DIY Head Tracker For A Tenner

ed tracker site seems to be down, any ETA on when it will be back up ?

Cheers Q

Hi all,

Yes, for some reason it's down. I've logged a call with our hosting provider but it's happened without warning and no explanation, so I'm honestly at odds as to what's up with it at the moment. We've paid our bills, honestly!

I can only suggest watch this space/retry... sorry :(
 
Hi all,

Yes, for some reason it's down. I've logged a call with our hosting provider but it's happened without warning and no explanation, so I'm honestly at odds as to what's up with it at the moment. We've paid our bills, honestly!

I can only suggest watch this space/retry... sorry :(

In the interim is there somewhere I can download the drivers and calibration tools from, my hard drive crashed and burned yesterday so I'm going to have to do a full system install and I'll need the software. Thanks
 
Hi all,

Yes, for some reason it's down. I've logged a call with our hosting provider but it's happened without warning and no explanation, so I'm honestly at odds as to what's up with it at the moment. We've paid our bills, honestly!

I can only suggest watch this space/retry... sorry :(

As an FYI while the site was down earlier Ed TrackerUI4 would crash when trying to load as it seemed it was trying to check the firmware available on the site.

Since your post the message on the website has changed to "Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server. Server unable to read htaccess file, denying access to be safe. Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Also since you post EdTracker UI4 seems to be back and working, now that it can at least contact the site but comes back with the message "The remote server returned an error 403 forbidden. You will not be able to flash sketches to your device please check your firewall settings or internet connection.

I just wanted to use the gyro calibration so it wasn;t an issue here but others may be having issues trying to flash etc.

Cheers Q
 
Another option for all of those with chairs that have a swivel/lean back movements, mount it on the head rest :)

Turn left to right, and push back to look up....just no way of leaning forward with this method though :)
 
I put all needed files into my dropbox: http://bit.ly/1CzSodv

Regards,
Alec

Alec, thanks very much for this.

As an FYI while the site was down earlier Ed TrackerUI4 would crash when trying to load as it seemed it was trying to check the firmware available on the site.

I'll raise this with Rob, sounds like his exception management needs tightening up a little on startup when it tries to get the list of available firmwares.

Update

I'm now waiting for the hosting provider to re-enable the site for access. It would seem the backend database server had issues and a number of SQL calls started timing out. It was at this point that our hosting provider rather helpfully (not) brandished the site as "hacked" and took it offline due to the massive load it was imposing on the whole server, impacting other sites upon it.

We have a dedicated server to migrate to, so I might look at doing that sooner rather than later now. This shared hosting is nothing but a PITA....
 
Just thought I'd post a quick thanks.

I had mocked up an ED Tracker on a breadboard with the 6150 a while back, and it sort of worked but the drift was just terrible. I got a 9150, swapped it over, and didn't seem to make much difference. Anyway, decided to do it properly and ordered a real board at the weekend, which turned up a couple of days ago. All soldered up no problems. I also updated the UI tool, which worked much better for calibrating - good job guys. Had a bit of a problem initially with getting it to calibrate reliably, the UI seemed to lock up randomly and the board wouldn't be recognised. From what I can tell however that seems to have been fixed by moving the board from an external powered USB hub to a USB port directly on my PC.

All calibrated up, I loaded ED, set the control axis, and started looking around - it was acting weird, moving slowly. D'oh I still had the mouse-look enabled, and it was set to cumulative not direct. Once I had the settings correct then it started working like a treat. Very smooth, very responsive (a little lag, but it's so minor), and just so easy to use. I'm exploring the deep black right now so it's not that useful right now, but I'll be looking forward to when I get back.

So, great job guys, wonderful bit of kit. Now if only ED would support head tracking on the roll axis... ;)
 
So, great job guys, wonderful bit of kit. Now if only ED would support head tracking on the roll axis... ;)

But it does! If you use Opentrack the third axis will be used automatically (because they use the Freetrack / TrackIR protocol). You can even change the acceleration curves for all axis (and their inverse) in detail.
 
Any of you guys mounted the EDTracker on something other than headphones? ie: If you didn't have a headset (& mic) and just wanted a means to put the thing on your head, what would you use? And no, you can't just duct tape it to the top of our head!

Woolly hat - the protoboard version made it quite easy and I get to save money on the heating at the same time :) 10714493_356553657862045_5308381996953498340_o.jpg
 
Hi guys, ordered a new kit from the site on Tuesday (1659) and it has displayed an order status of "packaging" since. Any news on when this will be shipped?
 
Contact Rob as per the email you should have received from the site - I *suspect* the downtime yesterday has meant he's not been able to update your order, but it is in fact packaged and shipped (or in the out queue at least!)...
 
But it does! If you use Opentrack the third axis will be used automatically (because they use the Freetrack / TrackIR protocol). You can even change the acceleration curves for all axis (and their inverse) in detail.

Am I right in saying when using Freetrack, you can't use the decicated view buttons (ie: 1, 2, 3 and 4)?

If this is the case how on earth do you navigate the new Comms options for Wings? I've yet to see any method other than pressing 4 to zoom into it.
 
Am I right in saying when using Freetrack, you can't use the decicated view buttons (ie: 1, 2, 3 and 4)?

If this is the case how on earth do you navigate the new Comms options for Wings? I've yet to see any method other than pressing 4 to zoom into it.

Using Opentrack 2.2 and the freetrack 2.0 protocol, the buttons work as before. I have 1234 mapped to a hat switch on my joystick and when pressed, EDTracker is overridden and focus is locked to the chosen panel. Obviously same is true for pressing 123 and 4 on the keyboard :)
 
Using Opentrack 2.2 and the freetrack 2.0 protocol, the buttons work as before. I have 1234 mapped to a hat switch on my joystick and when pressed, EDTracker is overridden and focus is locked to the chosen panel. Obviously same is true for pressing 123 and 4 on the keyboard :)

Yeah, .. what he said. ;)
 
Further to my magnetometer problems, I thought it had worked after using the edtracker PCB and Hammond enclosure, calibrated the mag and it worked! played ED for a few hours and it was glorious. however the next night I came to use it and its right back to where it used to be, going bonkers.

However, I suddenly realised yesterday that the place I hang by headset when not in use IS A MAGNET! I couldn't believe how stupid i was! So i think most of the day powered on and sat on top of a magnet isn't doing it any good. leaving it off the magnet for a day, powered off and on hasn't made any noticeable difference yet but must do at some point as before, unless heating it up whilst soldering somehow "reset" it.

recalibrated the magnetometer and it still doesn't show the red globe, see here: http://i.imgur.com/ZDWSHym.png

I have recorded a short 50 second video showing the problem: http://youtu.be/thmUu13mDNs

anyone have any ideas?
 
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The lack of any red dots does not look good to me... :( it almost certainly explains the over-correction. Can you try a complete "restore factory defaults" and start again from scratch just to make sure? Certainly hanging it on a magnet is not a great idea, but having said that, once it's off it it should be fine... drop us an email and I'll pass this on to Rob. He's down with flu at the moment so it might be a few days before he responds, bless him.
 
ps: Not sure if you've done this, but a couple of small cable ties to bind the headphone cable and usb cable togethor along their lengths works very well. ie: So the cable becomes a single cable rather than two. You can sort of see it here - http://s13.postimg.org/fomwgh31z/DSC03695.jpg

I used electrical tape. No bits of plastic sticking out, which is why you didn't spot it. :)

Any of you guys mounted the EDTracker on something other than headphones? ie: If you didn't have a headset (& mic) and just wanted a means to put the thing on your head, what would you use? And no, you can't just duct tape it to the top of our head!

I've heard of grown men borrowing their wife's hair bands. As my head is double the size of my wife's, it wasn't really practical in my case! :)
 
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