Trackball Problems

[Kaytrim]

My Dad's arcade that I made for him never worked well with the trackball.  See my sig for build thread.  The trackball will move you in different directions even with no movement on the ball.  Sometimes it would just keep you in the lower left corner no matter what you tried.  I am looking at these 60-in-1 boards and others that are offered.  Would they possibly fix the issue or would I be better off trying to troubleshoot the issue being the trackball or the PC that I used?.  As you  can see from the build thread the cab is patterned after a Centipede cab so the trackball should work.

One problem is that the cab is an hour's drive one way and I am currently unemployed. Though I will be there this weekend for the holiday.  The specs for the cab are in this post.  I would like to take a list of things to try and or find out for you guys to help me fix this nagging issue.  I'll also have better description of the symptoms as well because I want to document them better.

[paigeoliver]

Sounds like you have a flaky optical board on the trackball or you possibly wired it wrong.

[Kaytrim]

Ok back from my Dad's and I came home with the boards from the trackball and the Opti-Wiz which is V1.0. I have sent an email to RandyT about this and would hope to hear back this week.  This being the holiday week I am not going to expect an immediate response even though I know that Randy is real good about customer service. 

The bigger board is the Opti-Wiz and the two smaller boards are from the Bestons Imperial trackball.  I traced the wires from the trackball to the Opti-Wiz and they were correct.  My guess at this point is I may have done something wrong with the Opti-wiz.  If you look at the board you will see 6 pairs of solder pads between the chip and the wires.  I am thinking I need to bridge some of these.

[RandyT]

The bigger board is the Opti-Wiz and the two smaller boards are from the Bestons Imperial trackball.  I traced the wires from the trackball to the Opti-Wiz and they were correct.  My guess at this point is I may have done something wrong with the Opti-wiz.  If you look at the board you will see 6 pairs of solder pads between the chip and the wires.  I am thinking I need to bridge some of these.

You have the old version of the Opti-Wiz, which was dual purpose.  It was also used as an optics carrier on the original TurboTwist spinner.  The pads were for assigning the optics to a particular axis, so they play no part when used for external devices.

Your wiring looks correct, so I would suspect flaky optics on one or more of the trackball boards.  The best way to troubleshoot them is connect both boards to the same wire pairs from the encoder, one at a time, and note whether there is an issue with one of them.  If both are acting strange on one wire pair, then then check the wiring for that pair.  If not the wiring, it could be a problem with the OptiWiz.  If the same trackball PCB acts strangely on both wire pairs, it's the problem. 

Are you using the original, low-res encoder wheels?

RandyT

[Kaytrim]

Randy,

Thanks for the response.  I don't remember if the encoder wheels are the original ones or if I got new ones from you.  They do look like the ones from your site.  I have a pair of optic boards that are just the optics, not any chips other than surface mount resistors on the solder side of the board.  These were made by some forum members on here a while ago.  I tried these in the trackball and the response was even worse than with the original boards.   I have another Opti-Wiz just like this one.  I'll give it a try as well if the optic boards seem to not be the problem.  Do you think I need new encoder wheels too?  I don't have the trackball with me or I would post a pic of the encoders as well.

TTFN,
Kaytrim

[CheffoJeffo]

I don't have anything to add beyond what RandyT has -- I just wanted to shout out to Kaytrim (who has made some BEEYOOTIFUL control sticks) -- welcome back and hope all is well.

 

[RandyT]

Randy,

Thanks for the response.  I don't remember if the encoder wheels are the original ones or if I got new ones from you.  They do look like the ones from your site.  I have a pair of optic boards that are just the optics, not any chips other than surface mount resistors on the solder side of the board.  These were made by some forum members on here a while ago.  I tried these in the trackball and the response was even worse than with the original boards.   I have another Opti-Wiz just like this one.  I'll give it a try as well if the optic boards seem to not be the problem.  Do you think I need new encoder wheels too?  I don't have the trackball with me or I would post a pic of the encoders as well.

Hmmm...that's a strange one.  I'm not sure why the replacement boards would act differently.  Perhaps if you better clarify what the actual issue is, it would be useful in figuring out your situation.  Perhaps a software/PC issue?  The trackball didn't come from us, so I'm wondering if it was an ebay purchase, and if so, the optics on the boards may be worn out.  Many IR LEDs have a much shorter useful life than standard LEDs.

There should be no compatibility issues with the Opti-Wiz.  When the Electric ICE trackball was first introduced, it was based on the Betson until we ran into supply issues.  So, many an Opti-Wiz of that early generation were shipped with the very same trackball units.  The best bet is to try the other Opti-Wiz you have and see what happens.  If you see the same problems, I would start to suspect corrosion in the contacts of the trackball connectors (intermittent contact) or some other wiring issue.

RandyT

[Kaytrim]

I just realized that the second Oti-Wiz I have is a USB version.  Randy, I am not sure if it would work in the cab or not.  I know that the PS2 version was to replace the mouse that the computer originally had.  I just don't remember if it had a USB port or not.  The cab is running on DOS not Windows so I don't know if a USB port would work or not even if it had one.  Would it be doable to swap the connectors on the Opti Wiz boards or will that damage the connectors?  I am going to try and get up to my Dad's in the next week or so to take this information and put it to the test.

Thanks so far for the help.

Kaytrim

[RandyT]

Have you tried the entire setup on a different computer with Windows?  When it comes to DOS, there are a lot of variables when using mouse devices.  Your issues may be 100% related to drivers and PC hardware.