Arkanoid Spinner + mouse hack HELP

[8way]

OK so I picked up an original Arkanoid spinner some time ago and now I’m trying to interface it via mouse hack. I have been at it for about a week now researching and trying different things and still no luck. Tried five different mice and can’t get any of them to work.  I followed the instructions found here http://arcadecontrols.com/files/Miscellaneous/Mouse_to_Trackball_Instructions.pdf . I tested the spinner with a multimeter and it seems fine. Am I missing something here or is finding a compatible mouse really just a shot in the dark. Anyone have any clue to what the problem is here? 

[Hoopz]

I tried hacking a mouse to an original Tron spinner without success.  You may consider buying a replacement optical board from fixumdude in the B/S/T forum.  For about $10 or less you can get one shipped to you.  I thought it was well worth the money. 

Not sure if you already have an optical interface or not, but I connected mine right to my Opti-pac. 

Obviously, someone much smarter than me may be able to help you with the mouse hack.   

[8way]

I think you misunderstood me, I do have the spinners optical interface, that’s what I’m trying to hook up to the mouse PCB. This way you don’t need something like an Opti-pac, that’s the mouse hack I’m referring too, not the mouse hack that you use its own optics.

But anyways the good news is I got it working. I went back to the drawing boards and did more research to find out I was missing an important step. Active Low/Active High is what I was missing. Still don’t fully understand the difference or how to test it, but I knew I had a spinner and it was Active High and I had to get it to Active Low to work with the mouse PCB.

I was just about to give up and just buy an Opti-Wiz, good thing I didn’t because I would have had the same exact problem. Opti-Wiz only accepts Active Low signals just like the five different mice PCB’s that I tried. I guess Active High Spinners are pretty uncommon, I just happened to end up with one.

In fact the Arkanoid Spinners came with two different optic boards, one by WICO( Active Low) and one by Taito(Active High).

OK so how do we turn Active High to Active Low? Very simple, all you need is two 2.2Kohms resistors. Now all you do is put them between X1 and ground and X2 and ground on the mouse PCB. But you don’t have to worry about any of this unless you have an Active High Spinner or Track Ball.

Now as far as any other compatibility issues with the mice, 4 out of 5 worked for me after finding out about the resistors. The one that didn’t work was a Logitech, it had 4 prong receivers compared to the standard 3. All of them seem to perform equally, no backspin or stuttering. Now time to play some Arkanoid

edit by moderator: added paragraphs for easier reading

[Kremmit]

In fact the Arkanoid Spinners came with two different optic boards, one by WICO( Active Low) and one by Taito(Active High).

There's something I've never heard before.  Every Arkanoid spinner I've come across has the Wico board on it, including the one on my desk.  Mind posting a pic of the Taito board for comparison?

OK so how do we turn Active High to Active Low? Very simple, all you need is two 2.2Kohms resistors. Now all you do is put them between X1 and ground and X2 and ground on the mouse PCB.

This should go in the wiki.  Good info!

[muzland]

Well done 8way,

Just the info I needed. I have 2 arkanoid spinners and both have Taito boards.

How did you work out they are active high?

How did you test the optic board with a multimeter? What do you look for?

Both of my spinners are untested so when I do the mouse hack and it does not work (these things never do 1st time around) I will stand a chance of working out what is wrong.

By the way will this work with resistors other than 2K2? I have some 3k7 and 1k's knocking around somewhere. Also where did you get this info from about the conversion from active high to active low. Definitely one for the Wiki.

Muzland

[8way]

OK now to answer some of the questions. I didn’t actually find out how to test the difference between active high & active low, all I did was just make an assumption that my optic board was an active high.

The way I came to this conclusions was simple, GGG’s site show the Optic Wiz being compatible only with the Arkanoid spinners that have the WICO optic boards. Well mine has the Taito board and since the Optic Wiz is only compatible with active low spinners and the WICO optic board is shown as the compatible one, so then the WICO must be an active low and that can only leave mine (the Taito)  as an active high.

On a side note if I had both an active low and active high spinners, I would be easily able to figure out how to tell the difference with a multimeter. As far as using different value resistors, that should work, definitely higher ones would work probably wok until you get the resistance too high and it would cause erratic movement.

Basically what you’re trying to do (and someone correct me if I’m wrong because I’m definitely not an expert) is lower the voltage on X1 and X2 in order for an active high spinner to work. With just a 5v source hooked up to the mouse PCB and the X emitter removed, test X1 & X2 with a multimeter, if it’s =<5v then you add the resistors. Remember that most likely only one side (X1 or X2) will give you a reading above zero, but you still add the resistors to both sides. Ok an easy way to think of how this all work is, an active high spinner causes movement on a high voltage (0v -> 5v) and a  active low spinner causes movement on a low voltage (5v -> 0v).

So if you’re trying to hook up a active high spinner to a mouse PCB then X1 &X2 must not have any volts in natural position. This is because the active high spinner will be expecting see 0v before you turn it left or right. If voltage is already present it will move automatically in the direction that has more volts.  Example: if X1(left) has 3v and X2(right) has 0v it will constantly move to the left. When you turn the spinner right it will give X2 5v witch will override X1(3v) and it will move right, but as soon as you stop turning it right it will start moving left again by it self. Another example, if either X1 or X2 happen to be at 5v then it would constantly move in that direction and you would not be able to override and move in the opposite direction because its at the maximum 5v and you cant provide more the 5v to make it go the other direction. Now if both X1 and X2 had an equal voltage of 5v you would not be able to move left or right and it would not move by itself either, so it would just look like its not working.

So that’s basically how it works. Now in theory and this is only a theory because I can’t test it to confirm it, if you were trying to go from active low to active high you would just hook up the resistors to the 5v line from X1 and X2, instead of to the ground. Well I think that about covers it, some tips to help out, for the needed 5v and ground on the mouse PCB always use the main ones coming in from the cord.

Try using a newer mouse, older ones had slower decoders, and this can cause problems with some spinners and especially track balls. Another way erratic movements do to slow decoder can be fixed by breaking every other leg on the encoder wheel.  Also in that situation covering up every other hole on the encoder wheel might help, obviously it’s a trial and error process.

Here are some pictures to show what I did. The mouse PCB is a little rough do to a lot of soldering and desoldering, some traces lifted and broke so they had to be fixed. It’s a generic mouse, it’s actually a GE (general electronics) but it works surprisingly well. And here is the picture showing the non WICO optic board.

[8way]

pic's continued...

[Clu]

Strange.  I have a Taito board exactly like that that worked fine with two mouse hacks (IBM and Compaq) and my ME4 from Hagstrom without any modification.  According to Wico's site http://www.wicothesource.com/new2/pics/page89.jpg the main difference between active low and high is the collectors are tied to ground for low and 5v for high.  According to that all my old Wico boards are active high too (they work fine with the above as well) It seems exactly opposite from everything I've read. 

[muzland]

So let me get this straight then clu,

Looking at the circuit diagram on the wico source site, you could tell if your mouse expected active light or active low by measuring the voltage (+5V or GND) on the middle pin of the sensor on the mouse PCB. If it was GND then it is active low, if it is +5V it is active high?

So once you know this then you simply match up the optic you are using to be the same one?

Does that make sense?

Is this why you say use the 5v and GND from the cord rather than from the PCB as the holes in the middle of the sensors could be either?

Cheers
Muzland

[Clu]

The mouse hack instructions I followed were the standard ones.  In fact, the compaq mouse I used looked exactly like the one refered to in the pdf instructions above. I verified that the middle pin of the collector was straight 5v and not going through any resistors.   I wasn't concerned with active high or low optic boards yet.

I attached some pics of the two optics boards.  The Wico board is active high, according to their picture.  The larger board was active low (thecollectors were tied to ground), and didn't work with any interface I had.Just for kicks I tried modifying this board to active high, and now it works like a charm. (the larger trace is 5v)

That still puzzles me though.  Everything I've seen recommends active low optic boards.  And my Happ boards also work as well.  Go figure.

[Clu]

mouse hacks