Late night goof?

[namedos]

After spending several hours wiring up my first control panel I was down to my Happ trackball and Slikstik Tornado spinner.  So, since I had never done this before I went to Ultimarc's website and downloaded the following directions:

Connecting a Happ trackball
The Happ trackball is supplied with a connecting cable. Cut off the large plug mounted on one end. Strip a short length of each wire and connect as shown in the table below. Set the jumper to "A/LO".
 
Black (2 wires)   Red (2 wires)   Purple   Blue   Yellow   Green      
GND   +5V   X1   X2   Y1   Y2   

There are two +5V and GND wires. These can both be connected to the same +5V or GND connection.
The Happ trackballs have a green ground wire. This is to prevent static buildup and can be connected to any convenient ground point.
Set the USB/Serial jumper to the correct position for the interface and cable you are using.
Plug USB cable into the "Port 1" connector on the board and connect to the PC USB port. The PC will auto-detect the device and install a standard mouse driver. (Actually it installs two mouse devices)


So without any further thought I chopped off the end of the trackball connector.  Unfortunately I didn't find all of the wires that they had listed above.    I only have four wires: red, black, white and green.  It was about this time that my stomach dropped through the floor.  My Happ trackball had a USB connector on the end of it and I'm very concerned that I have really screwed this up.
 

But the story does not end there.  Hoping to recover from this setback I then moved to installing my Tornado spinner so out come the wire cutters, and clip..... Dang it, it only has four wires as well. 

Wait, it continues to get better...So I spend the next 30 minutes wiring these very small wires (must be like 80 gauge wire) into my Optipac and I finally get it wrapped up.  So my next step is to hook my Optipac and I-pac up to my computer.  I've got a keyboard cable to hook up the I-pac but I have no serial cable to hook up the Optipac.  So, I spend the next 45 minutes tearing the house apart and looking in the garbage for a serial to USB cable.  Arrrrggghhhh there is none to be found.  So, I send a message off to Andy at Ultimarc to see if he is willing to trade a keyboard cable for a USB connector.

Now I get up this morning and realize that I may have screwed this up big time.  Please tell me that I haven

[RayB]

Umm, I hope you realize that you're gonna get some ribbing in this thread, so be prepared.

All I have to say is.... It's a USB trackball. you don't even need the Opti-pac! In fact it might not work with an optipac.

I'd say re-wire the USB connector back on there and use it as USB.

[GGKoul]

How didn't you know that the Trackball had a USB connection?  You should be able to reattach the wires to use the usb connection.

You should be able to get a PS/2->USB cable locally.

[krick]

If you have a USB trackball and USB spinner, there is no easy way to hook them up to an Opti-PAC without replacing the optical boards.

The easiest solution is to repair the USB cables and use them as USB devices and sell the Opti-PAC.


The hard solution is to replace the HAPP trackball optic boards with "standard" optic boards...

http://www.happcontrols.com/trackballs/a052101000.htm

[namedos]

RayB - Yes, I realize that I'm posting to everyone that I'm a complete idiot (At least at 11:00 at night).  Fortunately I did save the remainder of the USB cables so I figured that I could solder them together today.

I checked Happ's site and they do have a USB interface kit but it is over $40.

GGKoul - I did notice that it had a USB connector.  In fact, I had already used it with my computer prior to mounting it in my control panel.  I was obviously operating under the misperception that I had to use an Optipac to control my trackball and spinner.  (See note above about being an idiot).

Krick - thanks for all of the information.  I think I will try to hook up the original USB connectors and go from there.  If all works well I will have an Optipac on the board to sell in a couple of days.