FreeTrack Forum

I made the mistake of thinking that the wiimote would work with the TrackClip Pro, but it doesn't. The IR LED's in the clip don't penetrate the WiiMote's filters.

I thought I should spell that out here, in case anyone makes the same mistake as me.

The next thing I have to try to work out how to do would be either:

- Buy another wiimote (don't want to wreck my families pair) and try to alter it - any help for that please?, i.e. step by steps, pictures etc. How hard is it?

- Buy a cheap webcam and modify that (all my existing webcams won't work on Vista, so I need to buy one - Microsoft VX1000?). I don't have any 'photographic negative film' but I could cut up a piece of old floppy disk I guess. Anyone any luck with that?

- Build a cap (or buy one) but not keen on that as just getting the parts to Canada is proving to be fiddly (plus I have already spent $40 on the trackclip already and it looks nice).

- I just go buy the other TrackIR camera and use my new (and so far useless) trackclip pro with that. Lots of $$$ but I have the clip already now.

Any advice?

I have the same combination, so I can definitely empathize.  Mine works, but it is not as smooth as what I see people getting in videos, so it is obviously not completely right.

I have seen pics where folks have opened up the Wiimote.  It probably would not be that hard to remove the filter and replace it with a piece of floppy diskette material...  but I would have to check on that.  You might do some searching in these forums and/or google on Wiimotes

I have been contemplating the purchase of the TIR for multiple reasons...  1.  It would be easier, and I would be done futzing with it.  2.  The TIR gets great frames per second (one of the more appealing aspects of the Wiimote / FT approach).  3.  It is USB, rather than this pain in the butt Blue Tooth.  (I'm really getting tired of the Blue Tooth aspects of this).   If someone ever figured out a practical way to convert a Wiimote over to a wired USB connection for sending the camera data (I don't give a rip about the accelerometer...), I'd be a lot more enthused about the long term prospects of using the Wiimote for this.

You might consider buying a hat made by someone.  Check this thread out:
http://forum.free-track.net/index.php?showtopic=829&page=1
If you are going to go that route, be sure to ask him if he is using 950nm IR LEDs (he probably is), as that is what you would want.

I'm mildly surprised that you're having a lot of difficulty getting the parts to make your own.  If it is the IR LEDs that is the problem, keep in mind it doesn't have to be a specific brand/part #...  the big thing is that they are 950 nm wavelength.  If the visibility angle ( I forget the proper terminology at the moment) isn't as high as you would like, you can carefully file the round tip down flatter.  Have you got Radio Shack stores up there?

Good luck!

The story ends happily for me in that I kept the trackclip pro (didn't really want to buy a hat - it gets hot in the summer ;-)) and just bought a $30 Microsoft VX-1000 webcam.

Modifying the webcam was very easy and I get a consistent 30fps and smooth movement. I didn't even need to put any negative film in front of it, i.e. just

- unscrewed it.
- unscrewed camera lens
- Push out IR filter lens with a knife (well, cracked it, but it all came out)
- Fiddled with the autoexposure settings until I got a nice steady 3 red dots and all black view (I had to use the 'press button' hack on Vista to access the autoexposure on the settings tickbox).

Freetrack is working really well with DCS-Ka50, GRID and FSX. The trackclip pro uses USB for power, and without having to crack open a wiimote and just use a webcam then no bluetooth to fiddle around with either (or rechargables in wiimote).

Thanks to all involved in supporting it.