Building an Arcade Golf Trackball? 22
SparafucileMan writes "Ok, I'll admit it. I've spent way too much time at the pub drinking... er... playing these arcade golf games such as Golden Tee 2004. However I'm annoyed by the lack of features, graphics quality, and courses and figure that playing golf on my computer, where there are several outstanding titles available, would get me a lot more bang for the buck. However, what's the fun in playing arcade golf with a mouse and keyboard?! I want to invite some people over to hammer the bejesus out of a huge trackball, just like at the arcade. Anyone have any suggestions on where I can find such a contraption, or how I could build one myself (with USB hook-up, no-less)?" We've previously covered the cult of Golden Tee, and the inevitable injuries that result from the mixing of beer and trackballs.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Go all the way! (Score:5, Informative)
Optional: Control Panel [happcontrols.com]
Get the USB Trackball interface [happcontrols.com]
Get a trackball! [happcontrols.com] And... FP!
MAME Controls and Cabinets (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody mentioned _the_ site yet.. (Score:5, Informative)
Now, can you use a circular saw without losing important bodily appendages? _that's_ the real trick, you bet.
Logitech Trackball (Score:3, Informative)
I am not a fan of golf games, and have never played one, but do many golf games allow for the control set up of a trackball. Aren't most just timing your clicks on a meter. Good luck!
You can build your own (Score:5, Informative)
As others have pointed out, the Build Your Own Arcade Controls site is clearly the right way to do things for this. If you're aiming for building a MAME box, this is the right place, or if you're interested in just plain official arcade-style controls.
Happ Controls is a good place to get components. The BYOAC site heavily recommends them. You may be able to salvage trackball mechanisms from an old arcade machine -- these things are expensive, generally $70 and up.
Note that arcade-style trackballs are generally either 2.25 inches or 3 inches. 2.25 inches is pool ball size -- one can actually use pool balls. This is the size that Kensington uses on their (pricy) computer trackballs.
Another way is to build your own system by simply modding an existing device. I've been trackball shopping recently, and have looked at most of the input device vendors. Logitech forces you to use wireless if you want a trackball with lots of buttons, and Kensington devices have mechanical trackball inputs (and are pricy). I picked up a Q-Ball from MacAlly, a USB trackball that runs about $5. (Ironically enough, this devices does not use pool balls.) The Q-Ball isn't made with the greatest tolerances in the world (and comes with a ridiculous "glitter ball"), but it has five buttons (plus up and down on the scrollwheel). It also uses the same Agilent sensors that all current optical mice use -- labeled H2000, these things are all-in-one cameras and image recognition and movement measuring on a chip. They go as the HDNS-2200. Anyway, if you want to build something to suspend a high-quality trackball, you can easily physically modify the thing and reuse the electronics (the HDNS-2200 and the USB interface) on the mouse, since all the sensor does is measure movement of something passing in front of it -- in this case, a trackball -- and you can hook up the buttons to arcade-style buttons. You just need a smooth ball and a casing that allows it to turn smoothly, and hang it right above the HDNS-2200's lens.
If anyone else has one of these, I just replaced the red LEDs on mine with IR LEDs (so that the thing doesn't flash red constantly). The thing then gets a bit cranky about waking up from sleep mode, as the illumination is much dimmer, so I removed the transistor on the same PCB as the H2000 and ran a lead from the collector to the emitter point, which disabled sleep mode. It still doesn't track as well as it did before, so I'm going to try replacing the 950 nm peak IR LEDs with 880 nm peak IR LEDs.
I've been looking at commercially-available small-run USB interface boards, and I've been less than thrilled. I like buttons, and lots of buttons. For MAME use, having one, two, or three buttons is fine -- and if not, people sell cheap USB interface boards with Happ trackball interfaces with interfaces that adapt a *ton* of buttons -- but they make them appear to the computer as a *keyboard*. This is fine for MAME use, but not good if one wants to produce a high-quality trackball for one's own use, since most software prefers to have mouse button clicks rather than keyboard impacts. There *are* USB interface chipsets available and there *are* trackball encoders, but basically you need to learn PIC or another microprocessor, and have at least a decent amount of circuit design experience. This is terribly frusterating to me, as all I want to do is pay less than fifty bucks for a board that can plug into USB, can advertise up to, say, eight buttons (six buttons plus up and down on a scroll wheel!) with simple old button interfaces, and an interface that I can connect a Happ-style ball and encoding mechanism to without needing to write PIC code or do more than add a resistor or two. That would let non-CEs build extremely high-quality input devices for general-purpose use.
If I could get my paws on a schematic for something like this, it'd be awesome. Or maybe I just have to bite the bullet and pick up more CE knowledge. Sigh.
Who'd want to bang beJebus's balls? (Score:3, Informative)
hyperbowl! (Score:3, Informative)