Spinner== optical mouse hack

[rollerball]

Ok first message on this board....Ok Im building a mame cab...Im in australia...sydney...Just finished building a spinner....I use an optical mouse....and have got a bolt spinning so the head of the bolt is only about 1mm above the optical lens...and only spinning so half the bolt is showing on the lens....seems to work perfect.....only took me 30 or 40mins to make...To easy....will post a pic....

[rollerball]

Here is a pic...

[rollerball]

Oh the door knob is only temp....looking for something bit bigger..

[Kremmit]

That's pretty fricking neat!

Other people have talked about hacking an optical mouse, but I don't think anybody's ever actually done it before.  Congrats to you!

I can see a lot of potential there, you could get more resolution just by putting a large washer on the bolt head, and mounting the mouse further from the central axis, so that the washer would be the part the optic sensor "sees".  More surface would pass the optic sensor for each turn of the knob that way.

[ArtMAME]

That does look very promising .  I just hacked a hard drive and I like the feel of the bearing  but I still need a better optical interface, the conventional mouse hack is not working too well for me right now... ...so I will try this out and let you know how it goes... ...thanks for the inspiration!!!

[rollerball]

Ok well I cant belive I would be the first person to try this...seems to easy...maybe thats why no one has tried it...lol..I am a noob when it comes to building a mame cab....but mine is looking good...anyway the spinner has got 2 skateboard bearings in it...if you look at the bottom piece of wood I got a spade type drill bit that would fit a bearing into it quite snug....drilled through about quarter of the way on the front....then same on the back...the point of the spade drill let me line them up perfect...then put both bearings in....top wood was measured up so all I had to do was put a washed down for the top nut to slide on...was a bit tight at first so I used a bench grinder to make the distance between the end of the tread and the top of the bolt longer buy grinding the bottom of the bolt head a little at a time till it was a perfect fit....a very slight up and down movement ment it was sliding nice.....Oh and the bolt is a snug fit for the skateboard bearings...so no sideways movement at all...I guess you could even use your mouse settings to change how th spinner works......I did have to play around with where the bolt head sits over the lens to get good movement...but the whole thing only took me about 40mins to make....just need the right tools....and it cost me only about $10 all up....about $5 for you usa guys...anymore questions I will be happy to answer....

[rollerball]

Oh yeah I did toy with the idea of a larger washer or even just a cardboard disk....but the bolt head seems fine so just left it for now....as I say...I am a noob....and havent mounted it into my CP yet as its not finnished...but I have played a few games with it...and seems good so far.....the bolt is sticking out enough for me to just drill a hole and mount it into my CP from underneath...Im going to look for a better knob for it though...and will secure the mouse a bit better....but for a first try at building a spinner Im quite happy....here is a pic of my cabinet as well....just waiting for my I-pac and controllers now....anyway hope I may have helped some of you guys out...cya...paul(ROLLERBALL)

[rollerball]

Oh one more thing....because there is 2 bearings the bolt head at the bottom can be tightend at it dosent matter....the botl head spins on the bearing.......could make it even better with a longer bolt and more bearings Im guessing...

[deadkenndys1105]

Im going to try this. I just got my joystick and a few button temp wired. I didnt get the spinner because I was to cheap to dish out for one and the board for it.

[clhug]

I had started another thread on purely optical spinners and somebody pointed me to this thread.  Very cool!  Well, I just completed building the mechanical part of the hard drive spinner hack using a Western Digital drive motor.  I did what somebody suggested about supergluing big washers on the bottom for extra flywheel weight, but for me this also serves the purpose of giving the surface to try to shine the optical mouse onto.  I tried it loosely by just handholding a regular optical mouse to the washer and spinning it.  The mouse seemed to pick it up just fine so it it at least looks feasible.  Just need to figure out a mounting bracket and mounting position.  If I get it working I'll post back again with a picture or two.

[rollerball]

Hey there.....cool...well I just finnished my machine but havent used my spinner in the cp as of yet....but will be easy to ad as its just a usb mouse...and I was thinking of redoing my spinner with a hard drive hack as well...do they spin quite well then???I guess they must as alot of people seem to go that way...anyway hope it works for you...I think its an easy way to hack a mouse for a spinner though...