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Hacking a Betson 3" Trackball

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Zeitgeist:

Peal,
I agree that doing it youself is what makes it fun.
I, like probably most of us here, spend more time working on projects than I do playing the games.
Before you go cutting up that trackball lead, here's my old tutorial hosted here at BYOAC.
http://www.arcadecontrols.com/files/Miscellaneous/Mouse_to_Trackball_Instructions.pdf
It works without having to tap into your PC PSU.
The pinouts have been tested on & do work with wico 2.25" trackballs as well as the 3" imperial (Betson) that you have.
The hack is pretty close to what Oscar sells.
In fact I think he may have recently posted a quick how-to write up in reponse to another post.
Supprisingly enough, the molex connector that you will need to interface with most trackballs (including the one you have) is indeed still available at radioshack, however some of the kids working there will get that deer-in-the-headlight look if you ask about anything other than cell phones ::)
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Good luck.
Z


OSCAR:

I also just posted some info in this thread that may help:

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=15673

Zeitgeist:

Oscar,
I hate this experssion & never use it but in this case it fits: You da man!
Your work was my inspiration.
I studied the pics of your interface as well as your tutorial for a while before I came up with my hack to interface through the original molex.
Thanks!
Z

OSCAR:


--- Quote from: Zeitgeist on February 04, 2004, 09:59:28 pm ---Oscar,
I hate this experssion & never use it but in this case it fits: You da man!
Your work was my inspiration.
I studied the pics of your interface as well as your tutorial for a while before I came up with my hack to interface through the original molex.
Thanks!
Z

--- End quote ---


Thanks, I appreciate it!  Hopefully this time I did a better job explaining how I do it.  After hacking 1000+ mice, I do them in my sleep.  And what may seem perfectly obvious to me could certainly be confusing to someone doing it for the first time.

In the example linked above, a 6-circuit Molex plug could be substituted for the (2) 4-circuit Molex connectors.  In that case, there would be (1) +5V, (1) GND, and (4) signal wires from the trackball side of the harness going to the mouse pcb.  An important note here is that when combining the (2) +5V wires to the Happ optic boards, you have to make sure your connections to the mouse pcb are sufficient to power both optic boards.  What I do is splice both phototransistor middle-pin connections together to feed the +5V pin in the trackball plug, and that works just fine.  An alternate location to power both trackball optic boards is to solder a wire to the backside of the mouse pcb were the PC +5V connection cable is soldered to the board.




RandyT:


--- Quote from: rampy on February 04, 2004, 02:40:36 pm ---I may be wrong, as I don't have an intimate knowledge of the ps/2 protocols involved.... but I don't think the data is the same all the way around...

--- End quote ---

You aren't wrong.  There's much more to the process than just hooking up wires to the PS/2 port.

Unless you feel like coding a microcontroller to do the translation of pulses => PS/2 protocol then look at using a mouse hack.  Someone already did the work for you there ;).

RandyT

BTW, as long as we are talking about Betson trackballs, I expect to have a modification kit available for these very soon.  It will significantly boost the accuracy and cursor speed of these units.  FWIW.

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