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Zakk's Review:
"This fella is the cat's-azz
when it comes to spinners! I had a chance to check out a generic
spinner that was on an arcade conversion Arkanoid, and there was simply no comparison.
The conversion was rough and cheap feeling, the Oscar Pro has a nice smooth
solid feel, as good as they come I would guess! Anyways, I'm going to do this like the light gun review. I'm staring
at a box of bits and pieces. You can follow along as I install and
mouth off about this product. Before anything, I have to give my first
impression.  The gear wheel that comes with the pro spinner is HUUUGE!
I'm going to have to do some crazy tricks to get it to fit. Take a look at
that weight on that wheel! I should mention that I'm doing an install
into a metal panel. Once the location is picked out (be sure now, the
installation on a metal panel is somewhat permanent, and it's pretty tough
to undrill a hole! I
grabbed a 3/8" drill bit, and set the pilot hole. Fortunately the bits
I use are DeWalt pilot points, which make it a bit easier to get just the right
spot.
Here is the sleeve I needed to place. I drilled the hole
and pushed the sleeve in from the top of the panel. I have a plexi
layer on my panel, with a graphic underlay. Now I might want to
replace/repair that underlay from time to time, and since the spinner never
comes off, I'll have to make sure the top layers do.
 The top of the
sleeve is 1/2", so I grabbed a 1/2" bit, and drilled out the hole in the plexi. With an Xacto blade, I cut a matching hole in the underlay.
Here's how the panel
looked with the plexi in place. Now on top of this I placed a thin
plastic washer (included) to keep the bottom of the knob from scraping the
plastic. The shaft pokes through the sleeve, and you just set the
optics at the right height on the encoder wheel. To get that sleeve to
stay there is a bit of a trick, but not too difficult. You have to
force a retaining clip onto the sleeve with a deep socket.
A deep socket that is almost the
exact circumference of the clip worked best to get it down there.
To make sure the bracket stayed where it was put, and didn't spin, I secured
it to the panel with a small amount of "liquid weld". I let that set,
then installed the optics.
Here is the optic board. The two
screws adjust the height. Since my panel has little thickness, mine is
set to almost the far end of the track. Also, you can see the wire
harness to the right. Plug this end into the optic board, and the
other end into your encoder. Now here's where you have a choice:
The opti-pac (Hagstrom
makes one too), or the USB interface.
I tried installing it with both methods. To get it to run with the
USB, you plug the ground plug into the single pin socket, and the other plug
into either the X or Y side of the mouse board (shown here circled in red) .
I plugged the supplied USB cable into the computer and without even turning
it off, it came up as an HID compliant mouse. Well, with that
installed, off I went. Now it should be noted that you should ensure
that "mouse" is enabled in mame, or you're not going to enjoy it much.
That done, I started Arkanoid (might as well jump right in!). There
are some analogue control settings to figure out (follow the setting
guidelines at the Oscar homepage). I found the sensitivity to be pretty much
perfect with those default settings. So there you go, up and running
in a few steps! I tried Tempest, and it was the best game of Tempest
I've played in years!!!! I can't say enough nice things about it!
Now I should mention that Windows now lists 4 mice as being installed on my
system: Standard Serial (That would be the Opti-pac), P/S2 (that would
just be the plug on the motherboard), and 2 HID mice. I don't know if
one of them is actually the lightgun, but nothing seems to be conflicting!
Cool!
Well a day later, and I finished
up re-wiring the rest of my control panel, and I thought this would be a
good time to try some of the options I purchased. Sor example, the
happ-USB interface, and the straight to Opti-pac option. They have a
fix
listed now for running both a spinner and a trackball on one USB interface
over at Oscar controls, but it's sure a lot easier to get them both running
if you already have an Opti-pac handy (The more expensive route of course).
To make sure that I could put the spinner back into USB shape easily, I
simply poked the metal contacts out of the plastic connectors with a tiny
screwdriver.
 If
you can make it out in the picture below, the contacts end up looking like
pigtails. I simply slid these into the screwdown connectors on the
opti-pac. Red to +5V, black to ground and green and white to X1 and X2.
WHAM! It works too! The auto-switching sensor kills the input
from the trackball when you turn the spinner. I don't really see any
difference in performance between the USB interface and the opti-pac.
That makes the USB interface a much cheaper choice if all you want to do is
add a spinner to your project. At $9 each, it's $30 cheaper than the
opti-pac. Not to knock the 'pac, as it is the way I will have these
babies working in my cabinet. As an aside, the HAPP conversion hookup
came with the wrong connector. The pins were male/female, but the plug
was female/female. I will be trying out this interface on an upcoming
project, but it might be an idea to let the guys at Oscar know what your
plug looks like before you order (as I neglected to do!). "
That's all there was to
it, and here is the finished section of panel:
Final Remarks: I absolutely love it!
I haven't enjoyed a new piece of hardware this much in I don't know how
long. I haven't even looked up the complete list of compatible games
yet! If you're thinking about getting one, rest assured you won't be
disappointed!
RATING 
OUT OF 5!
Elenore's Review:
"I gave the spinner a quick run.
First game up was Arkanoid 2: Revenge of Doh. I remember playing some
Arkanoid at the local variety store when I was a teenager, but I must have
got worse or something, because I stink! I don't feel too bad, since I
beat Zakk on our first, second and third game. Next we tried out
regular Arkanoid, both of us did better, but he beat me every game. On
to Tempest. I really enjoyed playing it, even though I cannot remember
having ever played it. We competed on that one for quite a while.
It was addictive! Now I want my own cabinet just for Tempest. Well,
maybe not, I don't have that much room. We tried a game of Omega Race,
but it just wasn't fun. Z has promised me that he will find some more
games that use the spinner, because it's just so easy! If I had to
name a complaint, it would be that we had to open the machine almost every
new game to reverse the action on the spinner. If the spinner turned
right on Arkanoid, it would turn left on Tempest. We don't know if
that is something that can be fixed or set, but it took away from the fun a
little bit. All in all, it was amazing.
Final Remarks: We had a lot of fun
without having to learn a lot of controls.
RATING 
OUT OF 5!
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