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Author Topic: Trackball help  (Read 1257 times)

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oozing machismo

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Trackball help
« on: November 19, 2015, 08:52:47 pm »
I have a 3" happy trackball that connects via usb.  Ever since I bought it two years ago, there has always been a bad backspin problem.  Now I am getting ready to upgrade my cabinet so I want this fixed.  I took the trackball to a local arcade guy to see if he could fix it.  He cleaned it and tried new boards, but it did not fix the backspin problem.   He told me that if I buy an Optipac and hook the USB trackball up to that, I would no longer have the backspin issue.  He also told me that buying a new trackball from a different manufacturer is pointless because they all use the same boards.  Has anyone ever heard of that? Can I hook up the USB trackball to an Optipac?   If so, would that fix my problem?  Would I be better off buying a new trackball?  Any help is appreciated.
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n3wt0n

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Re: Trackball help
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2015, 06:50:05 am »
This seems to be a long standing issue with the USB version of the HAPP trackball.  Here are some older posts that you may want to read through to get some possible fixes. There are more quite a few more if you search it out but these seemed to cover the issue. Good luck.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=89819.0
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=87272.0
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=34025.0
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RandyT

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Re: Trackball help
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2015, 01:07:32 pm »
If it was doing since you got it, it's probably not worn out optos (which was an issue with earlier HAPP trackballs, prior to the newer design)  Sounds like the controller being used in that unit is the culprit, so fixing it would require two new normal opto PCBs, a replacement wire harness and an external controller like one of our Opti-Wiz boards, or other optical interfaces which are designed to not exhibit this behavior.  The HAPP USB unit uses an "off the shelf" chip meant for PS/2 and USB mice, and the designers probably weren't concerned about this occurrence, because it would never happen when used with a mouse.

Unfortunately, such a conversion will cost over $50 to perform, so you'll have to weigh that into your decision to move forward with the fix. 

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