Have just built the perfect spinner...easy and cheap..very solid feel

[clhug]

Didn't think of fence poles or conduit, but yes, looked at PVC, iron, copper, and galvanized water pipe.  The motor has exactly a 1.5" diameter.  The problem is that all the pipe that I can even find in a 1.5" ID is actually about a 1/8" larger diameter.  I've tried all kinds of combinations of even a lower ID pipe hoping that the OD would be exactly right and then trying to use a coupler, but I can't find anything that exact.

The motor only sticks out about 1/4", maybe 3/8".  The sanding isn't a bad idea.  I'm just not sure I've got the stuff to really do it.  But I'll look into it.

[ArcadEd]

Have you tried different Hard Drives too?  By motor, I am assuming you mean the bearing inside.  If so, I have 2 or 3 I pulled from bad hard drives.  I can measure them and let you what I have.  Maybe one of those will work better for you.

[clhug]

Well, bearings, yes, but it is also literally the motor that drives the platters in the drive.  If you look up the old hard drive spinner hack thread you'll see pictures of it.  What I have is out of a Western Digital drive.  I don't have access to a bunch of dead or old drives though so I can't try a bunch of different ones.  Oh, I did try one other drive but the motor out of it was a completely different design and completely unusable for this purpose.

[ArcadEd]

OK, well I take some pictures tonight and shoot you a PM of what I have.  Maybe one will be useful to you .

[ArcadEd]

Well I'll just post it here.



Both of these are 1" or slightly smaller in diameter.  Let me know if you want them.  Just PM me your address and I'll drop them in the mail on Wed.

[clhug]

Thanks for the pictures.  Those do look exactly like what I already have though.  (Your pics look the same except the one on the right being taller.)

The thing here is though, the pipe attaches to the bottom side, not the top.  The top is what you use to mount it.  When using it for the spinner it's used backwards of how it was used for the hard drive.  With the hard drive, the wide base was fixed and the top piece had the platters mounted to it and is what spun.  For the spinner, the top piece that held the platters is now fixed and the bottom piece rotates.  Part of the reason for this is that on the top, only the center shaft spins.  That's what you put the screw in to put the knob on the top.  Then by holding the platter spindle still you can spin the bottom piece using the knob on the top.

[ArcadEd]

OK, so the same thing, so you don't need them, right?

Did I mention they were 1" in diam and not 1.5? 

Eitherway, just let me know if you need them or not, I've had them laying around for about 4 years, so I'll just throw them back in the box otherwise .

[clhug]

I'd say for now I don't need them, but I'll keep them in mind.  Thanks much for the offer though!

[rollerball]

I didnt really look at different pipes...just found the pipe I used sitting in an old cupboard at work...and thought it may do the job.....

So how are you guys going???Anyone else tried to make this spinner yet???anyway let me know...

[psychopanda]

I've started the hard drive spinner and then bought an optical mouse. Building the cabinet is taking up most my time right now, but eventually I hope to try some variation of what you're doing. And if it doesn't work what I like, well there's always the commercial spinners. The only thing wasted would be a dead hard drive.

[rollerball]

well can try it like me and dont use a hard drive....dont see why you need to use a hard drive....mine works fine

[psychopanda]

well can try it like me and dont use a hard drive....dont see why you need to use a hard drive....mine works fine

Oops, forgot you're not making a hard drive spinner. I already tore apart the hard drive innards, set it up and tested it for spinning. Works pretty good. Then I got busy and never got around to testing it with optic encoder wheel/mouse, etc.

[tk_42_1]

This was such a inspiration.  I've been wanting to add a spinner and once I saw this I had to add my own.

I ended up using a hard drive motor and PVC.  The HD motor I was going to use fit perfectly inside a 1 1/4" PVC pipe, but I started to worry about getting a straight cut and wobble problems.  I then thought (while standing there in Home Depot) why don't I use a pipe coupler.  No cutting needed.  Also I don't need to buy a 5 foot piece of pipe when all I need is a few inches.  After trying all the different couplers (and getting strange looks from everyone down that isle) I found the 1 1/4 inch coupler with the screw end fit the best.  It wasn't totally snug but I thought it was close enough for this application.

Once I got the PVC Coupler home it needed a bunch of sanding to get rip of seems, bumps and other imperfections.  Then, I super glued it into place on the bottom of the HD motor.  Instead of trying to make a new hole in my CP, I decided to reuse the hole left by my 4-way joystick that I removed since I didn't use it after getting my 49-ways.  One problem though, the hole was bigger than I needed.  After trying shimming the hd motor from the bottom I found that using some washers on the top worked great to mount it in place.  It may not look the best but works great.

The spinner top is just a volume control knob from Radio Shack that I attached to a 1/4" spacer that fit over one of the case screws that fit into the top of th HD motor.

The mouse is just an el cheapo GE travel mouse I bought at Big Lots for $3.99.  I ended up having to remove the electroincs and flip them over and hot glue them on the base.  The mouse was not working fully the other way and this gave me a extra 1/32" to play with.  Even after doing this I still had a dead spot when I used the spinner.  To fix this I added a few pieces of masking tape to increase the thickness on the PVC.  Once I did this no more problems at all.  In the pix you will see black marker marks on the coupler.  I thought would fix my dead spot before I added the masking tape.

I still need to work on setting up all the games with the correct setting in MAME, but right out of the box without changing anything, I got the high score in Star Trek and Omega Race.

[AE35]

AMAZING idea....very, very good!

However, I have just one question. I take it that the spinner will work for all games
that support something like mouse, but can I turn it off for games of my own choice?

What if I wanted Puzz Loop to NOT listen to the joystick, but only the spinner?
Possible?

Thanks!

Nicholas

[leapinlew]

What if I wanted Puzz Loop to NOT listen to the joystick, but only the spinner?
Possible?

Thanks!

Nicholas

Since you used Puzz Loop as an example.... Puzz Loop is setup using the mouse OR the joystick. The joystick is the default configuration. Once you go into it's service mode you change it to the spinner.

[kiddk1]

I tried the same with an optical and pvc with HD spinner and it did not work.  I will try your method with a coupler, I had alot of wobble with mine hence lots of dead spots.