Thanks again.

[Tiger-Heli]

My main objective is to have a control panel with 4 controllers (16), with 6 game buttons (24),  start buttons (4), Coins (4), Pause (1), Escape (1), Mouse/Trackball (2 or 3), 1 Trackball, and finally 2 spinners.

What I was looking at was using 2 minipacs like:
minipac 1:
player1 with all associated buttons
Player2 with all associated buttons
trackball

minipac2 or ipac2:
player3 wtih all associated buttons
Player4 with all associated buttons
spinner1
spinner2

To me it doesn't matter if  have to use USB or PS2 or possibly even a combination of this to make it work.  Basically I was trying to save a buck by not having to buy an Ipac4 and an Opticpac.

Maybe I should also ask if there are any known or foreseeable shortcomings to this type of setup.

Thanks again.

Bad plan, IMHO - Remember, the Minipac with trackball support is $69, so you're going to spend $140 to avoid spending $110 for an I-PAC/2 and Opti-pac.

Beyond that, there are no 4-player games that require six-buttons per player, unless you are concerned with console emulation which would work better with gamepads anyway.

If you don't mind sharing inputs, you could do what you want for about $80 total with a KeyWiz and Opti-Pac, or not share inputs with the non-programmable two-bit score encoder.

Also see my comments in these threads:

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=23042

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=22871;start=msg188438#msg188438

[u_rebelscum]

I read the minipac can control spinners and I am a huge fan of super offroad and super sprint and the spinning steering wheels...  What I need to know is how many spinners (spinning steering wheels) I can put on a Minipac

Two - but they will have to be connected as Trackball Y and Trackball X and you will probably need MAME Analog + to get them working together.

Official mame starting with 0.85 (0.84u5, actually) can remap mouse axis.

[Tiger-Heli]

What I was looking at was using 2 minipacs like:
minipac 1:
player1 with all associated buttons
Player2 with all associated buttons
trackball

minipac2 or ipac2:
player3 wtih all associated buttons
Player4 with all associated buttons
spinner1
spinner2

I may have steered you wrong with my initial reply.  According to this thread:  http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=23042

Andy Warne said that there is no difference between the Mini-Pac boards themselves.

That implies that (if you made your own harnesses out of an IDE cable), you could buy two of the $29 standard mini-pacs and basically have an I-PAC/4 and an Opti-PAC for less money than an I-PAC/4 alone.

I would prefer someone who bought the $29 board to test the trackball interface before I tried this, though.

There also was that thread about someone having trouble getting the two mini-pacs to stay programmed, but that shouldn't be a problem.

[Bgnome]

if you dont mind sharing axes, you could fit 2 more spinners or another trackball..

[Tiger-Heli]

What I was looking at was using 2 minipacs like:
minipac 1:
player1 with all associated buttons
Player2 with all associated buttons
trackball

minipac2 or ipac2:
player3 wtih all associated buttons
Player4 with all associated buttons
spinner1
spinner2

I may have steered you wrong with my initial reply.  According to this thread:

Confirmed, I did steer you wrong on this.  Your initial idea was a good one.

Andy Warne said that there is no difference between the Mini-Pac boards themselves.

That implies that (if you made your own harnesses out of an IDE cable), you could buy two of the $29 standard mini-pacs and basically have an I-PAC/4 and an Opti-PAC for less money than an I-PAC/4 alone.

I have confirmed this to be the case.

There also was that thread about someone having trouble getting the two mini-pacs to stay programmed, but that shouldn't be a problem.

This has also been resolved, AFAICT.  Be advised, what you will have to is the following:
1) Plug in Minipac 1 - Program for your Player 1 and 2 inputs - Unplug Minipac 1.
2) Plug in Minipac 2 - Program for your Player 3 and 4 inputs.
3) Plug Minipac 1 back in - No further programming required.

[microwrx]

Depending on where you locate the Mini-PACs themselves, if you have your cab setup like most with players 1&2 in the middle and you are going to program both Mini-PAC's anyway I'd suggest you have one as player 1/player 3 and the other as player2/player 4.  It's a bit of a stretch between player 3 & 4 is all.  Again, it all depends on how you're going to do your wiring etc. though.