Posted by OSCAR on 23, 2001 at 1:34 PM:
In Reply to: My 2 cents. posted by Tiger-Heli on 23, 2001 at 7:38 AM:
: I would think that a mouse circuit board would work, it would just need to be mounted further away. If the encoder wheel is too thick, you could remove the receivers and mount to a PCB and rewire to the mouse PCB. Nathan Strum illustrates how to do this in his write-up of the Cheep Spinner. (http://www.calarts.edu/~nstrum/macmame/files/spinner.pdf)
: For the people saying replace the optics with Happ optics and buy an opti-pac: In the first place, you're now up to 17.50 for the T/B board plus 6.00 for the harness plus 40.00 for the opti-pac, so the cost is now 63.50 rather than 4.00. Also, if the mouse circuit board won't fit over the encoder wheel, the Happ optics probably won't either, so you're looking at buying an encoder wheel from Happ (under a dollar) and some way of gearing the encoder wheel so that it spins faster.
: I am not knocking the opti-pac, Andy is very helpful and he could probably tell you how to wire the DD spiner directly to the opti-pac. This is not the cheapest option, however. On the other hand, I plan to use an opti-pac myself. 40.00 is expensive to hook up a wheel, but if you also want a trackball, rotary joysticks, spinners, etc. the 40.00 is balanced out by the ease of connection and the cost of individual mice for all those games.
: Also, while I quoted Happ at 17.50 for the optical boards, Imperial has them for 10.50 and Andy Warne said that you could build your own for less than 2.00 with a notch sensor and a resistor, but I don't know exactly how to set this up.
Tiger-Heli, you are right about the encoder wheel. If it is the same as the Blasteroids one pictured in my original reply, the mouse led and receiver will fit right over it. The Blasteroids encoder is about 3 1/2" diameter. I had very good results with mine hooked up this way.
The debate over which is better.... a mouse or Happ's pcb depends on your requirements. If you do need multiple spinner/trackball devices, Fultra is right, the more expensive option utilizing a seperate encoder will suit you better. If you are looking for a less expensive way just to make your wheel work, I would not dismiss using a mouse only because it is the cheaper solution.