Will a minipac help me out here?

[unclet]

I have two spinners which I hacked (via the Twisty Grip design) to two USB mice, both on the X-axis. 

I would like to get both mice working at the same time for multiple mice games in Mame.   I was told if I simply changed one of my mouse hacks to use teh Y-axis optics instead, then everything would work in Mame like I want.

Problem is.... the mice I used for my hack does not allow hacking to the Y-axis nicely, so that is not an option.    Also, I realize Mame Analog XP+ would be an option as well, but I was told I would have to issue the Mame analog options manually (ie: at the control prompt) to initiate multiplemice, etc... 

I came across someone in this forum mentioning a "MiniPac" from ultimarc.   Would this allow me to attach my two USB mice hacks to it, thus allowing me to specify one being X-axis and the other being Y-axis ..... if so, what would I need to do.   I mean I would assum I would need to cut my USB wire for each mouse and attach them to the minipac, but how?

Thanks for any info ....

[cholin]

If you have two spinners, why do you want a Y-axis one?

The minipac wiring diagram allows for one spinner and one trackball.  I'm not sure, but it would make perfect sense that you could hook up your spinner for one and the other spinner could go on the X-axis of the trackball.  Im not sure if the Minipac requires a Y-axis, but this seems logical.

So mousehack1 -> Spinner
mousehack2 -> Tracball X

EDITED for picture go to http://ultimarc.com/images/Mini-Pac%20wiring.jpg

[Kremmit]

A Mini-Pac (or an Opti-Pac would work, too) is used in place of your mouse hacks.  You just connect the signal from the optic boards on your spinners to the minipac inputs, and forget about USB mouse hackery.

But why can't the Y-axis on your mice be hacked?  Pictures?

[unclet]

Can an Optipac be used without an Ipac?   

As for the mouse hack question (see my mouse hack picture).   Using the Twisty Grip hack method of hacking a mouse, there is a little retangular white plastic part which is glued next to the optics so the flywheel point (at the tip) can fit in it.  This holds the flywheel into position between the optics (see white plastic piece in the photo).   Now look at the other set of optics which I am not using and you will notice there is no place to glue the white rectangular piece to hold the flywheel in position.

Since I do not have two real "spinners" , then I do not have wires which typically come out of a spinner to hook into a Minipac (or Optipac),.  All I have is the USB wiring coming off of the mouse PCB board (see red/green/white and black wires in top/left of photo), so how would I connect the USB wires to the minipac ?   Basically, if I cut the USB head adapter off the end of the wires which come from the PCB board, then which of those wires would I connect to the minipac .... if this is possible?

[cholin]

You would have to cut the traces from the encoders on your mouse and solder a new wire leading to the minipac.

[Kremmit]

Can an Optipac be used without an Ipac?

Sure can.  However, you'll still need an Ipac, or Keywiz, or GP-Wiz, etc. to interface your joysticks and buttons, as the Opti-Pac doesn't handle that, just optical stuff like spinners, trackballs, and 360 degree steering wheels.  The Mini-Pac handles optical controls as well as joysticks and buttons.  The trade-off is that the Mini-Pac handles fewer optical axes than the Opti-Pac, and (I could be wrong about this part) the Mini-Pac is more difficult to interface with non-Ultimarc products.

Since I do not have two real "spinners" , then I do not have wires which typically come out of a spinner to hook into a Minipac (or Optipac),.  All I have is the USB wiring coming off of the mouse PCB board (see red/green/white and black wires in top/left of photo), so how would I connect the USB wires to the minipac ?   Basically, if I cut the USB head adapter off the end of the wires which come from the PCB board, then which of those wires would I connect to the minipac .... if this is possible?

Nope, you don't want to connect the wires from the USB cable to anything except a USB port. 

Since you don't have plain optic boards attached to your spinner, but rather have your spinner directly turning the mouse's encoder wheel, you've got two choices that I can see: 

Buy two "Universal Optic Boards" @ $7.50 each from Oscar controls:
http://www.oscarcontrols.com/cgi-bin/cart.pl?DT=1
and then interface those with a Minii--Pac, Opti-Pac, etc.

or

You could try sticking with your current mouse hacks by connecting the X-Axis optics with the Y-Axis circuitry on one of the mice.  I saw somewhere on this board where somebody did just that.  I'll go looking for the link, but for now, here's how I'd do it: 

Cut the traces on the board leading to the X-axis optical sensors. 

De-solder the Y-Axis optical sensors.

Wire jumpers from the pins on the now dis-connected X-axis sensors to the now empy solder pads for the Y-Axis opitcs.

Bingo!

[unclet]

I have a few extra optic boards hanging around but I thought I would not be able to get the flywheel of my mouse to go through those optics nicely.   

Anyway, I like the idea of cutting the traces from the XAxis and simply wiring the X-Axis optics to the removed Y-Axis optic locations ..... damn that was so easy now that I think about it  :>) 

Thanks a lot!

[Tiger-Heli]

Got into this thread late, sorry. . .

As mentioned before, if you go with the mini-pac, opti-pac, you will not want to keep any of the mouse hacks around.

And yes, you can connect the mouse encoders to the y-axis inputs.

OTOH -

Also, I realize Mame Analog XP+ would be an option as well, but I was told I would have to issue the Mame analog options manually (ie: at the control prompt) to initiate multiplemice, etc... 

I don't believe this is true.  I think you would just need to run it one time with the -cc option and then edit the .ini file to enable them.

Are the spinners always plugged into the cab, or do you plug them in as needed.  If the latter, you might need to make you gamename.ana files read-only while they are still plugged in.

Also, even if you did need to issue the options manually, you SHOULD be able to do this from your front-end.

[unclet]

I use NoNameMame since my wife likes Pong ..... go figure 

Anyway, the mouse hacks are always plugged into the computer via a USB Hub.

I was told Mame Analog XP+ was probably combined into NoNameMame already but I thought I would need to execute the multimice options and switchaxis stuff manually since the NoNameMame frontend does not offer interfaces to the MameAnalog XP+ options.

So now I might be confused.  I will go back and re-read my older mails about this subject and see if I can simply set some INI file options in NoNameMame so I can use my mouse hacks as is .. but simply assign one of them to be X-Axis and assign the other as Y-axis.

[Tiger-Heli]

>I use NoNameMame since my wife likes Pong ..... go figure 

NoNameMAME is a good build.  Actually, NoNameMAME32 must be what you are using.

>Anyway, the mouse hacks are always plugged into the computer via a USB Hub.

That's good.

>I was told Mame Analog XP+ was probably combined into NoNameMame already but I

Probably, but it depends on the version of NoNameMAME.

>thought I would need to execute the multimice options and switchaxis stuff manually since >the NoNameMame frontend does not offer interfaces to the MameAnalog XP+ options.

Set the following in Noname.ini (from Noname 0.75u1):

### Analog+ options ###
analogpedal             1
singlemouse             0
switchablemice         1
switchmiceaxes        1
splitmouseaxes        1
resetmouseaxes      0
lightgun2a                0
lightgun2b                0

Then I think you will need to go into the Tab menu for each spinner game and you should see a new "Mouse" item where you can assign the Mouse 2 X-Axis to P2, for example.