Trackball wiring help.

[blue]

I started building my CP about 2 years ago, and had to abandon the project to due time and other constraints.

At the time i was thinking of using a mouse hack as the interface for my trackball.
Today i will be going with the Opti-Wiz

[BobA]

My Betson trackball had the following wiring

Molex Connector Wiring
 

(blk)        Gnd         1              4              Vdir         (green)

(red)        +5V         2              5              Hclk        (blue)

(yellow)  Vclk        3              6              Hdir        (brn)

[Kremmit]

You don't need to put the plug back on.  Here are the colors for a Betson/Imperial trackball.

Red hooks up to +5v
Black hooks up to Ground
Green and Yellow are axis 1*
Blue and Brown are axis 2*

The other two, smaller-guage green leads with the loop at the end are earth ground, and can either be ignored, or wired to a metal piece in your cab if you like.

Happ Trackballs are the same, except that the Brown wire is Purple instead.

*I can never remember which pair is X and which is Y.  Play around with those and you'll get 'em right.

[blue]

Thanks for all the info guys.

I think that i will be wiring it up with the molex - will just make everything cleaner.
Do you know if this is worth getting??
Trackball Cable for Opti-Wiz

[blue]

Got my answer with the image here:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=53797.0

But the still not sure about the Z-Axis. This is for a spinner right?

[Kremmit]

The trackball will not use the Z-axis unless you intentionally wire to the z-axis pins on the Opti-Wiz.  I would reccomend not doing this, as the Z-axis is read differently by Windows than the other two axes.  If the sensetivity for both axes on your trackball don't match (and they won't if you use the Z axis), then your cursor will not go where you try to move it.

The z-axis is best for a spinner, steering wheel, optical rotary joy, or other single-axis optical device.

[blue]

OK, i just got home and am looking at my trackball.

There are 8 wires.

2 red
2 black
1 Brown
1 Blue
1 Green
1 Yellow

And all the infor i've found and have only have 6 wires. So which is which?

Are the extra red/black just the another +/- for the ground and 5V??
That being the case is the correct molex wiring...

blk - grn
blk - red
red - blu
ylw - brn

Or do i just double up on the red and black??

[blue]

Does anyone know that answer to this?

And to you know if there are different types of 6-pin molex??
I'm going out at lunch and just wanted to confrim.

thanks.

[u_rebelscum]

OK, i just got home and am looking at my trackball.

There are 8 wires.

2 red
2 black
...

Or do i just double up on the red and black??

Double up the red and black.  There are two boards, one for each axis.  If you follow the wires into the TB, each board gets a red and a black for power and ground.

[Kremmit]

Yup, double-up the ground and +5v.

There are different kinds of 6-pin molex, in that there are different sizes.  You want .093 size terminals, not .062, which is the other size my local electronics store carries.  If you're going to Radio Shack, they have them in the slide-out bins in back, and are labeled as "Power Connectors", with molex written in really tiny type.  The sales idiots had no idea what I was talking about when I said Molex.  The "Female" connector is the one that the trackball plugs into, the "Male" connector is the one that comes pre-wired on the trackball.  This can be confusing, because the shape of the plugs is backwards to what you would expect from male and female.  That's because the pins are what they use to determine the male/female-ness of the connector, not the shape of the plastic housing.