Group buy - Ed tracker

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I've just put together my first ED tracker and have been very impressed. If you don't know what an ed tracker is, its an alternative to track IR. The video below shows what it looks like in elite.



Combined with opentrack, it works in any game that supports track IR, including ARMA 3.

While its pretty cool, its a community project rather than a product, which means if you want one you have to either source the parts and build it yourself, or pay the ed tracker guys to make it. I thought I might look at doing a group buy type thing, as most of the places do free shipping if you order over a certain amount. If you want to build it yourself, then it'll just be saving on shipping, or if you want one but don't fancy making it, I'll put it together before sending it on.

I've not done an exact breakdown, but I believe I can bring it in around £25 per device plus the cost of sending it out. Let me know below if this would be of interest to you and I'll do the figures and get an exact amount. Don't worry, no commitment at this stage, its just to get an idea of interest

[Sparks]

Was looking at the Ed tracker with interest. I use a DIY point source + freetrack (used to use facetracknoir) + pointtracker at the moment and it works really well for tiny amounts of money if you get the PS3 eye camera and an IR filter (ie. a piece of exposed camera film taped over the lens), but there are things that I think the ed tracker might do better and I'd like to try it - for example, the point source does look like you've grown antlers from one side of your head (and the ed tracker is far tidier) and the camera does want the overhead light turned off to allow for consistent tracking.

£25 for an assembled ed tracker? Sounds good to me. You'd have to ship to Ireland though...

Oh, and if there's anyone out there who's still not using head tracking in Arma, seriously, try it. You'll never, ever go back, especially if you fly in the game. It's just a whole other level. All that stuff you see Dslyecsi say about it? All true. It's just that you don't have to spend 150 quid on a trackIR setup, you can get a fully built delan clip and a tweaked PS3 Eye camera for £35 and the software's all free (and if you DIY it, you can build the whole rig for about £15 or even less depending on what bits you have to hand). TrackIR is basically the exact same hardware (actually, their camera's not as good as the PS3 eye - gotta love the way that today's second-hand dirt-cheap hardware is stuff that five years ago was top-of-the-line, need-a-second-mortgage-to-buy-it kit, and ten years ago was a research project in a lab somewhere at best) and proprietary software. It works, no doubt about that, but so does the open source alternative. And 15-35 quid is a lot easier to spend than 150+....

[fer]

Can the ED tracker component on the headset be modified to be powered from batteries? I have a TrackIR 5 and TrackClip Pro that have served me faithfully for many years, but I would like do use a wireless headset and am prevent from doing so because of the power cable.

[Black Mamba]

Fer, you should be able to power your TrackClip from a portable unit if you want to, since it has its own USB cable. I've seen a number of people use USB chargers (such as this), then sticking them to their headset. You could even go as far as cutting a bit into the TrackClip's power supply cable to make it look clean (I personally wouldn't, just to have the option to plug it back into the PC if needed. Or then have a USB extension cord that you could use if the battery dies in the middle of a session).

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ED Trackers got to be connected I'm afraid, it uses the USB for both power and data.

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Afraid there doesn't seem to be enough interest that a group buy would really save anyone any money, if you want one, the developer offers assembled ones for £40 on their website.

[Sparks]