Oscar Model 1 Spinner question

[chiLLbiLLy]

Greetings fellow addicts,

First, let me start off by saying that it's good to be back here.  I used to post here on occasion like 3 or 4 years ago (so long ago that I don't even remember my old handle...sigh).  Anyway, suffice it to say that life got in the way and I got delayed in creating arcade nirvana...be it a full cabinet or simple desktop controls. 

Anyway, before I got delayed by my parent's illnesses (transplants & cancer...fun times), I ordered a bunch of arcade parts thinking I was going to build a nice desktop controller.  One of those parts was one of the first Oscar spinners (the Model 1).  Unfortunately, it's been sitting in a box with other arcade parts (Betson trackball, i-pac, joysticks, buttons, etc.) for the last several years.  Now that things are finally quieting down <knocking on wood>, I'm finally trying to get back to my obsession...classic arcade games.

Now, to the point...I recently pulled out my Oscar spinner and lo and behold...the encoder wheel is broken (I'm assuming the tiny black, plastic, grooved wheel is called the "encoder wheel").  My question is...does anyone know what I could use to replace this with?  I'm thinking I read a long time ago that these wheels were robbed from certain mice or something, but it's been too long to remember and I tried to search for it, but came up dry.  I know this spinner is really old now and there are probably much better ones out there, but for the moment I would like to try Oscar's Hotrod SE mod to add this spinner, if the spinner is salvageable (at least I managed to get a Hotrod years ago, as man cannot live by the keyboard alone).  Btw, I tried e-mailing Oscar, but as I understand, life caught up with him as well and he's become unreachable these days.

Damn, sorry for the length of this first post people.  I should have just said "I have an Oscar Model 1 spinner with a broken encoder wheel...does anyone know where I can get a new wheel?" 

chiLL

[crsdawg]

well, since oscar is pretty much out of business(any word here, would love to see his products back), you might try a ggg trackball encoder wheel:

here

since the two wheels are probably different diameters, you'll probably have to modify the optics board bracket. you might also hve to make the center hole bigger, but it's something at least. happs might sell and encoder wheel as well, not sure.

welcome back to the hobby and good luck with your project.

[cw]

I just might have one.... if you can get a pic of you spinner and encoder and Ill double check it...

[chiLLbiLLy]

Thanks for the suggestions.  Here's a couple of crappy pictures of what's really left of the thing (which isn't much).  The wheel is really tiny in comparison to others I've seen out there and the later Oscar models (I measure it at about 5/8" in diameter).

chiLL

[cw]

nope sorry....

[Kremmit]

Yeah, it does look like he was using wheels pulled out of mice on those old spinners.  You could probably open up a junker mouse to see if it has a likely looking replacement inside.  Heck, I've probably got one of those sitting around from a mouse hack, if you want it.

Or, do what crsdawg suggested, and get a wheel from GGG.  I'd suggest buying the "Trackball Booster Kit" instead of those "Replacement Encoder Wheels".  Reason being, the "Replacement Wheels" only have 24 teeth on the wheel,  which is kind of low for a spinner, you can tell that the wheel that originally came on your spinner had more than that.  The wheels in the Booster Kit are higher resoluiton.

You will have to re-mount the optics, but it looks like all you'd have to do is attach a spacer to the existing bracket to mount them to, nothing too radical there. 

[chiLLbiLLy]

Again, thanks for the suggestions.  I think I have a few old junker mice laying around here somewhere, so I'll crack 'em open and see if they use anything close to what I need.  I also have some old laser mice, but I'm guessing those don't use encoder wheels.

chiLL

[chiLLbiLLy]

Ok, I've found an old mouse and encoder wheel that is pretty close in size...just a little bit smaller.  I guess I can just adjust the board and optics to make it work, but my question now is...how might I go about removing the encoder wheel from the metal roller rod without breaking it in the process?

Just thought I would ask those with experience dealing with small electronics and/or small mechanical parts...btw, here's a couple of bad pics to illustrate what I'm talking about...

chiLL