Friday 17 September 2010

Headset for Freetrack Trackir 'Track Clip Pro' clone

This is a quick guide on how I made my USB headset for Freetrack and saved myself a lot of money by avoiding buying the Trackir track clip pro.

I printed off a pic of the tracker track clip pro and used its dimensions to make my own. First thing to do is plan the shape of your design on paper measuring things properly and double checking measurements.
Then I went on the scavenge for materials, I decided to start with the box that would house the components and support the LEDs, I used a clear plastic memory card case, the kind you find with small memory cards. I cut holes on it for the usb cable to go in and for the arms that would support the LEDs.

Then I took some rounded lengths of wood and cut them to size, I then glued them in the memory card box with epoxy resin glue. To mount the middle light I used a small stopper from the end of a felt tip pen, I cut a hole in it and glued it into position.
Next I cut an old usb extension cable and wired in the PTC fuse and resistor (the pct fuse prevents damage to your motherboard), after this I used heat shrink tubing to insulate any exposed wires. I fitted a cable tie to the usb cable near the top so it wouldn’t fall out of the small hole I made in the memory card case. Its worth noting that the fuse and resistor can be fitted either way as they do not have polarity.

Track clip pro dimensions:




Wiring the LEDs was up next, this was easy. I twisted the exposed wire from my network cables round the leg of the LED and applied solder then I used heat shrink tubing to cover the exposed wires. To secure the LEDs to the wooden arms I used a little glue and heat shrink tubing. It was a little awkward doing the final soldering after I trimmed the wire length to fit but not hard. The LED legs are flexible so they can be bent easily to face forward.

I used this circuit diagram (parts listed are also what i used) from the Freetrack forum (click for bigger):
Source: This Thread

When the circuit was complete I plugged in the device and used my iphone camera to check that the lights where working. All being ok I used more heat shrink to cover the wooden arms and LEDs and wires, this secured everything in place and made it look neater.
I sealed the case shut with epoxy resin then painted it with modelling paint, I fitted small plastic washers to the LEDs to make them look a bit neater.

All in all, not to hard to do the above. Its so much cheaper than buying Trackir track clip pro.

The Track Clip Assembly

To make the adjustable clip assembly I used the clip from a trouser coat hanger (dont remove the rail part of the hanger) and an old windscreen mount from a TomTom. I cut out the clip from the coat hanger with a hot knife, and then I cut the sucker off the TomTom and cut the ball joint part down to size. I filed everything down and used a Stanley knife to make it neater.


Next I used epoxy resin to bond the clip to the TomTom mount. After it dried I had to file the curve out of the TomTom mount part so the light assembly could be bonded to it. I had a problem in that the ball joint on the TomTom mount did not allow the light assembly to sit at a straight angle so I took some wooden pegs and cut off the wedge end and bonded it to the flattened TomTom mount, this fixed the angle problem.
Finally I bonded the light assembly to the clip and TomTom part, once dried I painted everything with modelling paint and left to dry. 

Now I have a Trackir ‘Track Clip Pro’ clone that cost only a couple of quid. I set it up with the Freetrack software using my Wii remote as a webcam.





Wii Remote or 'Wiimote' TV Mount

I was dreading mounting the Wii remote or ‘Wiimote’ to the TV; I just had no Idea what to do. Other people’s designs looked good but a bit complicated to make. As usual I went looking for junk I could use when I came across a super simple solution that works great. I just used a plastic Wii gun accessory  on top of my TV secured with a cable tie or 2 hooked around the cooling vents of my Toshiba 32” LED TV. It took minutes and the hardest part was getting the other end of the cable tie up out of the TV cooling vents.

Places to buy parts.


The places I used where farnell.com (min £20 order) Amazon and ebay.

But if you don’t want to order loads of parts from Farnell like i did just stick to ebay and Amazon. Parts on both sites are about as cheap as you can get and you can just buy what you need.

You could also try your local electronics store but i found them to be extremely expensive and limited in choice.

Avoid buying any mains adaptors from ebay or amazon market place, I purchased a 'cheap' usb mains adaptor and after plugging it in it made a loud bang  a flash and started smoking, glad i didnt have my iphone plugged into it! I found the same item for a few pence more from 7dayshop.com, about £2.50 delivered, it was well made and had the proper quality symbols on

Materials for Freetrack Headset

Materials I used

• Infra Red LEDs (SFH485P) x3
• Resistor 10 or 6.8 ohm x1, i recommend the 6.8
• PTC Fuse x1
• Wire from Network cables
• Usb cable
• Heat Shrink Tubing
• Plastic case from a memory card
• Some lengths of wood (rounded)
• Apoxy Resin glue
• Soldering Iron and Solder
• File
• Pegs
• Model Paint
• Trouser Coat hanger (the type with clips)
• Stanley knife
• A lighter
• Old windscreen TomTom mount
• Felt Tip Pen
• Helping Hands (a godsend!)
• Wii remote
•class 1 bluetooth dongle

Software For Freetrack

First you need Freetrack: http://www.free-track.net
You will need to read the documentation before you use it. Freetrack also comes with ppjoy software for using Freetrack in games that dont support it. Dont get it anywhere else as i found a lot of people sharing it with trojans and other viruses.

Next you will probably need a bluetooth stack. Windows 7 has one built in but in my x64 copy didnt work with it. Lots of people recommend bluesolil but that didn't work for me either and its stupidly expensive to buy.The best software I found was Toshiba Bluetooth stack. (You dont need a toshiba to use it). You can get a trial version from here: http://aps2.toshiba-tro.de/bluetooth/?page=download or you can get it from the torrents here: http://btjunkie.org/search?q=bluetooth+stack.

Thursday 16 September 2010

The Finished Item

Here are a few more pics of the finished Freetrack headset.

Wednesday 15 September 2010

Freetrack Videos

Freetrack In action with open falcon



A useful freetrack construction Video:



Battlefield 2 with freetrack:



Freetrack with GP Legends: