Golden Tee 99 Trackball Problems

[bb5099]

Hello friends. I am not an electrical engineer by any means and I really don't know what I'm talking about, so please keep that in mind. I bought a 99 Golden Tee game and got it fixed up and working from a guy that fixes arcades. It was working perfectly for like a month, but the trackball just stopped working. At first, it wouldn't roll down, and any downward movement would make it go up. For example, I could roll the ball down to go from 1 player to 2 player, but if i tried to roll it up to make it 1 player, it would act like it was going down and move to 3 player. Now, it isn't working at all, except when I first turn it on it seems to work for about 5 seconds, and then it doesn't roll at all.

Any advice?

[PL1]

Hello friends. I am not an electrical engineer by any means and I really don't know what I'm talking about, so please keep that in mind. I bought a 99 Golden Tee game and got it fixed up and working from a guy that fixes arcades. It was working perfectly for like a month, but the trackball just stopped working. At first, it wouldn't roll down, and any downward movement would make it go up. For example, I could roll the ball down to go from 1 player to 2 player, but if i tried to roll it up to make it 1 player, it would act like it was going down and move to 3 player. Now, it isn't working at all, except when I first turn it on it seems to work for about 5 seconds, and then it doesn't roll at all.

Any advice?

Sounds pretty odd.   

Physical checks:
- Do the rollers/bearings turn easily?
- Is each encoder wheel secured to the roller?
- Is there any dust or lint blocking the Red Board's optical circuits? (U-shaped black part that the encoder wheel passes thru)



Trackball wiring:

Make sure the "frame ground" heavy green wires with a ring terminal is connected to ground.
- The trackball generates a static charge while rolling.
- If you don't dissipate the charge to ground, it can build up enough to damage the optical circuit boards.

Red wires = 5v

Black wires = ground.

Yellow and Green wires are data lines for one axis.

Blue and Purple wires are data lines for the other axis.

When you *slowly* turn the roller+encoder wheel for one axis clockwise, the spokes will block and un-block the IR LED and photo transistor (commonly called "optos"), producing a "1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 . . ." quadrature waveform like this on the data lines.

If you turn the axis counter-clockwise, it will produce a "4 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 . . ." waveform.



If both data lines for an axis alternate between logic high and low, the optical circuit for that axis is OK.
- Both data lines have to be working to register a turn of more than one step.
- No quadrature waveform transitions = no turn.
- Only one data line working = wobble back and forth one step.

Set your multimeter to voltage.

If you don't have a nice set of multimeter probes, you can use straight-pins pushed into the housing from the wire side.




Scott

[bb5099]

The green wires leading from the trackball are not attached to anything. I thought that was weird when I first looked inside, but that was the way that the guy who fixed it (he had a shop with 50+ arcade machines so I assumed he knew what he was doing) left it and it was working like that so I left it as is. I know grounding means attached to metal, but I'm not really sure where to attach it. Will a bolt that is holding the frame of the machine work, or is there a place in the machine that it is specifically supposed to be attached to? And if the grounding was the issue and it messed up the circuits, should i buy a new trackball or is there any way to reverse static build up problems?

[PL1]

The green wires leading from the trackball are not attached to anything.

Connect it where there is a path to ground on the power supply.

For example, you could connect it to the metal frame of the coin door if the coin door frame has a grounding strap that leads to ground on the power supply.

And if the grounding was the issue and it messed up the circuits, should i buy a new trackball or is there any way to reverse static build up problems?

If the static charge built up enough to cause an electrostatic discharge (ESD), it could have caused physical damage to components or PCBs similar to a small lightning strike.

Worst case scenario is that the ESD damaged the optical Red Boards and/or possibly the game PCB.

Let's take this one step at a time.

Step 1:  Connect the trackball ground wire to ground.

Step 2:  Check that the rollers/bearings are turning freely.
- You mentioned being able to move an axis in one direction, but not the other.
- That symptom usually points to a physical problem, not an electronic one.

Step 3: Check that the encoder wheels are properly secured to the rollers.

Step 4: Check for dust/lint in the optos.

Step 5: Check that each data lilne alternates between logic high and low when you *slowly* turn that axis.
- If you turn it too fast, your multi-meter won't be able to keep up.
- If a data line is stuck high or low, replace the Red Bioard.


Scott

[Game_Dr]

You have a lot of good advice here but I ran across a problem I did not see mentioned. If your track ball checks out the nest step is into the wiring harness. I worked on one that someone had stapled the wire harness to the inside of the game to "support" it. Of course sharp edges do what they do to insulation and eventually there was a connection between the two "phases" so that the CPU could not see the switching.

Make sure you have a good track ball signal at the track ball.
Then do the same test at the connectors at the board to eliminate any damaged wire.
If you get good signals to the board then you know where the problem is.

If you have the manual and schematics for the game then 95% of your work is done you just trace the signal and what ever component or trace the signal does not go through is your culprit.

Be aware when replacing components for static and pad lifting leading to trace destruction.