Chamsys Users

[DonkiDonki]

Guess you have come across Happ Controls, makers of the original arcade trackballs, remember Centipede, Crystal Castles and Missile Command, mebbe I`m just old.

 

the trackpad I found is ideal; £25, compact and easy to mount. but I do think a trackball is better suited, and I'm a sucker for the illuminated ones.

 

indeed I found the happ balls, I can even get them fairly cheap if I get them from america but they are too big. smallest uses 2.5" ball.

I found another from digikey which is 1.5" but the list price is high. I may contact them and see if a deal can be done.

 

I also looked at adapting a desktop ball, I may have a go but I suspect it would not look too hot.

[Judge]

HAS to be illuminated! I think that 2.5" sounds about right though.

[Wol]

It has to at least be RGB controllable as a fixture from MagicQ itself ;-)

 

... just for the sake of it. I'm sure you could find some piece of data to show via the medium of a RGB illuminated ball! heh.

 

Out of interest, what's your planned completion date / "I'd like to have it by ####" date?

[tom_the_LD]

Not wanting to go too far off topic - but where do the trackballs used on the ETC Congos come from? Would something like that do or is that again too big? Can't remember the size off the top of my head.

 

They also illuminate - I wonder if you could get Chamsys to tell MagicQ to change the trackball colour depending on what you're doing - similar to the congo. Actually, this seems to be getting silly though!

 

I too would be interested to know if you plan on making any more of them.

[DonkiDonki]

HAS to be illuminated! I think that 2.5" sounds about right though.

 

A big trackball would be nice, but as the trackball is really more for Windows operation than desk control (this thing has three touch-screens!) it seems stupid to add a couple of inches to the case depth and height just for that.

 

The 1.5" comes in a fairly compact package and should fit into the existing version of the case.

 

Unfortunately I think the trackpad will end up being used. I will still have a go at sourcing a trackball though. (I don't suppose anyone listening has contacts at Digikey?)

[themadhippy]

Most of the modern optical trackballs have loose balls that fall out at the slightest knock.The microsoft intellimouse (as used on the strand 300) is much better as the ball is captive.The only hassle is they need a ps2 interface and like the mice of old,fluff builds up on the internal rollers and needs a clean out every so often

[DonkiDonki]

Most of the modern optical trackballs have loose balls that fall out at the slightest knock.The microsoft intellimouse (as used on the strand 300) is much better as the ball is captive.The only hassle is they need a ps2 interface and like the mice of old,fluff builds up on the internal rollers and needs a clean out every so often

 

True. And I still have one of those Microsoft trackballs kicking around, it was my PC weapon of choice for some time.

 

The main candidate (in features, but sadly not price - yet) is the one from Digikey (manufactured by CH Products) and is robust; designed for industrial applications. If I was doing this project with any kind of real budget I would of ordered one already.

[Madmac]

Quite a few manufacturers of track balls around. A couple of UK ones......

 

Traxsys Input Products www.traxsys.com

 

Cursor Controls www.cursorcontrols.com (K38 series)

 

 

These companies supply OEM's so website does not list all options and they may require you to order thru distributors.

 

 

Madmac

[Joe Bleasdale]

I think the trackball on the Grand MA is probably the biggest. It literally is tennis ball size. The Congo trackball (correct me if I am wrong here) seems to be pretty standard. I see the same size ball on the Hog 3 series, Vector series, Congo and Maxxyz compact. They all seem to be the same colour too, or at least a small variation.

 

Best Regards,

[DonkiDonki]

Out of interest, what's your planned completion date / "I'd like to have it by ####" date?

 

That depends, I would like to finish ASAP but I don't have any spare funds to buy the computer parts at the moment so it's hard to say.

 

It has been suggested that I should look for funding but this really an amateur project so I don't think there's much chance of that.

The closest I've got is to setup a website for the project and stick a PayPal donation button in the vain hope of a kind benefactor...

 

Here's the link;

 

Visit My Website

 

It's not up to much yet as I only started on it today but I will try to make it interesting.

[DonkiDonki]

Quite a few manufacturers of track balls around. A couple of UK ones......

 

Traxsys Input Products www.traxsys.com

 

Cursor Controls www.cursorcontrols.com (K38 series)

 

 

These companies supply OEM's so website does not list all options and they may require you to order thru distributors.

 

 

Madmac

Thanks for the links, I'd found Cursor already but traxsys was new; just waiting to see if anyone wants to do any deals now...

[DonkiDonki]

Does anyone know much about WiFi aerials?

 

I will be mounting two separate WiFi systems, the built in motherboard WiFi which has one aerial (would I gain anything by connecting a second aerial if there is a socket on the card?) and a separate N router which has three aerials.

 

I will extend and mount all the aerials near the top of the case, but am unsure of the best spacing. Do the aerials of the two systems want to be kept apart as much as possible?

Do the three aerials from the N router want to be spread across the width of the case or keep the same spacing as they use on the router?

[abbotsmike]

Interference between the two systems should only be a problem if they are trying to run on the same channel.

The PC should run just fine off of a single high-gain aerial.

I don't really know with regards to the router, but I wouldn't have thought the spacing between aerials makes a lot of difference.

[DonkiDonki]

Interference between the two systems should only be a problem if they are trying to run on the same channel.

The PC should run just fine off of a single high-gain aerial.

I don't really know with regards to the router, but I wouldn't have thought the spacing between aerials makes a lot of difference.

 

 

I've never had to manually set a WiFi channel before. Is this something they will check and adjust themselves? (that would make sense as there is always loads of different networks about anyway)

 

It probably depends on the particular WiFi routers but I guess you can set preferred channels, is it worth picking different ones for each so they are sorted straight away, assuming they don't have to fight with other local networks?

 

I don't have both routers yet. The motherboard will be a zotac 9300 mini-itx (latest revison) which comes with a single aerial wifi card. Not sure of the spec but I doubt it's an N. I have a spare router kicking around which is a D-Link dir-635 and that does support N, currently it needs a new psu.

 

Looking at the price of a new psu, there are plenty of used routers on ebay for the same kind of money; can anyone recommend a particular WiFi router which they have found to be well suited to this kind of use?

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

IThe PC should run just fine off of a single high-gain aerial.

 

All the current aerials are the little stubby ones, would it be worth upgrading them? I have seen the larger ones (about three times the size of the stubbies) would these be much better and is there any characteristics I should be looking for; gain, etc?

 

At this rate the back of the console will be looking like Jodrell Bank!

[Tomo]

I've never had to manually set a WiFi channel before. Is this something they will check and adjust themselves? (that would make sense as there is always loads of different networks about anyway)

The channel selection is one of the options in the the WiFi device that is 'hosting' the wireless network - eg the router/access point or the hosting PC in an Ad-Hoc network.

 

When you look at the properties of a WiFi network in the 'network search' utility, it should list the channel number of each WiFi network detected.

 

By default, pretty much every WiFi router on the planet picks exactly the same channel, leading to long and unpredictable latencies and poor reception.

- Latency is the real killer in lighting control, which is why I simply don't trust WiFi for any timing-critical functions.