Spinner Question - How much 'spin' really needed?

[Necro]

So, I have the center of a 5 1/4" drive that I managed to get out of a scrap drive.  The only thing is, unlike a HDD center, it doesnt spin 'freely' - once you stop turning it, the thing stops dead.  There's no 'spin' afterwards at all, no matter how hard you spin it.

Just messing around with the center, I dont think I get why you would want one to be totally free spinning.  Wouldnt you want some friction/slowdown to stop the thing?

Could anyone give me some insight into this and if I should even bother trying to make a spinner with this piece or just look for something else?

[RayB]

For games like Tempest, it's helpful for it to keep turning. Same with some driving games like Pole Position.

For other games like Arkanoid, you'd want it to stop dead in its tracks.

[Necro]

Hrm.  Ok...I was playing tempest with my trackball last nite (given, it's an older trackball I got for...0.01c off ebay, but it works) and I can see that. 

I was kind of using arkanoid/breakout type games as a 'standard' I guess.  Didnt think of the others.

Guess I'll put it together and see how I like it - worst comes to worst I replace the one portion with another later on.

Now to find some kind of enclosure.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Kremmit]

You may not be getting any sustained spin because there's no weight on it. 

No weight = no inertia = no sustained spin.

Tempest spinners have two metal discs attached to the encoder wheel for the sole purpose of adding weight to make it spin longer.  Oscar's spinners all had a weight of some kind for the same reason.  The Arkanoid spinner has no weight, though. 

Folks always talk about how the big difference between an Arkanoid spinner and most others is the gear system used on the Arkanoid, but I think the real difference is the weight.