Perfesser

It was a sight to see, I think the old fairy tale "7 in one blow" would apply.......

One LED burned out last night. Apparently they can't handle the .2 volts over their 1.6v rating. (3 in series = 4.8v) USB ports have at least 5v, (huge warning in caps on the site, USB forces to 5v) you should put a resistor in series with the LED's. This would explain why the set of LED's was flashing and also why one burned out. RTFM: Had I bothered to look on the Freetrack site they have a handy-dandy setup calculator where you plug in your specs and it does all the calculations. My LED's are rated at 1.6v but they work fine (with a lot longer life) and still give a very good signal at 1.5v(tested with a battery). Plug the numbers in and a 10 ohm resistor is all that's needed. Also they must already be wide angle because they give a good signal even 90 degrees off the viewing angle without sanding them down flat. I might rough sand the tips to cut down the "flare" when angled directly at the camera.

I've based all my builds on commercially available gaming rigs. Alienware for the really hot stuff. Tom's Hardware has great packages, updated as hardware becomes available, no guesswork. Saved me $1000 on my last build. http://www.tomshardware.com/theme-reviews-build-your-own,156-1.html

Guy at the store had no clue why they flash, I suspect one of them is overly sensitive to the .2 overvolt and cuts in and out. So I bought a 6 more LED's, made a spotlight and still wasn't happy. Reflects off the hat, my nose, chin and earlobes are especially bad when you turn your head. I was pretty happy about using a USB port to power them ( i have a remotely powered USB hub, from 115 v, not connected to the computer at all). Although it does seem to power them fine off the ports in the G15 keyboard that give you a "low power" message when you try to plug any other device into it. Already had all the soldering stuff out so I took the 3 good LED's out of my original 6, ground the ends down as far as I dared and made em flat and then I mounted them on the hat. Just popped holes in the fabric(cardboard in the brim) and slid the leads through, soldered em on, then bent the leads to aim them. Sayal Electronics had some 1 inch adhesive velcro tabs, should hold the wires out of harms way. Hacked up another USB cable and powered it up. Works great all the time with a tiny exposure adjustment for ambient lighting. Bottom line. This works great with a few cautions. If your room has greatly variable light go with the LED's on the hat or headset. If you are in the basement then the reflectors probably work well enough. Measure your model dimensions and model position carefully and enter them.(under the model tab)

Got a problem here. I found a local supply and made an IR spotlight out of 6 LED's. 1.6v @ 50mA

Worked like a charm gec, good call. They are on.

In an environment where you have large variations in light levels through the day (sunny windows) I would suggest LED's as markers. Every time the light changes I'm adjusting the threshhold level. I suppose you could just have a day and night profile(just thought of that duh..) I still want to try making a spotlight of 9 or 12 IR led's and try that before I decide for sure. This camera has 6 but I suspect they may not turn on if the room is too brightly lit. I can't tell if they're on or not ................. any ideas? .... my NV binocs

It was happening when I had Freetrack shut off and it reverted to this when I spawned in SEOW........ YIKES!!!!!!! Managed to survive and after the match Jedito spent enough time to fix some settings I messed up. ~S~ Jediteo thanks very much, getting at least 20 fps now from 5 and the IR filter effortlessly removed from camera. A little tweaking and it really works well. If anyone is hesitant this camera makes the whole thing almost effortless. The whole thing cost about $35 Canadian. Couldn't have finished without the help of Jediteo though.

What the hell have I done now?? The game seems to default to "look back right" view sometimes. I have a bad feeling this is going to happen at the worst moment..............

Freetrack supposedly has a 4x frame multiplier (30x4=120), the program is telling me the output from the camera is inadequate (5 fps)

The camera recognizes the reflectors well enough, good solid signal to Free track, just have to play with the

I do believe it works This is just playing with camera settings, no filters. 1" foam balls covered with reflective tape, screwed on through the hat. Bob's your uncle

This technique is what got me to thinking about this in the first place, I stumbled on to the camera

EDIT: all info now in the first post. Found a webcam that might just work out of the box, delivered today. It already has 6 IR LED's mounted on it. I think all it will need is a visible light filter placed over the lens assuming it has the framerate needed. $25 CDN. KINAMAX Infrared NightVision / 6 LED / USB 2.0 / 1.3 MegaPixel / WebCam with Audio Microphone http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=1567081&sku=M501-1160&srkey=KINAMAX%20Infrared%20NightVision You do need to remove the IR filter. Unscrew the camera lens, look at the back of the lens assembly for a red tint, that's it. With a knife I scraped off (no popping that sucker off) the glued on plastic washer that holds the IR filter in place(1/8" square glass), screw the lens back in. Fine threads, plastic, and it's the manual focus for the cam, use caution. Webcam (made in China) 1 inch dia. foam balls (made in the USA!! Floracraft, Ludington Mi) at a craft store, 16 for $4 (coated a few times with white glue(also made in USA) to stiffen em up) Reflective tape (made in Canada!) at auto supply store $7 Hat in stock (one of those high shapes that are fairly stiff, the ones you wouldn't wear out in public anyway, made in China) 3 screws

I found foam balls at a craft store in Canada called Michael's. Tape at Canadian Tire. Putting up a separate post about the camera I found. IR camera WITH 6 IR LED's for $25 CDN.

True enough. Most Japanese cars sold here are built in the US or Canada, domestic cars would be better but if you must......hell, my job depends on it. There isn't that much profit in the price of a car these days 85% is material(mostly bought locally) and all those labour costs go right back into the system. Canada is the biggest supplier of US crude oil (20%)and natural gas. America's Top Annual Suppliers of Crude Oil in 2007 The United States imports approximately 62 percent of its oil. Canada supplies approximately 20 percent of these imports, and Mexico contributes 10 percent. But over 30 percent come from regimes that are less friendly or stable, including Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Angola, Iraq, and Algeria (respectively the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th largest oil importers to the United States). http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/05/oil_imports.html Plenty of produce year round from California. Cal strawberries are cheaper here (in Ontario) even when ours are in season!! Not better though. Do your part and look at the labels, pay a bit extra for domestic. It will end up back in your pocket. Especially look for local produce, when your farmers are gone, you'll have to buy whatever there is, wherever it comes from. If you can get it right from the producer(farmer) you cut all those middle men out, you pay the same but the farmer gets a better cut. Real food is produced by farmers, dunno where that crap in a box comes from or what it's even made of but it ain't what God intended for you to eat. Those middle men search the planet for the lowest price, not the best quality, not the best for your economy, not the best for your health, only the best for their bottom line.

I haven't seen any mention here of this site. http://www.tomshardware.com/us/ It took a lot of the guesswork out of building a PC for me anyway(there was another site I used as well but damned if I can remember). Plenty of good reviews on other components as well, like what's the best value in fast RAM for gaming this week. As with building a car engine, a good PC is about a balanced package. Spend $ where you need it. No point in putting in a huge camshaft before headers and an intake. Just like buying an expensive video card without knowing it's being strangled by the motherboard. Look for a section called

1 This is an ATI card?

After having them I think pedals should be bought before a throttle quadrant, they're that useful. On one note about CH pedals, my old mobo was USB 1.0 that has no overvolt protection unlike USB 2.0. I had a ton of strange issues, random crashes, slow operation, so much so that I gave up and took it in to a shop (twice) where they stress tested the hell out of it and every time it passed perfectly. I bring it home and same thing. After I put a new mobo and CPU(Asus P5B, Intel Core Duo 2.66) in (now 2.0 USB) I find out my CH rudders had a short that was feeding back into the mobo. Unfortunately the CH pedals did not survive the journey from the second floor window to the patio and I'm now cheerily flying Saiteks. If you're having computer issues and have CH pedals, try unplugging them.

Thanks for all the tips guys, I like the reflector route and will pursue that for now, just to save on the complexity and I like the light weight as opposed to the battery system. Guaranteed someone in this house will have it on the floor and then run over it with the office chair to the detriment of the tender bits (no names). The IR webcam is not in stock.... 2 weeks ............. grrrrrrrrr

Now there's something obvious I hadn't thought of .......... ~S~ The LED's I found are from Kingbright Corporation in California are already flat topped have an 80 degree half angle. I couldn't find them anywhere in the catalogue but an inquiry got an answer the same day. Trout doesn't have a camera yet so it will be even easier for him, he might just be able to get an IR webcam with the LED's built in. I found one at Tiger Direct for $26 CAD, hell I might even go buy it and save the trouble of all the rest. What are you using for the reflectors?

Just beginning to gather parts for this setup, found a supplier for the LED's in the States. Any "I wish I knew that before I started" tips?

Lets call a spade a spade, the new software sucks. I just mapped my controls through the game with the exception of the center button inside the left hand thumb wheel that I bound to F7 for my Teamspeak PTT. I think it's called a clutch (supposedly for disconnecting the prop while engine starts). And I can't remember how I even got that to work, just that it took 3 or four tries, each time giving up in frustration till I got it. You could do a search for X52 profiles and download someone elses.

The JATO rocket car is almost for sure a hoax but the 2008 Darwin Awards are alive and well at http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008.html For myself, I've always been in favour of removing all the warning labels off of everything and let nature take it's course, we're only diluting our species by continuing our current course.