How to get a Pole Position Steering wheel to work on a mame cab

[leapinlew]

I want to hookup an atari steering wheel. I did quite a bit of reading doing a search on "steering wheel". It seems that a previous solutions were to purchase a product from Oscar or use an optipac. Several years have passed since the posts I read. Is this still the recommended method to connect a steering wheel controls to a cabinet? Does anyone have a walk through or something? I want to place an order for the controls, but I'm unsure if I should be looking for a mouse hack to get the existing steering wheel to work or if I should look into purchasing a USB steering whee.

I really want to keep the 360degree wheel for the games I want to play.

[cw]

i just hacked a mouse... open it up and mount it to the same spot as the old optics... then just plug the mouse in..

[leapinlew]

Interesting. I've never done anything like this, but that sounds good. Did you document it in any way or is it pretty self explanitory when you open it up?

Optical or ball mouse? I assume ball....

[cw]

yes ball mouse.... and yes you will see what im talking about when you open it up...

on the first run i just used a few zip ties and some hot glue but the kids found a way to rattle it off.  Now its secure with a small bolt and a lock nut with a zip tie for good measure...  I have had it up and running for about 3 years now and i havent had a problem.

  What are you planning on doing with the pedal? are you just doing a joystick hack  (thats all i did)  works fine...

[leapinlew]

yes ball mouse.... and yes you will see what im talking about when you open it up...

on the first run i just used a few zip ties and some hot glue but the kids found a way to rattle it off.  Now its secure with a small bolt and a lock nut with a zip tie for good measure...  I have had it up and running for about 3 years now and i havent had a problem.

  What are you planning on doing with the pedal? are you just doing a joystick hack  (thats all i did)  works fine...

Ok, opened up a mouse and I get it! What I need to do is look at the inside of the steering wheel to see how I can mount it. The wheels inside the mouse had really small holes in it. I'm assuming inside the steering wheel there is some sort of pinwheel looking thing with holes in it also? Is there a preferred mouse over another mouse and does mouse sensitivity settings inside of windows make a difference in the game?

Pedals.... the games I want to play aren't analog pedals. It's either full gas, full brake, or none. I would go with a joystick hack if I knew how. I'd like to save some money there. But I'm assuming I could use a ipac or keywiz with no problems. right? Also, is it just a button under the pedal, or some sort of microswitch to determine when it's been depressed?

[cw]

yes windows mouse settings will do it for you or the analog settings in mame...
and yes you will see the encoder wheel on the back of the cp... just line it up with the optics... and down worry if its backwards.. you can use the analog settings in mame to reverse it...

  as far as the pedal goes if you going to just use a switch button you can run that to the mouse pcb if you want or to the ipac..  the analog pedal is not hard to do and I would be happy to help if you do

[leapinlew]

Thanks for the help CW. I'll make use of the information you've provided. I am going to be working on it in the fall. I'll definetly see if your around if I am going to check out the analog pedal settings.

[ssc arcade]

hope you don't mind if I jump in,  I did a mouse hack for the spinner, but my axis is backwards for tempest.

what setting in mame do I need to set for it to be the right way in the command line.

I am using mamewah so I could place it in the tempest.ini file, any help there would be great.

thanks

[ahofle]

In game, press 'tab' and go to 'analog settings'.  There should be an item called 'dial X reverse' or something similar.  Set that.

[cw]

not sure about the command line .....

[leapinlew]

I pulled the old steering wheel off and there is a controller already attached with some wires coming off it - could those possibly wire directly to a ps2 mouse?

I'm going to take a picture to explain what I'm talking about. If it won't, then I'll have have to figure out how to install the mouse directly to the wheel.

[cw]

really would want to see a pic... you can use the optics pcb
(you might need to mondify it ) if it is indeed an optical wheel.....

[Kremmit]

Pole wheel optic boards will wire to a mouse hack, Opti-Pac, Opti-Wiz, etc. with no modifications.  Pinout on the optic board is, if I remember right, the same as on a Happ or Wico trackball optic board.

[leapinlew]

Ok. I have some pictures.... can you guys tell me how I can wire this to a PS2 mouse to see if it works? The game was a 1976 Atari Lemans.

Here are some pics -





Also.... I'm asking this before I just do it.... but, couldn't I just start plugging wires up in a hit or miss type fashion? I assume that one of the wires is a power wire and could cause me some trouble...

[Kremmit]

Hmm.  That LeMans wheel has a different optic card from the one on my Pole wheels.  I see lots of connections, but only 4 wires.  Red is often +5, and black is often ground, which would leave blue and white as your data lines, but putting +5 in the wrong place is a bad idea, so I don't know if you want to gamble based on nothing more than wire colors.

Better pics, of both sides, might tip off somebody.

[leapinlew]

I'll see what I can do about better pics. I really need to take them into the sunlight or get a better camera...

Is it difficult to get a pole position wheel? I assume if I get that - the optics would more easily connect to a mouse?

[Kremmit]

Yours are either easy, or nearly impossible.  We just don't have enough info without good pics of the optic board, or maybe a Lemans manual.

[MoonDog]

I used a mouse hack for my Pole Position wheel and it worked great.  I would suggest removing the optical sensor and wiring the mouse to the existing board if you can.  Somewhere on this site there is a link to very good instructions on a mouse hack, try the FAQ.  You'll need to do a little soldering.

Since this is a LeMans wheel and not Pole Position I can't help with the wiring pinout.  I agree with Kremmit though that red and black SHOULD be power and blue and white SHOULD be data.  I'd take the gamble, but I'd also study the board a bit first.  To get good pictures you'll probably need a camera with a macro setting (sometimes indicated by a flower icon) or a good zoom with plenty of light and a steady hand.

[markrvp]

I just scanned the thread, so don't know if this has been suggested, but the easiest fix is to replace whatever optics you have with an Optiwiz from GroovyGameGear.

[JLR2000]

Just noticed the thread myself.....

I also just took the inside of a mouse and mounted it so that the Encoder wheel of the Atari Steering wheel was aligned with the reader on the mouse board.  Just get creative, test it by holding it in place and then figure a good way to mount it.  Also, I removed the POT gas pedal and replaced with a microswitch....for PP I either go gas full on or off...

I hacked a gravis gamepad for extra buttons, just for the shifter and one pause button.  Keep in mind that MAME is coded so that the SHIFT requires two buttons, one for high and one for low.  An actual Pole Position cabinet has ONE switch in the SHIFTer, one condition when closed and one condition when open.  Someone way back provided me with the one line of code to change for MAME so that I could use the original switch, I recompiled and it runs great (on an old PIII 233 running DOS).

Good Luck!

PS. - I have since purchased two OPTIWIZs for other projects and they are simply fantasic.  I have never had good results soldering other readers to a mouse PCB (tried for a GT project, was okay but not nearly as responsive as the OPTIWIZ).  If you do end up buying I will give a strong vote to go with GGG and the OptiWiz.