Imperial 3" trackballs

[Chris]

Right now, eBay is flooded with Imperial 3" trackballs.  Does anyone own one of these?  Are they much better than a PC trackball?

I have a 2-1/8" PC trackball that came from a keyboard with an integrated trackball.  It seems to work fine in games like Missile Command and Centipede, but for games that actually roll the ball, such as Marble Madness, Golden Tee II and World Class Bowling, I'm less happy with it.  Would one of these Imperial trackballs be a big enough improvement to be worth spending the money and ripping apart my CP, or should I try replacing my existing light ball with a billiard ball?

--Chris

[rampy]

example link? I stopped following trackball searches after I bought my refurb 3" betson imperial from betson for 29.99

for me it was a matter of wanting PC golden Tee action, and ease of mounting (my second choice would have been a crayola kidsball trackball which woula required some figurin' to mount on a wood control panel...)  with a 7 dollar mounting plate from happs and some carriage bolts...

it's tough to say... I held out for a while, but am glad I picked one up... the wife has started to get sucked into centipede =P (which is a good and bad thing =P  )

*shrug*

rampy

anyhow let me know who the seller is... cuz there was a previous flood.. just wondering if same person...

EDIT that's the same guy as last time... he just has a ton of em... the ps/2 kind.  Animke from here bought a few from him and then offered for sale here in buy/sell/trade so ... er... yeah...  *shrug* does that help? I mean I don't konw if the fell off a truck or if it was a warehouse raid (so to speak - in the arcade  collector terminlogy) or what... but he had like 20 of em.. sold em and must have gotten more...  (the gamersden guy - not animeke )

[rampy]

to answer the original query.. I guess it would depend on how much you'd play bowling/golden tee/crystal castles to justify it...  it's moderately better than a PC trackball.  If you're an authentic nut, or like to whiiiiizzzz the ball... probably best off with "real" arcade trackballl...

rampy

[Chris]

They're from gamers-den.

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=gamers-den&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=25

--Chris

[RandyT]

I bought a couple of these from Ebay for Unreal Tournament 2003.  I'm a joystick/trackball player.

The first thing I noticed was that they don't have a real smooth or continuous spin.  This is improving as it gets broken in though.  

The second thing I found was that the encoders inside had a pretty coarse resolution.  Only 24 slots.  This is probably fine for those games where you have to break your arm spinning them fast, but for fine control, it was the pits.  Remember, you can always decrease sensitivity through software, but increasing it that way will never be right.  

So, I made my own encoder wheels for it with about 4 times the number of apertures.  The good news is that with this modification, the ball now has very fine and fast control, with no backtracking problems.  It seems that the circuitry inside for the PS/2 output is plenty fast enough to catch all the transitions you can throw at it.

The white ball has a good, heavy feel to it and the rollers are heavy polished steel connected to some quality bearings.  A real quality assembly that should put up with a lot of abuse.

My final rating on these is mixed.  

Plusses:

The price was good.
The fact that you can plug them into a normal mouse port is a big benefit.  
Fast electronics.

Minuses:

The encoders need to be upgraded for fine control.
The roll could be smoother.


RandyT

[Lilwolf]

btw, I've heard people say the same thing about how smooth a trackball was.

is yours new?  If not, thats your problem.  You might be able to replace the rollers (10 bucks for all of them from videoconnect or so) but thats if they are dented in.

If its new.  take it apart and put it back together.  Someone a while ago said they had problems and this fixed it.

[RandyT]

btw, I've heard people say the same thing about how smooth a trackball was.

is yours new?  If not, thats your problem.  You might be able to replace the rollers (10 bucks for all of them from videoconnect or so) but thats if they are dented in.

If its new.  take it apart and put it back together.  Someone a while ago said they had problems and this fixed it.

The units were supposed to be new.  I've had them apart and examined all the components.  Everything looked shiny and uniform.  Since I have two of them, I compared the action between them.  Same thing.  Maybe some poor QC or the ones that are being sold on Ebay are factory seconds.  Can't say for sure.

The other thing I was wondering was if there might be tiny flat spots on the ball itself.  Being that the ball is so large, they would be difficult to see, but not to feel against the rollers.

It's an enigma, I guess

RandyT

[Chris]

The second thing I found was that the encoders inside had a pretty coarse resolution.  Only 24 slots.  This is probably fine for those games where you have to break your arm spinning them fast, but for fine control, it was the pits.  Remember, you can always decrease sensitivity through software, but increasing it that way will never be right.  

So, I made my own encoder wheels for it with about 4 times the number of apertures.  The good news is that with this modification, the ball now has very fine and fast control, with no backtracking problems.  It seems that the circuitry inside for the PS/2 output is plenty fast enough to catch all the transitions you can throw at it.

This is good to know.  The PC trackball I was using would have major backspin problems when used for a game where it had to be spun (most notably Marble Madness); I had to reduce it to 2 (yes, two!) apertures to eliminate backspin.  Thus, Centipede and Missile Command are very coarse now...

What did you do to upgrade the encoders?  Print out replacements on transparencies, or did you get new ones from Happ or Oscar or someone?

--Chris

[RandyT]

I used laser printed transparencies.  You will also need to get a couple of very small washers to use as spacers.

I haven't tried it with marble maddness or any of the arm-busters, but I gave it all I could in UT2003 and in the windows desktop screen and the pointer just stuck to the edge like glue.  This is a good indicator, but as always, YMMV.

RandyT

[Chris]

I haven't tried it with marble maddness or any of the arm-busters...

Ah, but Marble Madness is THE reason to own a trackball...  In fact, it may have been the main reason I built a cab to start with...

Thanks for the helpful info!

--Chris

[rampy]

btw, new trackballs and trackball bearings need to be broken in... It also wouldn't hurt (depending on who you talk to ... but generally)

To degrease and relube the bearings... even if the unit is new.  Since you have 2 it wouldn't hurt to try it on one, eh? and compare? *shrug*

YMMV

rampy

[RandyT]

btw, new trackballs and trackball bearings need to be broken in... It also wouldn't hurt (depending on who you talk to ... but generally)

To degrease and relube the bearings... even if the unit is new.  Since you have 2 it wouldn't hurt to try it on one, eh? and compare? *shrug*

YMMV

rampy

Yeah, like I said earlier, the one I use regularly is starting to smooth out a little.  But the lube bit is a good idea!  I completely forgot about the old trick of blasting the heavy grease out of the bearing with good ol' WD40 to loosen them up.  I think I try that one.

RandyT

[rampy]

btw, new trackballs and trackball bearings need to be broken in... It also wouldn't hurt (depending on who you talk to ... but generally)

To degrease and relube the bearings... even if the unit is new.  Since you have 2 it wouldn't hurt to try it on one, eh? and compare? *shrug*

YMMV

rampy

Yeah, like I said earlier, the one I use regularly is starting to smooth out a little.  But the lube bit is a good idea!  I completely forgot about the old trick of blasting the heavy grease out of the bearing with good ol' WD40 to loosen them up.  I think I try that one.

RandyT

Just a small point of contention... general consensus is that wd40 is *bad* as  a bearing lube... WD 40 stands for water displacement... forumula 40... it's good for breaking rust n' stuff but evaporates too quickly as a lube...

Proper lube is debatable.... but using a degreaser to get rid of the thicker probably dried up stock grease in the bearings probably will help a lot... and using 3 in 1 oil or the lube of your choice is a good idea... *Shrug*

just sharing what little knowledge i ammassed from usenet and here - I'm not a lubrication zealot or anything =P

rampy

[Ted_Striker]

I bought an imperial 3" from Imperial (before they merged with Betson).  I have had no issues with my unit.  It spins great.  I play alot of Capcom Bowling and Milipede and have noticed no "fine control" issues.  I do have the red translucent ball.  From what I've read the white balls are heavier.  So maybe it is the heavy ball that is responsible for some of your problems.  

Personally I have had great experience with my trackball and can recommend them to anyone.  

I have played on the happs ball as well and it does feel a bit "sturdyer" (did I just invent a word?  *slap from my 5th grade english teacher:)...  Although for ease of connection and price I love my imperial.

[RandyT]

I bought an imperial 3" from Imperial (before they merged with Betson).  I have had no issues with my unit.  It spins great.  I play alot of Capcom Bowling and Milipede and have noticed no "fine control" issues.  I do have the red translucent ball.  From what I've read the white balls are heavier.  So maybe it is the heavy ball that is responsible for some of your problems.  

To each his own.  I just reported my findings after taking it apart and modifying it to suit my needs.  To me, having to spin the ball 4 times to get the cursor across a high-res screen in Windows was too much.  

When I say "fine control", I'm referring to how far the cursor (player icon, etc) moves in relation to the amount the ball moves.  A good way to test this is to place a finger on the ball at one edge and move the ball until your finger stops it at the other side.  Watch how far your character moves in relation to this.  If it takes too many rotations to move your character from one side of the screen to the other, your only option is to increase the "sensitivity" of the control.  What this really does is multiply the number of actual transitions of the encoder by a given factor.  i.e. if the sensitivity is 200%, then you move 2 pixels for every 1 transition of the encoder wheel. This means you really only have half of the granularity that you normally would, but your character will move twice as fast.

Better encoder wheels give you both speed and accuracy.  It's important to note that reducing "sensitivity" is a far better situation.  You end up having to move the ball further (speed) but your on-screen persona doesn't skip pixels.

You probably won't notice any of these things on bowling games or even millipede where fast spins are the norm, but a game like Missile Command or Arkanoid (I know, it's a spinner game, but the same things still apply) might start to show some of these problems.

As for the ball, I think this may be true.  A heavier ball will make better contact and track better, but you would probably feel every tiny annomally in the surface.  A lighter ball would probably have a tendency to ride over any rough spots and give a smoother spin, but not have the same momentum.

RandyT

[eightbit]

RandyT is there any chance that you could post the files that you used to print the encoder wheels? I received 2 imperial trackballs today and I see exactly what your talking about. I need more fine control.

[RandyT]

RandyT is there any chance that you could post the files that you used to print the encoder wheels? I received 2 imperial trackballs today and I see exactly what your talking about. I need more fine control.

PM me your email address and I'll send it to you.  It's kinda large.

RandyT