TrackIR death throes

J

jimjones

SOH-CM-2023
I believe my TrackIR camera may be terminally ill.


It will not work correctly as it did a month ago. After centering with the F12 key any head movement is extreemly
exagerated. Very slight head movement allows looking right, but left head movement does not provide left views but
eventually turns the view upside down. Reloaded software gave similar results. The colored LED lights seem to work OK
as does the four red Infrared lights near the center of the TrackIR face.


Its not a huge loss for me as I used it infrequently, but did enjoy the occasional experience. My biggest complaint was the stiff neck
and eye discomfort trying to see the monitor.


The TrackIR was purchased in 2008 and worked well until now. I will not be getting another.
 
I have had 3 TrackIR's (1xTIR4, 2xTIR5) die over the years and they all went the same way. They would go blind in the left eye as in you could look up, down, to the right and any combination of those but as soon as you looked to the left the view would freeze up. Looking back to the centre or right would resume tracking. Admittedly I did put literally thousands of hours of use into them so they served well until they died. I raised the issue with Natural Point on the first one but their techs denied there was a problem and couldn't suggest a fix.

My own theory is that due to the large amount of heat generated by the unit the IR sensors for the left side fail and I suspect that one side of the circuit board gets hotter than the other which compounds the problem. I opened up one of my dead ones once and the tracks on the board, the board itself and the suspect component all showed signs of excessive heat issues with burn marks and discoloration in the general area of the left hand sensor.

I gave up buying TIR units and tried the TrackHat for a while but that died too so I went back to the old trusty hat switch on the joystick. I enjoyed the concept of head tracking while they worked but the problems became too great unfortunately.
 
I also have an old TrackIR 3 that is still working fine since 2006! I have it replaced with a Tobii which made things much simpler as I do not need to wear a hat with the reflectors.

I remember having such behavior once. It turned out to be the reflectors that were fouled. I found that out by using the TIR software option to see what the camera is seeing. This way you can check if the camera is seeing the three reflector dots correctly. You can also see if there are any other light sources or reflections that confuse the camera.
 
In the TrackIR software, did you use the mode where it shows you what reflective objects it is seeing? I find that very helpful in troubleshooting these glitches. It shows me something on my clothes or in the background that can make it jump around, or a missing signal if one of the LEDs is out. Also, of course, make sure you haven't accidently switched to a different profile that is more sensitive than you like. You might also try switching to the passive reflectors and see if that makes any difference.

I don't think I've ever heard of the camera failing on one of these things, but I guess it could happen.

August

(PS I see Dimus already gave you most of my advice while I was typing!)
 
Mine, TrackIR 5 Pro, just went tits up on Oct. 21. I believe I purchased it when MSFS was launched.

The (3) pronged device that is clipped to my cheap $ 4.00 headphones emits those (3) little red lights, but the "little square TV " that looks from the top of my monitor back towards my face no longer has the (2) greenish/yellow lights working.

I uninstalled Natural Points software, fiddled with all of the cables, switched USB ports and so on. I reinstalled the software.

I saw where Amazon had some for around $150.00.

The Tobii Eye Tracker is just too much money for now. I just spent $190.00 for a 4TB NVMe drive.

I'm back to flight simming the old school way before all of these so called 6DOF devices were invented.

- Don

Hmmmmm @ Dimus & K5083
I found that out by using the TIR software option to see what the camera is seeing
Click to expand...
&
did you use the mode where it shows you what reflective objects it is seeing?
Click to expand...
 
If the cost isn't prohibitive, I can definitely +1 the Tobii Eye Tracker as a better replacement for TrackIR. No headware needed, really great tracking, and just works when I fly MSFS. I have a great VR headset, but use the Tobii more because it's such a great combo with a big monitor and lets me more easily jump in and out of simming.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top