USB Spinner control panel with 7 to 11 buttons. Possible?

[D_Harris]

Has anyone managed to create a control panel with a spinner and more than three buttons, but only uses a single USB port?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[GaryMcT]

Does the mini-pac help?

If not, you could put a USB hub in the control panel.

[smalltownguy]

Mine's got 2 joysticks, 20 buttons 2 blinking LEDs, a trackball AND a spinner. All using 1 USB cable.

All Hail the Minipac!

 

[D_Harris]

Does the mini-pac help?

If not, you could put a USB hub in the control panel.

A USB hub sounds interesting. I'm assuming that I can use it separate from the control panel and plug two USB cords from the CP into it.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[severdhed]

just out of curiosity, what game are you trying to play that uses  a spinner and 11 buttons?

[D_Harris]

just out of curiosity, what game are you trying to play that uses  a spinner and 11 buttons?

No games.

The idea is to have the spinner for games where it's needed, and buttons for the button-only games all on the same control panel.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[GaryMcT]

I'm assuming that's at least two players worth of buttons.

[D_Harris]

I'm assuming that's at least two players worth of buttons.

Nope. I need the option of playing a game like Asteroids, along with having "coin", "player 1", "player 2", "Exit", and "pause".

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[drventure]

Just use a hub.... or two..... or four

I needed 3 hubs in my cp, and they had to be powered (just too much juice for single 500ma usb port), but all of them go out through a single USB cable to the mobo. Works great.

I just wish I could figure a way to get 4 spinners on the cp reasonably (I always loved warlords and several friends do to, but you just can't play that game with anything but spinners).

[GaryMcT]

Just use a hub.... or two..... or four

I needed 3 hubs in my cp, and they had to be powered (just too much juice for single 500ma usb port), but all of them go out through a single USB cable to the mobo. Works great.

I just wish I could figure a way to get 4 spinners on the cp reasonably (I always loved warlords and several friends do to, but you just can't play that game with anything but spinners).

Warlords. . good.   One of the reasons I want to build a cocktail at some point.

[Endaar]

USB hub is probably the easiest way to go. You'll want one that's USB 2.0 and powered. Then you can just run a single USB cable and the hub's power cable out of the CP.

[DaveMMR]

I'm assuming that's at least two players worth of buttons.

Nope. I need the option of playing a game like Asteroids, along with having "coin", "player 1", "player 2", "Exit", and "pause".

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Clarify for me - will there be joysticks on the panel as well? 

[D_Harris]

I'm assuming that's at least two players worth of buttons.

Nope. I need the option of playing a game like Asteroids, along with having "coin", "player 1", "player 2", "Exit", and "pause".

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Clarify for me - will there be joysticks on the panel as well? 

None on this panel.

If the USB hub needs to be powered separately then it is a non option.

Back to the drawing board...

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[drventure]

Hang on there.

If all you're looking to do is drive a USB spinner and a bunch of buttons, then NO, you won't need a powered USB hub.

I can't do a schematic here, but here's the idea


Computer wired to a...
Hub (non powered) connected to....
     USB Spinner
     a Ipac2 or Ipac4 (probably just a 2 in your case)

Alternately, get a USB gamepad with enough buttons on it and hack the buttons (there's lots of info on here about doing that).

A single spinner and controller or IPAC won't overload the 500ma available on a single USB port, so you should be fine.

Just keep in mind, if you start adding things, esp led's, you can quickly go over 500ma (and realistically, you can't to stay well BELOW 500ma because that's the max and some equipment doesn't like being driven that hard.

But, from what it sounds like you want to do, it's all perfectly doable with a single USB and no power.

[u_rebelscum]

The minipac si a little overkill, but probably cheaper than ipac + optipac + hub (or gpwiz + optiwiz + hub).  The U-HID is even more overkill, but the U-HID nano is a little under what you want (able to do spinner + 6 buttons).

The nice thing about the hub is you can use it with swapable CPs

[D_Harris]

The minipac si a little overkill, but probably cheaper than ipac + optipac + hub (or gpwiz + optiwiz + hub).  The U-HID is even more overkill, but the U-HID nano is a little under what you want (able to do spinner + 6 buttons).

The nice thing about the hub is you can use it with swapable CPs

Yes, I figured that using one of my MiniPACs would be over-kill also.

I should have posted a pic before. Nevertheless here it is, so you'll get an idea of what I need. (Just imagine a USB control panel for either Asteroids or Arkanoid).

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[vidmouse]

I think what a lot of us are trying to figure out is,
if you're going to go to a lot of trouble to build a panel,
why leave out the joysticks, which gives you a lot more
playability in terms of games you can play?   

But if you're dead set on it...

11  buttons and a spinner?
I'm more or less doing that hack right now on my
racing cab.  (ok, a few less buttons, but mine's not
meant for 2-player)  just uses 1 USB gamepad hack
and 1 ps/2 mouse hack.

[D_Harris]

To get the layout in my pic above to work I guess I'll need the mouse hack and a sidewinder hack.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.