Broken Happ Trackball

[AtomSmasher]

I bought a 3'' happ trackball new a little over a year ago, along with a ps2/usb mouse wiring harness for it.  It doesn't get a lot of use, but has worked perfectly until recently.  Out of the blue the X-axis on the trackball has stopped working and I have no idea what happened.  My cabinet sits in a mostly unused room and I'm the only one that plays on it and since I live by myself I know no one else could of gotten to it. 

Anyways, the vertical axis is no longer working.  I've taken the trackball apart and everything appears to be normal, no noticable cut wire or short in the wiring.  I also tried it in both usb and ps/2 mode with the same result.  The horizontal axis still works fine, as do the mouse buttons.

Anyone have any ideas of what I should try?  Do these happen to have a warranty longer then 1 year?

[SirPeale]

Swap the connector from the non-working side to the working side.  Does the problem switch?  If so, there's a problem with the PCB.  You may be able to fix it by touching up the solder joints.

[AtomSmasher]

Swap the connector from the non-working side to the working side.  Does the problem switch?  If so, there's a problem with the PCB.  You may be able to fix it by touching up the solder joints.

How exactly do I swap the connector?  Seems like the wires go in a pretty specific place and theres really no way to swap them.  I attached a pic of the PCB and the problem is the one on the right, the other one works fine.  It basically still looks good as new, I can't see any solder points that might need to be touched up.

[SirPeale]

Hm...that wasn't what I was expecting to see.

[AtomSmasher]

Hm...that wasn't what I was expecting to see.

What were you expecting to see?  Maybe you didn't realize that I said I got the mouse wiring harness for it so it doesn't require a seperate PCB.  The cable goes directly from the trackball to the ps/2 or usb input on the computer.

Anyone else have any idea of what I can do?  I know X-Arcade has lifetime warranties on their products, but after some searching I can't find anything on Happs warranties.  It wouldn't surprise me if it was only 1 year or even 90 days, but I'm hoping thats not the case.

edit* typo

[NickG]

  Check for a fault in the emitter/detector on the right side PCB.  The diode side and the phototransistor side of the should be the same as the one on the left.  The led is a likely failure point.  The +V supplied to it and ground should also be the sameas the other axis'.  If it has a part number on it it should be easy to find a replacement part from mouser.com or somewhere....and maybe even a pinout to make things easier. 
A dirty way to test it is to effectively swap it to the other axis by desoldering both pairs and soldering it onto the left side.  (make sure  you know which side is the LED and which side is the phototransistor.) 
  If you are sure the optic pair is good, however, then follow through with the IC and the rest of the components.   
  If you can't just get replacement PCB's from Happ, and can't find suitable optic pairs or whatever IC is on there, then you could just strip the boards and hack some cheap mouse's optics onto them.

[AtomSmasher]

  Check for a fault in the emitter/detector on the right side PCB.  The diode side and the phototransistor side of the should be the same as the one on the left.  The led is a likely failure point.  The +V supplied to it and ground should also be the sameas the other axis'.  If it has a part number on it it should be easy to find a replacement part from mouser.com or somewhere....and maybe even a pinout to make things easier. 
A dirty way to test it is to effectively swap it to the other axis by desoldering both pairs and soldering it onto the left side.  (make sure  you know which side is the LED and which side is the phototransistor.) 
  If you are sure the optic pair is good, however, then follow through with the IC and the rest of the components.   
  If you can't just get replacement PCB's from Happ, and can't find suitable optic pairs or whatever IC is on there, then you could just strip the boards and hack some cheap mouse's optics onto them.

Thanks for the info, I'll take a look and see what I can find.  If all else fails, I do have the original non-mouse boards I could use and just get an opti-wiz to interface it with the computer.  I'd prefer not have to buy extra hardware, but I may not have a choice.

[steveh]

stupid question.  when you move the trackball... both of the encoder wheels move. and none of the spokes are broken off right?

[divemaster127]

If your encoder wheels are fine you have a bad optic board I would also try it on another computer just to be sure
dm

[AtomSmasher]

If your encoder wheels are fine you have a bad optic board I would also try it on another computer just to be sure
dm

The encoder wheels are fine, I even tried switching the places of the optic boards just to make sure.  After looking at the board, theres nothing physically wrong with it that I can see, but I guess something odd just happened it.  I haven't tried it on another computer yet, but I will later tonight.

[NickG]

...just remembered a trick (saw it on a hackaday.com post) to see if the IR LED is lighting.  The IR light wavelength is out of human eyesight range (I think), but maybe you can view it on some kinds of video cameras.  I think you need to use the the nighttime recording setting.  If you can see one then you should be able to see the other one.   

[_) (V) (-)]

I test mine with the viewfinder display on my digital camera.
You sometimes have to get the angle as claose to staright on as you can but it'll work.

Also old video cameras viewfinders do the same thing.

This is a quick and cheep way to test your remote controls too.

[AtomSmasher]

Well I tried it on another computer and it did the same thing.  Unfortunately I don't have easy access to a digital camcorder so I don't have a way to test the IR led.  Even if I could tell if the led was working or broken, I don't think it would matter since I couldn't do anything about it anyways.

I guess I'll start looking into other options, I'll probably get an opti-pac since its so cheap and I've worked with it before.

[_) (V) (-)]

If the LED is bad on the trackball, how will an opti-pac cure this?
Doesn't it need to get the IR signal from the trackball?

[AtomSmasher]

If the LED is bad on the trackball, how will an opti-pac cure this?
Doesn't it need to get the IR signal from the trackball?

I have the original arcade interface that came with the trackball, which means I would be completely replacing the broken part.

[Havok]

Have you tried cleaning the optics? Use a q-tip and alcohol. Perhaps it's just some dust in there. Also, Radio Shack used to sell an ir detector that is a little card that when put in the way of an ir beam, lites red. I can't find it on their site, but perhaps locally they have it. It looks like this:

IR Detector

[Derf00]

To test if the LED is working: With the power on and everything hooked up, get a very basic volt/ohm meter and set it to the 20VDC setting. I'm assuming the Diod is seeing 5-12V DC depending on its requirements. You should get a reading from the working LED at the points where it is soldered onto the PCB. If the non-working LED does not get a reading then there is no power reaching the LED and your problem is not the LED, but whatever part sends power to it.

Keep testing further up the circuit (until you find where you have current) You should eventually find a spot where before a resistor or capacitor you get power, then after you don't.

If you do get power, then you may want to do a continuity test on the LED. This can also be used instead of a voltage check to find which component is bad (ie a resistor or capacitor is burned out) but you do need to know how to read resistors and capacitors.

Make sure the power is off on the device for this or you could ruin the volt/ohm meter. Make sure the meter is set to the OHM setting. Could probably get away with the lowest setting for now. if you get '0' when testing accross the +/- of the LED then the LED is bad. find a replacement and solder away. Everything else will give you some sort of number.

Sorry if you know some of this. I just want to be thourough and since I don't know your level of expertise in this area I'd rather leave less to chance.