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Chris0382 #16 05/09/2008 - 22h59

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Yes sand the LEDS with very fine grit sandpaper or emery cloth; the plastic sands very easily.

Sand as much as you like but dont expose the metal of the LED. Leave a bit of meat if you know what I mean.
CorsairBotis #17 06/09/2008 - 00h09

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What about the wiring? (See previous post)

Thanks a lot Chris and Ratoa, you guys are a huge help.
tristan68 #18 06/09/2008 - 07h06

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Just dropping by  :)


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Cya folks.
Chris0382 #19 06/09/2008 - 11h28

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Im noticing I have to adjust the camera setting for daytime and night time use. I also discovered that if you play at night in a darkened room, the Vis light filter is not needed and the camera responds better without the Vis light filter.
Chris0382 #20 06/09/2008 - 11h37

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Also if you trim your LED's, don't trim them even. You still need to know which is the positive and negative side. Its hard to see which is the flat prong of the diode so keeping them at diff lengths helps a lot.

Are you OK with which way to arrange everything and polarities. The switch and resistor are not polar and can go any orientation. The LED prongs need to be alligned in the same order. Positive of battery to positive of first LED to begin with; then negative of first LED to positive of second LED etc etc.
CorsairBotis #21 06/09/2008 - 15h15

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Thanks for the diagram Tristan, just what I needed.

Chris, isn't the side with the longer prong the + and the shorter side the -? At least, thats what I gathered from the free track manual and wikipedia.

I'm pretty sure I understand the wiring now, thanks everybody.
Chris0382 #22 06/09/2008 - 17h40

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I believe so Corsair. It will be on the packaging also.
CorsairBotis #23 07/09/2008 - 00h56

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OK, got it working! But a few things I'm not sure how to fix:

- The jitter gets pretty high, 20+ sometimes.

- Free Track loses sight of the left, or right most LED while turning my head. Do I need to sand some more off the LEDs or just increase the sensitivty so I don't  need to turn my head that far?

- I can't get the X and Y axes to work in FS2004. (FSUIPC is installed)

- Sometimes while in FS2004 all the axes stop working except the Z axis. Only way to solve the problem is to restart FreeTrack.
ratoa #24 07/09/2008 - 02h34

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Do you have a perfect triangle with the 3 leds??? like I said I had the same problems because my botton leds where to close together try to flat cap visor
also you need to play with the settings....it took me awhile to get it right


Did you sand the leds????? you need to sand them very close to the core

try your first test in a dark room and go from there

are you getting NAN errors?


ratoa
Edited by ratoa on 07/09/2008 at 02h35.
CorsairBotis #25 07/09/2008 - 04h26

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Well, the LEDs don't form a perfect triangle but I tried to follow the dimensions for a 3 point cap in the manual but its not perfect and I punched the new dimensions in the program. I'll try sanding down the LEDs a little more and see if it helps.

I read in another topic that full 6dof is coming in 2.2 for fs2004 so no problem there.

Also, I do get the NAN errors, I guess its because the top LED gets in front of the two bottom lights.
Chris0382 #26 07/09/2008 - 10h38

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As long as the leds are shoing up nicely, I dont think you have to sand to the core; just sand nice and flat.

I had to adjust many things including the physical camera focus to get it working well.

My camera is at an angle so I will need to make one LED side longer than the other.

Did you get a Walmart clip light so you can get the camera closer to you; that made all the difference for me.

Did you get the IR filter off. I noticed all I had to do was cut a round piece of VL Film and place in the front of the camera and it stays put (no bottle cap needed anymore).

Im also seeing people with true TrackIR4 having just as many problems as we are in getting things right; so don't give up and expect a lot of trial and error.
Edited by Chris0382 on 07/09/2008 at 10h38.
cadcoke4 #27 08/09/2008 - 16h25

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I realize most of you have probably already sanded your LED's, but I've had success by just covering them with "disappearing" tape.  The kind you use to wrap Christmas presents. It has a frosted appearance.

Years ago, for a different project, I tried sanding LED's to make some Lightning bugs for theatrical use.  But, it seemed that I lost a lot of the brightness.  A friend said he used a grinder and took off most of the top, flat (like recommended here).  But, an additional step was that he "buffed" the end of the LED (while  pointing to a large 4" dia motorized wheel with a cloth outside rim).  From what I've read in a plastics forum, this is supposed to melt the plastic a bit, and allow it to get smooth again.  But, personally, I've never buffed LED's.

Joe Dunfee

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