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Trackball Purchase question

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MaxAsh:

I'll have to add up all the costs and see how it comes out. If the price is close, going for a restored bigger one might be fun. If it's cheaper by a decent margin, perhaps the sparkfun style. Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback!

DaOld Man:

I used that sparkfun trackball on my "A Little Rage" build. It is still holding up pretty good.
How I mounted it is in the build thread (link in my signature below.)

Edit by moderator:  Trackball mounting in the DaOld Man's thread begins here.

MaxAsh:


--- Quote from: DaOld Man on August 11, 2014, 09:44:38 pm ---I used that sparkfun trackball on my "A Little Rage" build. It is still holding up pretty good.
How I mounted it is in the build thread (link in my signature below.)

--- End quote ---

Nice build! Question on the trackball mounting. The bottom pics all make sense, but I was curious about the top part. You used 1/2" MDF right? Looks like you routed out the top a bit, not sure how deep, 1/8"? You mentioned a modified plate, did that get dropped into the recessed/routed portion to make it flush with the CP I assume? I didn't see a pic of it, but some of the latter shots of the kids playing it seem to show the shadow of a plate, so I'm guessing that's what was done.

In my case, I have a midway cab with 3/4" thick CP + lexan covering, all adding up to about 7/8" to work through when mounting. I read in the link provided earlier in this thread that the top half of the sparkfun trackball can be removed and it's about 1/2" thick. I was thinking about doing what another member did and routing out the bottom of the CP and then mounting through the sparkfun's built-in mounting holes up into the CP from underneath. If I did that, I would probably need to get the router to about 1/2" deep under the CP and cut the hole in the top for just the trackball portion. I think this would eliminate the need for a mounting plate. Is there a guide on routing out things like this in a CP? I have very little experience with routing so far.

MaxAsh:

Trackball arrived today. I ended up picking it up from Karlsson Electronics ($24 shipped priority mail). I decided to hook it up with an active PS/2 to USB converter ($0.99 eBay) and it works beautifully. Now the tricky part - mounting it. I saw DaOld Man's method, looks nice. Tough for me to pull off though, so I think I'll go with the previous method mentioned. Basically I'll take the top off the PS/2 trackball (just pops off easily) and mount it from under the CP. I'll have to use a router to carve out a 4"x4" section to the necessary depth. Then use a simple washer-spacing method and screw up from the bottom into the CP. This will completely hide the mounting, and the only thing visible from the top will be the ball itself. Should be interesting to try this out... using a neighbors router. Definitely going to do some practice runs on scrap first. I'll post pics if/when I succeed.

Aceisback:

I have one of these trackballs and have been happy with it. Lights are a bit bright though, but there are ways to deal with that.

 I am sure there are better ones out there, but this one has been working great for me the last 2 years.

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