Opti-Wiz problem

[pconn5]

Hey,

I just ordered an optiwiz to hook up my betson trackball after my mouse hack broke trying to mount the trackball. I got everything hooked up and went smoothly but when I plugged it in the x-axis won't work for some reason. The Y-axis works fine (but was backwards, flipped the wires around and it works perfect). The x-axis responds but no matter how I move the trackball it just slowly moves sporadically to the left. If I don't touch it the cursor doesn't move at all. If I move it right, it moves a little left, if I move it left, a little to the left, until it reaches the edge of the screen. I thought maybe one of the solder joints was bad but doing a continuity test it seemed fine.

I also changed around the boards and tried flipping the wires for the x-direction but neither of these things changed anything. Both boards are functional.

So any ideas on what the problem could be here?

Thanks,

Patrick

[RandyT]

It sounds like a trackball or wiring problem.  I know folks are going to get tired of me stating this, but that Opti-Wiz was actually attached to a trackball,  to make sure it was functional,  before it was put into a box.

I see that it was a solder version.  Instead of checking for just continuity, also check for errant solder connections to neighboring pads (shorts).  Also make sure that your wires aren't fraying by the board and doing the same.

Also, you can try swapping the X and Y.  If the problem changes to the other axis, it's something in the trackball. 

You could also post some photos, or send them to me, to see if there's an obvious problem you might be missing.

RandyT

[pconn5]

Thanks for the quick reply!

I went back to switch my wiring up and noticed that two of my wires were mixed up in my molex connector. 

After I got that sorted out, everything worked like a charm! Played some golden tee for about 20 minutes or so.

I also just want to state that I did not in any way think this was a problem with the optiwiz itself. I knew I screwed something up and couldn't find where it was after looking for almost an hour. Searching here I couldn't find anything so I thought I would see if anyone else had this problem and what had happened.

The two wires that were swapped by the way were the X1 and ground wire for the power. Stupid me always putting connectors together backwards! Did the same thing when I was soldering together my Sega Genesis parallel port adapter 

Anyway, thanks for the help!

[RandyT]

Glad to hear that you found your wiring issue and were able to get it sorted.  Most of all, happy to hear that it still works!

RandyT