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O how I mourn thee, sweet trackball (with pics!)
pragma:
Well, I tried it. I had a Logitech trackman marble (not the FX but the old-style one with a small ball) and I needed to take the optical ball mount off the circuit board if I wanted it to fit.
De-soldering was not as easy as just cutting the spider-like pins and connecting them with 22-gauge wire. When I soldered the wire to both ends of the freshly cut pin, and rebooted my computer, unfortunately now the trackball does nothing. Nothing at all. Nada. The buttons still work.
I've reviewed my work time and time again, checking for contacts or shorts, but I've found none. I guess this just isn't supposed to be done this way.
Super high-res shots at http://gallery.vandewolfshaar.com/Butchered_trackball/
For those of you who would like to see the poor, butchered trackball guts:
RubbrDug:
Doesn't look too bad, even when looking at the first picture my first idea was, that you soldered the pcb to a dead mouse ;D.
This is just guessing, but if you overheated nothing you should check the polarity of the black cables.
RubbrDug
brandon:
--- Quote from: RubbrDug on March 17, 2003, 11:19:17 pm ---Doesn't look too bad, even when looking at the first picture my first idea was, that you soldered the pcb to a dead mouse ;D.
This is just guessing, but if you overheated nothing you should check the polarity of the black cables.
RubbrDug
--- End quote ---
Yeah I would agree about the heat thing.. certain things are very sensitive to heat so that could be it.. One other thing you could try is using an ohm meter to see if anything is shorted together and also whether of not those wires are broken.. its not likely I guess, but you never know.. I've banged my head against the wall lots of time only to finally find a broken wire
pragma:
Hi Brandon, RubbrDug, all,
Here's what I did with the black wires and why they appear reversed. The black ball mount originally sat on top of the circuit board right over the hole that looks like a keyhole. The double wires on either side of the centre four-wire cluster were coming from two LED-like things (probably actually are LEDs to illuminate the underside of the ball). Unfortunately, the wires were leading down, away from the mount, which is not where I wanted them. Instead, I oriented them 180 degrees, with the wires now pointing upwards (see pic).
So, when connecting them back to the circuit board, I reversed the wires... i.e., the left mount pin leading to the corresponding right pin on the cb, the right mount pin leading to the corresponding left pin on the cb, and same for the other side of course.
I imagine I can get an ohm-meter at Radio Shack. Can anyone explain how I would use one to test out these circuits? Also, is that the same as "checking the polarity"? If not, can someone teach me what tool to do that with and how to use it too? :-)
Thanks
Paul
Beley:
If i understand what you are saying about the black wires, i think you wired them backwards.
you didnt need to reverse the wires since you only bent the led legs to face upwards they still should be connected the the same pin on the board.
Also from looking at the super high resolution pics i can tell that the left (looking at the ball mount from above) led is indeed wired wrong(assuming the "+" on the board represents positive), I cant see the other led well enaugh to tell for shure if it is also wired wrong
If you look closly at the led you can see that one side if flattened, this usally indicats that it is the negative terminal (ie leg/wire), also if you look clsly at the metal bits inside the led you can see that one of the 2 pieces is bigger then the other, the big piece is also usally connected to the negative terminal.
By carfully following the wires comming from the led it looks like the one attatched to the negative side of the led is going to the pin on the board with the "+" mark.
So if you switch both sets of black wires around (assuming you wired other led wrong also) it sould work.
Also, the leds apear to be wired in series, which means if you make a mistake on one of the leds(wired backwars of bad connection) the other led will also not work (just like xmas lights)