Happ Trackball -> Mini-Pac 8^(

[Lomar]

Through much help of these forums and many more hours (and dollars) than I anticipated - my Arcade is almost finished.

However, I cannot get my Happ trackball to work.  I'm using the Mini-Pac with the Happ harness and I've plugged the harness into the trackball with the two molex type connectors.  I've plugged them in every way I can find.

Trackball does nothing.  I changed the .ini files for the mouse=yes stuff .... nada.  Zippo.  Zero.  Zilch.

I cannot find directions ANYWHERE on how to connect this damn trackball.  I've had a post on Ultimarc's site for days with no luck, so I'm guessing either I'm so dumb that people don't want to embarass me with the answer or nobody knows how to do this!

Please ... PLEASE ... WHAT am I missing?!  Am I supposed to be cutting/splicing wires?  Is the trackball broken?


Thank you in advance!


P.S. My wiring is ... terrible    Are the wires from a Cat5 ethernet cable the same gauge as the standard Mini-Pac wires?  Meaning, can I use those to splice and extend my wiring to make it look good?

[ahofle]

Cat5 cables should be fine (I haven't had any problems at least). 

I assume you have the trackball grounded and all wires going to the mini-pac?  Did you double check against this diagram? http://www.ultimarc.com/mp_inst.html 

Can you move the cursor in windows with the trackball?  Or is it just not working in MAME?

[Lomar]

I get nothing from the trackball in windows or otherwise.

I do have the trackball grounded and it is wired according to the Ultimarc diagram.  I even switched them ... a few times.

[ahofle]

Does the minipac even show up as a USB device in Windows?  You may want to try emailing Andy from ultimarc if not.

[Lomar]

Oh yea...all my joysticks and buttons work.

[skippy]

   It's is a usb minipac an not the ps/2 one right?  you are using the trackball pins not the spinner ones?  Do you have another mouse connected  to the pc also?  Try removing the minipac from the device manager and then plug it back in.  I've had my computer just see it as a keyboard so the trackball wouldn't work.  Also email Andy he is usually pretty quick with responses, much faster then the boards.

[Lomar]

The Mini-Pac is USB and I 'm using the X and Y from the Mini-Pac.

Whyyyyyyyy do I think it is related to power?  I have the fat power connector coming from the Trackball but I have nowhere to plug it in.

Is there any place to plug in power or am I supposed to snip and crimp some wires?

[BobA]

A Happ trackball has one six pin molex connector that has connections for the  x and y axis and +5V and gnd. 

"I have the fat power connector coming from the Trackball but I have nowhere to plug it in."   

If you did not connect to this connector where did you connect?   Are you connected directly to the optical boards? If so do you have +5V and Gnd connected to both boards  as well?

BobA

[Lomar]

The Mini-Pac has two 4 pin molex connectors.

The Trackball has 2 4 pin molex connectors connected to 2 different ends of the trackball that string out to the connector you refer to.

I remove the original Happ connectors entirely and plug in the matching two from the Mini-Pac.

That's all I can see to plug in.   

[BobA]

That sounds like all the connections that you need. If you have disgarded the original harness and plugged in directly you should only have the frame ground left and it does not have to be connected for the unit to trackball to work.

Perhaps the Mini Pac is defective.

BobA