Posted by Six Feet Under on July 19, 1999 at 05:59:09:
In Reply to: Spinner circuit posted by Brian Deuel on July 19, 1999 at 03:43:56:
: I have four Omega Race cocktail spinners in my possession. They are simple knobs with custom mounting connected to potentiometers. Does anyone know of a circuit I could build to connect these through the mouse port for use with games such as Tempest, Omega Race, etc. I would like to include these in my control panels, with an toggle switch between them to switch from spinner to mouse. The Twisty Grip instructions were great, but didn't help as far as using potentiometers go (i.e. I couldn't use a mouse to connect these).
: Any help would be appreciated.
: p.s. I do have four of these spinners, but will only be using two. If anyone can help me with a circuit, I will give that person the other two that I will not be using.
It might work to take out the potentiometer, and attatch a mouse encoder wheel instead, like how the twistygrip plans are. I don't know exactly what these spinners look like, so I couldn't tell you for sure, but it should work if it's physically possible to attatch the encoder wheel. Also, it would allow it to freely spin, instead of only spinning to the limits of the potentiometer.
No matter what you do, it will be better than the spinner I made in 3 minutes out of a printer knob, a pencil, a shoebox, some tape, and an old mouse. Had to hold it in place with one hand, and slooowly turn the knob to even get any movement to register... just experimenting with what I had right offhand, I wasn't actually expecting a working spinner. :)