U-Trak wiring question

[megamoze]

Hello all!  New to the forums and currently building a MAME cabinet.  Got the wood all cut and slowly getting all my controls together for the CP.

I just got my U-trak from Ultimarc and have connected it via the color-coded wires to the Mini-Pac.  Right now the X-axis is working great but the Y-axis is not working at all.

I've attached a pic of the wiring setup.  Is there anything I'm missing?  I thought I'd ask here before contacting Andy at Ultimarc.

Thanks!

[PL1]

Welcome aboard, megamoze.   

This is a problem with the U-Trak wire colors that I thought Andy was going to fix several years ago.   

Look closer at the wire colors in your photo.

Top is 1. red, 2. blue, 3. black, 4. purple.

Bottom is 1. red, 2. blue, 3. purple, 4. not used.  (X-axis ground is jumpered to the Y-axis ground inside the U-Trak, so pin 4 is not used.)

For some reason, Andy used a different wire order for the spinner axis than he did for the trackball axes and has U-Trak wires that don't use the same color wires as the mini-pac harness for connectors that go together.   

The mini-pac harness uses green/yellow and orange/brown for trackball axes and blue/purple for the spinner axis.

The U-Trak has blue/purple wires for one axis.

Connect the mini-pac trackball connector with orange/brown wires to your U-Trak blue/purple connector, matching red (5v) to red so you don't short 5v to ground.   




Scott

[megamoze]

Thanks, Scott!  So before I go to rewiring, here's pics of the miniPac and the Trackball harnesses (note that I have switched the purple and black wires per Andy's instructions on the 3 wire plug).

Are you suggesting that I need to switch the red, brown, orange, black wires on the male plug to a female plug, and then connect that to 3-wire plug on the U-trak?

Is the schematic correct?  Would it be best to follow those colors?

Thanks so much!

[megamoze]

Ok, I'm looking at the schematic and the harness is definitely wired incorrectly.  Ugh.  Not a huge deal but kind of a pain. 

[PL1]

With the purple wire switched to pin 3, it should be working now, right?

Looks like you could also pull the "gender bender" pin header off the top connector in the first photo and connect it to the bottom connector in the second photo.

Either way should work as long as you match red (5v) to red and black (gnd) to black since the other two lines are optical (quadrature) data lines.

The only thing that would mess you up is if you tried to use both the spinner and trackball X-axis connectors at the same time with the trackball since both output to the X-axis -- move the trackball left/right, cursor moves left/right, move the trackball down/up and the cursor moves left/right.   


Scott

[megamoze]

I checked the schematic based on your comments.   What I ended up having to do is switch the male plug, which was attached to the U-trak Y-axis wires, to the Spinner plug.  Basically they were on backwards.

Now it all works perfectly.  Your input was invaluable!  Thanks!!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[PL1]

Glad to assist.   


Scott