It’s been a while since I’ve been in the thread, but why don’t you use SMD LEDs, or better yet SMD LEDs with a locating feature to ensure precise location?
SMD LEDs would be better. Locating side view SMD IR LED/phototransistor pairs has proven fruitless so far.
Find me a side view LED/PT pair and I’d be on it with the quickness.
Can’t wait til they’re ready. Will you be shipping international on these? i’m definetly after one (UK) and may consider buying a few (10-15) to save shipping for friends.
It’s EVO month! Still hype as ever for this grand project to come to fruition.
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/4066/img0655ov.jpg
This is a part of the second batch I ordered from a separate fab house. They look tons better just by eyeballing them, and I’ll be testing them out here shortly. The fab house is slow and an absolute pain in the ass to deal with, but if they get the job done, I’ll deal with it.
I also have a good soldering monkey I’ll be bringing in shortly to do hand rework of the large batch of problem boards I have, so I aught to be able to crank a good number out to bring to Evo.
As soon as I test the rework boards and this second batch of boards so I feel happy with them, I’ll post up asap and get things setup to buy and bring to Evo. Stay tuned, Im still working on it.
Cant wait! Still loving my proto!
Those look awesome. How much power do they need and what price point do you have in mind? In the future I may have to drop one in my TE. Out of curiosity, do optical joysticks affect performance, or is it just a preference based thing?
here’s a thread that has most info on optical’s it should 5v that’s standard power for all USB If using Ps2 is PCB you have to use a conv
Toodles has been asked price point a million times just be patience he will let everyone know he’s good about that
Alright, looks like I can pull that voltage off of a TE no problem(if not I’ll just add a neutrik jack and power it that way).
Toodles, you should ship these with a sticker like the flash 1. Just throwing it out there, but I think it wouldn’t cost much to give everyone a “Toodles Optical” sticker to slap on their stick. I would be proud to throw one on my TE. It looks like trying out an optical is worth whatever the price may be. Now if only I had some spare change…
Regardless, I won’t be at EVO, but I wish you luck on the sales nonetheless.
yes you can pull 5v from any 360/ps3/PC pcb and also from dreamcast/xbox and saturn I do believe
PS1/2 are the problem pcb with 3.3v that has to be up to 5v
Some devices don’t like it when you pull power from them to power something else, and I wasn’t sure if the TE’s PCB would act the same way. Thanks for the info.
the 5v is direct from the source/system if you look at a usb pin out one the 4/5(2 grounds on some) is a 5v wire
Yeah, but that steals a little bit of the power the PCB may need, so I was curious as to whether or not it would still run. For example many external HDD’s will not run off of an unpowered USB hub because of the power needed to run the hub. If it works out of the box I will probably be picking one up.
Good news on the progress of the SPARK. Maybe that explains why I have seen a few FLASH 1’s up for sale in the trading outlet lately. Hmmm…
Worst case scenario, include a battery pack that supplies the necessary 5 volts for the Spark.
3 or 4 AA or AAA and a voltage regulator or resistor
Great to see progress on this very cool project. So, will you ONLY sell @ EVO for now, or put a few up for sale online as well?
I’ll let you know as I know. I’ll eventually have them for sale like everything else, but I can’t promise I’ll be able to sell them outside of Evo anytime before Evo. It depends on how many working, tested models I can get together.
Plus, you and I could probably work something out for that heavy metal joystick you have in the guwange stick 
I gotta get me one of those to try out.
I’m still waiting for the HORI sized one actually. The one I have (with pictures on my site) is about the same size as an LS-32. And it’s not up for grabs. I can get you in touch with the guy making them if you want though.
Just tested the boards that came in, the second batch of green ones I pictured above. They didn’t work.
Testing it told me that the pull down resistors were too weak; the resistance was too low, making it so insensitive that the light being detected with the housing on wasnt enough to ‘flip’ it. I replaced the 4.7k pull downs with 10k, and it worked MUCH better, but still not quite sensitive enough for my liking. I added a 10k pot in series with one of them, and adjusted the pot until the sensitivity was too my liking. Result: A total pull down strength of 12.5k made me happiest. I just placed an order for a bunch of 11k, 12k, 13k, 14k, and 15k resistors, so I can test them out to see which exact value works best. Once I have determined that number, I can order a ton, and hand them off to a monkey to replace the resistors on the ones from this batch, and do the same for the fubared black batch the same time he adjusts the crooked LEDs.
So I’m feeling very confident that I’ll have some tested and able to sell at Evo. When the resistors arrive, and the monkey and I start cranking out good tested ones, I’ll post up, and start taking paypals for Sparks to be delivered at Evo.
Because of the massive amount of hands on rework and testing needed, I hate to say it but the price for the first few hundred will have to be $55. Once the assembled boards I order stop requiring rework, the price will drop down to $40 or $45. This product will be solid, but will still require loads of work on my part doing support, costs for shipping for exchanges if any mistakes slip through, massive amount of labor for the current reworking, to say nothing of the MASSIVE out of pocket expenses I’ve had for the plastic molding and dozens of prototype runs, makes this necessary. If anyone feels that it isn’t worth it to them at that price, I completely understand. But please do not think that this is some unnecessary price gouging.
Price is DECENT.