Hooking up Ultimarc Trackball

[StLouisRod]

Ok, I've hooked up many a Happs trackball to a PC, so I know what I'm doing, but I just purchased my first Ultimarc 2 1/4" trackball, which is (i believe) a Suzo or Wico trackball.

I also purchased an Oscar USB mouse circuit board for use in attaching the trackball to my PC.  Unfortunately, I can't get any response from the Trackball.

Andy at Ultimarc said i'd need to hook up 2.2kohm resistors to both the X and Y leads, but no matter which wire I attach the resistor to, I still get nothing.

I know the Oscar converter and my software work fine, as I have hooked up a standard Happs tball to it using a molex connector with no problems.

The Ultimarc tball has 4 wires per optic (red, black, green, and yellow).  Obviously red is power, and black is ground, while the other two are the optic leads.  But for grins, I tried reversing this.  Still no response from the t-ball.


Any ideas?  How can I test the trackball to make sure it isn't "dead"?

Thanks in advance,
Rod.

[StLouisRod]

Ok, with a little help from the some circuit diagrams on the internet and Andy at Ultimarc, I finally figured it out  .

Here's how I got it to work...

You hook up all the wires just like you'd think (red to red, black to black, signal to signal. HOWEVER, you also put one 2.2 kohm resistor on each signal wire, then connect the other end of each resistor to the red (5volt) wire. This in effect boosts the low voltage coming from the tball signal wires back up to 5 volts that the mouse circuit board wants to see.

Now the $28.00 mouse works great!

This tball is a fine alternative to buying the Happs 2 1/4" for $90.00  .  However, the ball itself doesn't spin nearly as freely as a Happs, probably due to it's plastic shafts.  So be forewarned.

Rod.

[GamingGreg]

The resistors you are talking about are "pull-up" resistors, as they pull the voltage back up to 5 volts.  These are needed because the trackball is "active low" and the mouse board is "active high".  I have the same setup and 1K resistors worked fine for me.

Also the trackball will loosen up some after it's been "broken in".  Mine spins pretty good know. I doubt it will ever spin as freely as the Happs but it's good enough for me.

[StLouisRod]

Thanks for the info, Greg.  It's nice to know the trackball will eventually loosen up a bit  .