Postby silentguy » March 26 2012, 12:37 PM
Wanted to post my experience with Orbshield for others.
I used this message board, and some other links to get information, but I ended up doing a lot of trial and error.
Short summary of what I was able to do.
Ordered Orbshield V1.0 from seeedstudio.
It took about 2 weeks to arrive from Hong Kong.
I built it in about 1 hour, but spent the next day trying to get all my serial 3D input devices to work.
I used the Arduino Duemilanove Board based on the ATmega328.
I was able to get the following serial-RS232 devices to work with the OrbShield/Arduino combination.
I am using a Windows 7 Professional, 64 BIT PC, but I've also got it to work on Windows 7 32 BIT PC.
I successfully used these devices in WASD and MOUSE mode, also with extra Keys mapped.
SpaceOrb 360
Spaceball 4000 FLX
Spaceball 5000
Magellan Space Mouse Plus XT.
I had problems which were mostly due to COM port conflicts, and Joystick conflicts.
Also I had to remove all 3DConnexion drivers, which are drivers used with the Spaceball.
Also Blue Tooth conflicted with some COM ports, so I removed bluetooth, then once I got the OrbShield working, I reinstalled it, but was careful about what COM ports it used.
For the SPACEBALL devices you have to press button 1, or * on the Magellan, it's in Vic Putz notes, but I had to read a bit to discover this info.
At first I thought my spaceballs were broken.
The order in which you connect USB , disconnect USB, and use DIP switches, is important.
When things dont work, you sometimes need to reboot, to clear up any USB conflicts.
Sometimes the PC would think it had old version of the OrbShield USB devices still installled, and this would cause problems.
Other times my keyboard would stop working, as it was being mapped to OrbShield keyboard.
However, I finally got things working and I am very happy.
I am using Spaceball 4000 FLX to play Skyrim, and it is great.
I can control my character using only 1 hand, but I use both the spaceball and a trackball for menus and finer aiming.
The 3D control is great, very much like controlling a puppet by moving its head.
I have also used the spaceball to play Saints Row 3, which is good control too.
I think for First Person Shooters, it might not be as good control as a mouse and keyboard,
but I really hate WASD key control, so I succeeded in my goal of eliminating keyboard from gameplay.
If I think of any other tips I will post more.
I have keys mapped for the spaceballs, this was a bit tricky, becoz if you have a mistake in your key assignment it wont work.
Also Spaceball 4000 is diff than Spaceaball 5000 and Magellan Space Mouse.
Spaceball 4000 can use all 12 keys, for Spaceball 5000 and Magellean Space Mouse you really only get 9 keys, even though there are physically 12 keys on the 5000 and it looks exactly the same as a 4000.
I played with SpaceOrb 360, which is good, but its a 2 handed controller.
with Spaceball I can play with 1 hand if I want, and use Trackball with other hand if I want.
I also use a Bluetooth Number Keypad for number keys, and other key mappings.
I play mostly sitting on couch, and I dont want a keyboard on my lap, so my goal was to eliminate keyboard.
I have 2 side tables which I use for Spaceball on left side, and Trackball and Number keypad on Right side.
Last edited by
silentguy on March 26 2012, 18:12 PM, edited 3 times in total.