Omega Race Cockpit Spinner options

dluck

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The Omega Race cockpit is coming along nicely. Installed the FPGA replacement board, switching power supply, recapped monitor.
Spinner is all messed up.
We took off the cockpit spinner control panel and plugged the spinner into a mini omega race spinner harness and it is messed up there as well. Original mini spinner works fine in the mini.
I see replacement spinners for sale but they don't say they will work with the cockpit cabinet.
I also have a cocktail OR which I'd prefer not to cannibalize.
I'm going to take the control panel and spinner home to see if I can repair it.
What is my best option for the cockpit spinner?
 
Which style spinner is in it now? My cockpit originally had a pot w/ the A/G interface board. Some cabinets also had the older style mechanical gray encoder, which (IMO) is better than the pot when working (no dead zone), but really sucks when dirty/worn out. If you've got the gray encoder, check out this page if you want to try refurbing it: https://www.outerworldarcade.com/space_encounters/space_encounters_encoder.html . If you've got the pot, you can try cleaning or replacing it.

A while back I built a replacement gray encoder to allow using readily available optical encoders ( https://www.projectvb.com/orge/ ). IMO, this is the best of both worlds... the optical encoders are smooth, reliable, and have no dead zone. This works just fine in the cockpit. I think Arcadeshop now sells a replacement as well (should work in the cockpit, unless it's mechanically too large, has different mounting, etc.).

DogP
 
Which style spinner is in it now? My cockpit originally had a pot w/ the A/G interface board. Some cabinets also had the older style mechanical gray encoder, which (IMO) is better than the pot when working (no dead zone), but really sucks when dirty/worn out. If you've got the gray encoder, check out this page if you want to try refurbing it: https://www.outerworldarcade.com/space_encounters/space_encounters_encoder.html . If you've got the pot, you can try cleaning or replacing it.

A while back I built a replacement gray encoder to allow using readily available optical encoders ( https://www.projectvb.com/orge/ ). IMO, this is the best of both worlds... the optical encoders are smooth, reliable, and have no dead zone. This works just fine in the cockpit. I think Arcadeshop now sells a replacement as well (should work in the cockpit, unless it's mechanically too large, has different mounting, etc.).

DogP
I finally had a chance to look at it more carefully. It appears to be the older style mechanical encoder. The shaft was real stiff so I finally got the mechanism out by itself and could spin the shaft manually. With no set screws in I could see that the shaft didn't spin with when the knob was twisted. With the set screws in tThere's a small chance the set screws weren't making contact and the encoder shaft wasn't actually moving with the knob. Now I can verify that.
Just waiting for the new backdrop from paradise and I will need to get a microsd card to save settings so that the fpga card comes up in Omega Race mode.
 
Dale,

I have NOS encoders. If you need one I can bring to to CAX unless you need it sooner then I can mail one to you.
 
they just got an Omega Race mini where I work, it has a potentiometer for the spinner, which looked suspect to me. probably explains why it plays like utter garbage, it alternates between between too sensitive or not spinning fast enough. @Mylstar is this difficult to make proper?
 
I took the original encoder home and desoldered it from the interface card. I read the site where one of these was taken apart and cleaned up and got working again. Looked like a lot of work. I noticed there are holes that are big enough to just squirt some deoxit in there. Did that and then spent about 5 minutes spinning the shaft back and forth. Immediately it started moving a lot more smoothly. I thought there is a chance it will be better. I resoldered the interface board on it and finally got to my warehouse to try it out on the mini. Works so much better now and is I think good enough. The PlanB from @Mylstar is still on its way, so that's still a backup in case plan A craps out again.
now to install the new backdrop and get a micro sd card so it can be setup to just play Omega Race.
See ya all at CAX 2025
 
Received an NOS encoder from arcadefixit.com Thanks @Mylstar ! The original one from the game that I cleaned and makes the game playable, has at least one spot where the encoder jumps back and forth. Especially noticeable when trying enter initials in to top score table as the cursor jump back and forth between letters.
So I'm going to definitely need to use the NOS one.
 
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