@mitu said in Assigning a Mouse to a Specific Device Node:

Feel free to experiment and report back your findings.

I'm trying to find out the systems normal behavior and trying to make sure I understand what you were saying - I'm not clear what you mean by "bump the indices." I do get that you've explained it, but I'm still not clear and I provided an example. I can experiment, but that will mean spending a few days working it out and, since it's a known behavior, I was hoping to start with a baseline.

So if I have my dev nodes as I asked about above:

/dev/input/event0
/dev/input/event1

But I'm finding those get switched if the USB plugs are switched, so I use udev to always create:

/dev/input/event50
/dev/input/event51

Then if I want to use event50, do I set the index in RetroArch to 50? Does RetroArch use the index numbers on the nodes, or does it just count the nodes and start at 0 and increment by 1 for each new node, in spite of whatever the index number on the node name is?

@Tango You can look in the Core options or the Controller(s) menu, both from the RetroArch's quick menu. I think Mame2003 has a core option for spinners - https://docs.libretro.com/library/mame_2003/#mousetrackballanalog-controller-support.

@hoeveler said in Any 'off the shelf' solutions for trackball/spinner/flightstick?:

@George-Spiggott @chubsta - I purchased the parts for my arcade build including a spinner and trackball and flightstick (Ultrastik 360). They all have USB connection so they ARE plug and play, but you still have to mount them somehow. So I've been using an old fightstick I got for $10 on craigslist to test them with. It isn't too hard if you wanted to use or build an enclosure. I guess I'm just chiming in to say that it's really just the mounting process that's a bit of work, not the connecting to Pi part, other than the usual adjustments in retroarch and ES

Dang... if I weren't already committed to the parts I purchased and the custom build I have in mind, I would take a look at Wal-mart this week! The 1UP Tempest could be worth taking apart and using just the control panel and controls for the price it's going for. I hope this doesn't get flagged for promotion or something, but just take a look because a spinner alone like I got is $90, and a trackball is also $90. Those were the two most expensive components, and for $10 more you have an entire (3/4 scale) cabinet!

@mitu Well, as always thanks for the help. I don't think it's underpowered given my new 3.5a CanaKit PSU made specifically for the Pi4 and it's a powered USB hub. But I can't rule out an unseated cable or something because now it's back to working correctly. I'm going to keep the USB HDD connected directly to the Pi, since if that isn't seen on boot, then it won't have access to the romsets which explains why they wouldn't show up, and if the USB cable to the hub got jostled then that would also explain why the gamepad wasn't detected.
#OccamsRazor

It's not much but perhaps someone here would find the following Imgur post to be an entertaining read for creative ideas.

https://imgur.com/gallery/FfXHWYR

Update: After a pause to address some other stuff around the house I was finally able to rebuilt some of the internals of the Roadcase Cocktail Cabinet. The most recent work items included:

Remove USB Hub, replaced by. . . Mount Meanwell 5v PSU Reroute all USB connections (make longer USB cables) for arcade controls direct to Pi4. Rewire audio and LEDs directly to PSU (instead of USB hub) for power Rewire the mains AC to incorporate a split—Power the Pi transformer and a GPIO-triggered relay Mount and wire the relay in a project box to power the display and PSU (which in turn powers the audio and the LEDs. Remount audio amp, reroute speaker wires. Update my Python script to trigger the relay on another GPIO pin.

It was a lot, but I had to keep it all straight and do everything at once. Before this step, I had a USB hub tying the spinners and trackball controls to the Pi, but also providing power. This was not necessary with a small and cheap PSU. It cleared up some of the bulky power transformers and removed some hardware, but replaced it with other stuff. In the end, this is a bit more complex, but the controls are now plugged in directly to the Pi and I have a relay turning on and off the display.
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Thanks for the responses so far. An update on this issue: I gave the analog settings in Retroarch a try but they had no impact on the sensitivity.

I decided to go back and dig deeper into mouse polling. I came across more information about mouse polling in Linux: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mouse_polling_rate#Polling_rate_and_polling_interval

I added usbhid.mousepoll back to the boot config file, set the GRS spinner to pulse at 512, and did some testing. Without that command or when I set it to value 0 (system use polling rate requested by device), my spinner runs slow. When I force the system to poll at either 1, 2, 4, or 8, the spinner runs at a much faster speed. The spinner moved at the same speed with all four values, so I left it on 8 to save CPU cycles on the Pi.

I set MAME sensitivity according to the formula (14%) and the blaster now free spins at the familiar speed. I can also properly adjust Major Havoc. Interestingly when I do a 5-space full turn test, a full turn with the GRS is exactly 10 spaces. The blaster isn't moving twice as fast; the blaster clicks at the same speed as this guy's setup with a turbotwist:

I wonder if the GRS is reporting a half turn as a full turn.

In any case, I'm willing to call this issue resolved to my satisfaction.

@mahoneyt944 Sorry, my explanation was not completely correct: It's the firmware that is updated, as far as I can see the PCB itself looks identical. But you can find out which firmware runs on your PCB, simply by pressing both mouse buttons simultaneously and keeping them pressed for 10 seconds. If this switches the mouse axis from horizontal to vertical, your PCB is running the latest firmware. Otherwise it still runs the old firmware.

Apparently there is no simple way to update the firmware yourself, they simply sent me a new PCB.

@mitu The original pastebin link is still up above your reply, but the newest logs show no mouse activity, even though I was spinning that thing like crazy :
This is the whole log...

Parameters: Executing: /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame2003/mame2003_libretro.so --config /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/retroarch.cfg "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/polepos1.zip" --verbose --appendconfig /dev/shm/retroarch.cfg [INFO] RetroArch 1.8.8 (Git 9552f87) [INFO] Redirecting save file to "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/polepos1.srm". [INFO] Redirecting save state to "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/polepos1.state". [INFO] === Build ======================================= [INFO] Capabilities: NEON VFPv3 VFPv4 [INFO] Built: Feb 22 2021 [INFO] Version: 1.8.8 [INFO] Git: 9552f87 [INFO] ================================================= [INFO] Loading dynamic libretro core from: "/opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame2003/mame2003_libretro.so" [INFO] [Overrides] core-specific overrides found at /home/pi/.config/retroarch/config/MAME 2003 (0.78)/MAME 2003 (0.78).cfg. [INFO] [Overrides] no content-dir-specific overrides found at /home/pi/.config/retroarch/config/MAME 2003 (0.78)/arcade.cfg. [INFO] [Overrides] no game-specific overrides found at /home/pi/.config/retroarch/config/MAME 2003 (0.78)/polepos1.cfg. [INFO] Config: appending config "/home/pi/.config/retroarch/config/MAME 2003 (0.78)/MAME 2003 (0.78).cfg"

@hwornall Hi!

Had the same trouble. But this Arcade 1Up 12 in 1 Interface board is 5volts and the EG Starts EA-JM01 spinner is 3.3v.
How can you solved this?

Cheers from Brazil!

@clyde said in Spinners? Trackballs?:

@iandaemon said in Spinners? Trackballs?:

(And normally are when holding an adult beverage.)

That's a reason for one-handed games that I didn't realise before! 😆

I'm sure you would've discovered that scenario during a gathering...whenever it's safe to have them again. I guess now is a good time to keep prepping for an eventual return to "normal".

(That bowling game I mentioned is a "pretty easy to pick up" game with decent graphics.)

@alebofsky said in How to save configuration for spinner for an individual game:

System is running Retropie Playbox on Raspberry Pi 4 (Cortex-A72)

We don't support 3rd party images - use the RetroPie image from retropie.org.uk/download and report back if you still have the issue when saving the remaps for the game.

@mitu It will be a Spinner to control old classics like Arkanoid and Asteroid. No buttons or "press" functionality needed. Just one axis with decent response, i.e. better than a keyboard press.

The link you shared - thank you very much - looks like it could be what I am looking for. I will try later tonight and then see how I pull that new device into RetroPie/ES.

Thanks a million

@andros5000 said in Spinner and Trackball Suggestions:

e

I have this https://dreamauthentics.com/product/tornado-spinner/ for my arcade machine. It works great with Tempest. I do not have a Trackball but I was looking at this https://www.ultimarc.com/trackballs-and-spinners/ as a possible solution.

@mitu

Thanks! This gets stranger.
Originally I was using a MicroSD Adapter to read the card on a built-in SD card reader in an HP Elitebook 2540P I5 laptop running Windows 10. Today, I used a different micro SD card reader (a USB version this time "T-flash USB") - didn't even know I had one, but found it by chance when I was going through my USB drives in order to install gpartLIVE as bootable drive) on the same laptop. When I looked at the micro SD card using this USB reader, disk manager showed the 256MB partition, another space of several gigs, and a large unallocated space (albeit TOO large). I wiped out the partitions (using Diskpart I believe). Then I saw a capacity of 2TB of unallocated space (on a 128GB card!!!). I got gpart to run on my other Retropie SD Card (never actually needed the USB drive) and using the same USB reader, it too reported 2TB for total capacity. Other Linux utilites reported the same capacity. I tried a different SD card in this USB reader and that reader always shows SIZE 2TB, but it does show the correct partition sizes. Now I had the opposite issue - too much space reported. Various partitioning and formating utilities choked b/c I think they were trying to read/write beyond the actual capacity of the drive. On a whim, I put the card back in the original Micro SD card adapter and disk manager showed 116GB unallocated. I created a simple volume and it worked. I imaged the card and the Pi booted. Almost 24 hours later and I'm almost back to where I started. I thought these adapters were just devices which passed the connection through pin for pin with no 'smarts' in-between. Maybe the built-in card reader had an issue? Dunno. In any case, thanks for all of your help.

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