My Aimtrak Light Gun Project.

[pinballfreak]

Forgive me about the bad lighting on the pics. Also, this is my first real post to the forum and I don't know how to add the pics within the message. With that said, here's my light gun project I did last weekend. I didn't like the guncom style guns or the type that arcadeguns sales. I wanted something with a cord to make it seam more arcade like, so the Topgun 3 was out of the question.

1. I purchased an under dash mount USB port from Ebay for about $10 total and installed it under the control panel to give me a place to plug the Aimtrak into (I also use it to add programs to the computer with a usb flash drive).
-- pics 1 and 2

2. I purchased a New PSX Playstation light gun revolver from Ebay also for about $15 total.
-- pic 3

3. I opened up the gun and removed the optical sensor from the light gun and placed the aimtrak at the tip of the barrel. I cut the Playstation cord from the circuit board and wired the buttons to the aimtrak.
-- pics 4 and 5

4: I closed everything up and connected it to my mame cabinet. The aimtrak sensor (not shown) is mounted to the top of the 24" LCD. Right now I just remove the gun when not in use, but I plan of fabbing up or buying a gun holster for it.
-- pic 6

I purchased my aimtrak from Ebay due to having problems with ordering from ultimarc's web page. I saved $5 in shipping cost going this route. All in all, I have about $80 wrapped up into the project.

[yotsuya]

You going to plug/unplug the gun often? That might lead to controller mapping issues.

[05SRT4]

I noticed with my Aimtrack that adding a extension would cause USB dropping issues. Let me know if that extension works out for you. I was using some cheap one so that may be my problem.

[pinballfreak]

I don't plan on unplugging the aimtrak very often, as I have most of the games that I'll play already down loaded into the computer. I have had problems with it not responding every so often, but that problem has dropped significantly since my last calibration of the gun. The cursor is tracking perfectly with the gun now so I disabled the ability to recalibrate by holding down a button. When I do find it not tracking, I just unplug the gun for a few seconds then plug it back up.

[pinballfreak]

It's been well over a month now since I did this mod. I have also plugged and unplugged this gun way more than I had planned on as shortly after this post I changed computers and operating systems entirely. I did have problems with tracking, mainly due to being to close to the screen. I decided I wanted a dual monitor setup to play pinball games on this machine, so I moved the main monitor all the way to the back of the machine. This cleared up most all tracking problems that I had.

[BadMouth]

Reminds me of the old Nintendo guns....which is perfect for a Nintendo cab.

If you're only using one gun and don't have multiple mice enabled, MAME will use the system mouse (which all mice control), so there aren't going to be any ID issues.  Same goes for Model 2 emulator as long as you don't enable raw input.

[Connorsdad]

I noticed with my Aimtrack that adding a extension would cause USB dropping issues. Let me know if that extension works out for you. I was using some cheap one so that may be my problem.

Hopefully this is my issue then, I have my guns connected to neutrik ports on the back of my cab which have usb extension cables connected between them and the mothertboard. One of my aimtraks is causing me grief, after umpteen times I finally get it to calibrate but on next boot its not working right again. I'll try it without the extension when I get off work