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New Product (In Stock/Shipping) - Apache Controls Blackhawk Push/Pull Spinner
Kremmit:
Re: Number of teeth on original encoder wheels: (this is a cut-n-paste from an older post of mine)
DOT spinner (original) has 128 teeth.
The Oscar DOT replica only has 72 teeth, same as Blasteroids, Tempest, Oscar Vortex, and the 720 joystick.
The Pole Position wheel has 24 teeth, with the gearing you get just shy of 4 revolutions of the encoder per turn of the wheel, for somewhere around 80 teeth actually passing through the optics per one turn of the steering wheel.
Arkanoid is the special one. The knob attaches to shaft #1, which has a 72 tooth gear on it. That gear turns a 16 tooth gear on shaft #2. Shaft #2 also has a 72 tooth gear on it, which then turns a 16 tooth gear on shaft #3. Shaft #3 also has the encoder wheel on it, which has 24 teeth.
So, shaft 2 spins 4.5 times for every turn of shaft 1. Shaft 3 spins 4.5 turns for every turn of shaft 2. 4.5 squared is 20.25 turns of the encoder for every turn of the knob, which is 486 teeth per revolution of the spinner knob!!
Xiaou2:
All I can say is that I had the best games of Tempest I've ever played using this spinner. The control was great, and it felt wonderfully precise. I never felt I was out of control and the spinner stopped where I wanted it to no matter how quickly I snapped the spinner back and forth.
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Kev - what you are decribing are physical attributes. Not
actual sensor related feedback... nor precision accuracy.
Basically, you are saying.. "This car drives great",
but can not really understand and explain why.
Mechanically, the thing is built very well. There looks
to be no space between the shaft and bearings.. thus no
'play' or wobble. This means good spin time, smoother
control, better accuracy.
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As far as Arkanoid - I didn't notice any problems, but I have to confess I suck at Arkanoid. Always have, always will.
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Well Kev, one of the main reason why you suck at
arkanoid is the actual controller. Arkanoids superior
resolution isnt comparale to any spinner out there.
Even the new high res encoder on that one spinner isnt
quite as good - as it doesnt have the physical resistence
from the gearing to provide a bit more ability to remain
"motionless" when stopped and to keep you from
"overshooting" your desired position.
If you could get hold of a real arkanoid controller,
I would love to see your comparison between any
other spinner out there. As I believe you might
better understand whats taking place as well as
actually notice the enhanced control attributes.
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Be careful on the teeth vs clicks numbers.
I'm not sure about the other games, but I know '720.
The original controller had a 72 tooth encoder, and the game saw 144 'clicks' per rotation. (If I hacked a mouse on to the same controller, mame would see 288 'clicks' per rotation due to the increase in technology.)
Basically, there were 1x, 2x and (now) 4x 'clicks' per number of teeth. So you can't just go by number of teeth. For comparison, the 48 tooth BlackHawk generates (AFAIK) 192 (4x48) 'clicks' per rotation, while the '720 controller generated 144 (2*72). So even though it has less teeth than '720, the BlackHawk has a "higher resolution" than the original '720 controller. (Not that you could play '720 with it, but that's another issue; what's nice is '720 is one of the few games that one rotation of controller = one rotation in game, so it's very easy to compare dial resolutions in software.)
Most old games (centipede, marble madness, tempest, ect) only did 1x. Super Sprint, '720 and other late '80s were 2x. All PC hardware that still use encoder wheels are 4x.
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Hi Robin,
I understand what you are saying. But do remember that just
as the game itself may see twice the number of clicks per
tooth.. AND mouse sensors may increase that further..
Mame itself is set up in such a way to reduce that to compensate
for everything.
So, a supersprint wheels 2x for sensing hooked up to a modern optic.. which is now reporting 4x per click.. will be 8x,
BUT.. mame (i believe) will reduce this in such a way that the
input will be almost exactly like the arcades input. Thus
reducing the clicks back to 2x.
Even when increasing the settings in mame, it never seems to
be enough for certain games. This has to do with the
encoder wheel resolution. For Mame is trying to be
accurate with the conversion of optics rather than creating
a faked value to allow better control for low resolution encoders.
And even if mame did allow that, it wouldnt really make the
game more controlable. It would just make it more bearable...
As the accuracy is "faked" rather than actual. (skipped values -vs- smooth one-by-one values)
Btw - Im wondering if what you mean by 4x per click with new
optics has to do with "internal Mouse acceleration formulas" rather than per tooth info?
Also, I believe there are some arcade games that used dual optics to be able to capture even more resoltion.. by being able to see in-between states of a tooth? Im not so sure todays Mice do
this.. as Ive only noticed one set of optics per axis...?
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Kremmit, thanks for the numbers.
Havok:
The review was nice, but what I would really like to see is an in-depth comparison of this spinner, the TurboTwist and Tornado...
Patent Doc:
Kev
I sent you an e-mail on retroblast, but wasn't sure if you might see this first. Anyway, it seemed from your review that your only complaint, albeit a minor one, was the grinding when pulling or pushing and spinning as well as the added resistance due to the microswitch. Have you tried/considered using the Rollie Electronics leaf switch in place of the microswitch. This switch should work as it is designed to replace microswitches. Anyway, I'd be curious to see if you complaints stand upon making the switch.
Patent Doc
KevSteele:
I don't know if the rollie switches would:
a. even fit in the space allotted
b. make any difference with the grinding.
Basically, it's the discs spinning while in contact with something (i.e., the switch) that causes the grinding.
There are microswitches with "roller" levers on the top, and one of those might work out nicely. I'd have to dig around the vendors and see what's available.