Tron Spinner work with an Opti-Pac ?

[BUCKETHEAD]

Just curious will an original TRON spinner work with an Opti-Pac ?

If so?

Anyone ever did it ?

And can share how to wire it up correctly ?

Thanks!

Bucket ...

[Clu]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=71120.msg730728#msg730728

[TheShanMan]

It's not clear to me from reading that thread that a tron spinner has successfully been hooked up to an optipac using that midway board hack. Maybe I misread, but it seems like the hacked boards were hooked up to a mouse.

Has anyone actually done that exact hack and hooked it to an optipac? Buckethead, have you tried this yet? I'd like to try simply because I don't know how easy it would be to mount one of fixumdude's optical boards to the tron spinner.

[BUCKETHEAD]

I tried it.

I got the LED's to light up on the old midway optical board.

But when i hooked it to the Opti-Pac, i couldn't get it to do anything?

Not sure if i was not doing something right or not?

But i do know the LED's had power. I could see them glowing thru my cell phone.

I just pulled the optical encoder from a trackball i had.

And went with that. Works great !

See thread.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=79788.0

[Hoopz]

It's not clear to me from reading that thread that a tron spinner has successfully been hooked up to an optipac using that midway board hack. Maybe I misread, but it seems like the hacked boards were hooked up to a mouse.

Has anyone actually done that exact hack and hooked it to an optipac? Buckethead, have you tried this yet? I'd like to try simply because I don't know how easy it would be to mount one of fixumdude's optical boards to the tron spinner.

I have one of fixumdude's boards in my Tron spinner.  NOTHING was easier than popping that in, plugging it in to the Optipac, and playing.  It was very simple to do.

[Clu]

Mine works with a couple different mouse hacks and the Hagstrom ME4.  I would think it would work with an optipac as well.

[TheShanMan]

I got it working last night, but it needed a modification. Like with my centipede trackball and tempest spinner, the resistor (120 ohm) was too high to get a strong enough output voltage, so I cut the resistance in half and now it works. However, it appears one of the IR receivers is going (has gone) bad. One side will generate 4.75V output while the other only 2.55V.

A quick test showed that it worked fine though, so for the time being I'm going with it. But once I have my tron panel all put together and I have a chance to use it over a more extended period of time I may find that it isn't 100% reliable. So it was nice to see your hot glue approach, Buckethead! I may just end up doing that eventually.

Incidentally, I enjoyed reading that entire thread Buckethead! It is nice to see a tron restoration. So disappointing to see that someone would convert a tron to something else in the first place. But you've done a wonderful job of restoring it. I'm envious!

[BUCKETHEAD]

Incidentally, I enjoyed reading that entire thread Buckethead! It is nice to see a tron restoration. So disappointing to see that someone would convert a tron to something else in the first place. But you've done a wonderful job of restoring it.

Thanks man, I appreciate it!

Do you have a TRON?

Just wondering because your working on the spinner ?

[TheShanMan]

I wish! No, I have a mamed centipede cabinet (which wasn't working and everything has been saved except the monitor to leave the possibility of later restoration open). I've designed swappable panels so my plan was to build a semi-dedicated tron panel (would work for any spinner games too obviously, and I'm hoping a spinner can act like the rotary part of a rotary joystick for games like Heavy Barrel).

I won an auction recently for a complete tron panel but the joystick handle was broken. Fortunately Stan2323 came to my aid and sold me a black happ handle for cheap. Initially I was only interested in the stick, but now I'm really happy I have the spinner too. I temporarily put my tempest spinner on my trackball panel, but now I'll just leave it there and I'll have 2 panels with spinners. There is such a contrast in feel between the 2 spinners so I'm sure some spinner games I'll prefer the tempest spinner and others the tron spinner.

Unfortunately my tron panel will require extra effort to build. The fixed part of my control panel is shaped to fit the shape of the centipede cabinet, so unfortunately there isn't enough depth for the tron stick to be mounted flush since the stick descends like 4 inches below the surface of the panel. So for the swappable panel (the drop in part) I'll have to build a raised surface. It's a metal panel and the only tools at my disposal are a cutoff wheel, welder, and grinder so it won't exactly be quick to build. I'm planting the idea of getting a plasma cutter in my wife though - those things are great! Maybe when she sees how long it takes me to build this panel she'll be convinced!

[BUCKETHEAD]

Ahhh i see!

Good luck with the wife and the plasma cutter!