configure right and left mouse buttons with GGG EI trackball

[squirrellydw]

EDIT.....How do I configure my GGG EI trackball so I can have two separate buttons for the right and left mouse buttons?

[spacies]

I'm confused.

What are you trying to do?

[um3k]

Sounds like he wants to send L & R mouse button clicks with the buttons wired up to his IPAC.   But I don't think you can do this - you need to wire the mouse buttons up to your Opti-Pac, Hagstrom ME4, or similar optical encoder (handles the trackball and/or spinners) to emulate the mouse clicks.

[Joystick Jerk]

In the off chance you have a usb/ps2 happ trackball, you can hook 3 buttons up to it directly and they'll be recognized as mouse buttons.

If you don't have that, and still need to get mouse button functionality, you can enable this natively in windows with the MouseKeys functionality. You can enable this in the control panel under the Accessibility Options entry. Once you turn on MouseKeys,  Numpad 5 is Click, NumPad + Sign is Double-Click, and NumPad - Sign is Right Click.

Find out more here:  http://www.fixmyxp.com/content/view/141/40/

[squirrellydw]

thanks, I will try the mouse keys.  Any drawback to using these?

[moriartyds]

Just curious, but what are you trying to do?  What are you using for your mouse in this scenario?

[squirrellydw]

using my trackball and I don't want to have to hook up a mouse to use windows or make changes.

[ahofle]

So why not hook the buttons up to the trackball as JoystickJerk mentioned?

[squirrellydw]

eveything is already wired up.  One of those after thoughts

[Joystick Jerk]

I still don't see how that prevents you from rewiring something. It's like a 10 minute fix at most.

[moriartyds]

Not only that, but it frees up your IPAC inputs for other buttons/functions.

[squirrellydw]

I'm back.....I have the GGG electric ice trackball USB, how do I wire two buttons to it to use as mouse buttons?  I am at work right now so I can't look at it.  Are there inputs on it somewhere?

thanks

[fjl]

Pretty simple.

ON the bottom of your ICe Trackball, you will find a circuit board with various pins. Right below the Circuit chip it says, M-Buttons and has four pins. Ground L M R.

Simply get a jumper and connect accordingly. Ground to L = Left mouse button. Ground to M = Middle mouse button, etc.

[squirrellydw]

what do you mean by a jumper, as in what you use on a hard drive or mother board to set configurations?

[RandyT]

The "G" pin is common to all of the switches and the L, M and R pins are LEFT , MIDDLE and RIGHT  mouse buttons respectively.  You would wire the buttons just like you would with any other interface.

RandyT

[squirrellydw]

thanks, I got it to work, not that hard after all.

[Donkey_Kong]

Wanting to hook 3 buttons to my electric ice trackball right now...How do you hook up to those tiny pins? I have like 18 gauge wire and it seems super thick compared to the pins, and saudering those seems difficult to say the least.



Squirrly, what gauge wire were you using?



Randy, isn't there a wire harness available for this?

[Donkey_Kong]

Check the pic I attached. That wiring harness that hooks the TT2 to the opti-wiz would be perfect for wiring buttons to your Electric Ice or Turbo Twist 2, minus the part that plugs into the TT2.

Is there anything like this available? If not, what method do you recommend to a guy with really fat clumsy fingers? 

Please don't say soldering onto those little pins!? 

[squirrellydw]

I used a CD ROM audio cable and bought an extra pin to to put in since the CD audio cable had 3 but one was in the wrong place.  I bought it at a electronics store.  You could probably use a 5 volt adapter, the small kind that you use to connect fans if it has four pins

[Donkey_Kong]

Appreciate that squirrellydw. Hopefully this is easy to find as good electronics stores are scarce in these parts. We do have a Radio Shack...think I would have any luck there? Best Buy?

Would really be nice if this was included with, or available as an add on for the opti-wiz? or if it were an easy point to solder to.
 

[squirrellydw]

I really doubt that they will have them.  I have a few extra pins I could mail you but it wouldn't be till next week.  I got them for free

[fjl]

The little pins you can buy from a computer store. They should sell the pin connector with wires. They are exaclty like the jumpers on a computer motherboard but with wires attached. If you have a an old PC you no longer plan to use or is broken, you can take some from them.

[squirrellydw]

This is what I used and added an extra pin.  Even though it has 3 wires they don't match up to the pins, thats why I added the extra one.

[Donkey_Kong]

Well I ended up soldering to the pins on the interface. It was a tight squeeze and ugly in appearance, but it is working sweet.

[squirrellydw]

so you don't need the oins then

[Donkey_Kong]

so you don't need the oins then

Looks like I'm good to go squirrelly. Really appreciate the help though. I would really like to see Randy have an easy connection solution for that opti-wiz interface that he uses for the IE and TT2. After all the amazing products GGG comes out with (and the price tag that goes with them)...I'm mean honestly, I feel like I got lucky being able to solder onto those tiny pins.

 

 

[RandyT]

We don't include the mouse button cable harness due to the expense involved in making them.  They have a lot of parts and are labor intensive.  The header on the boards is about as standard as possible with .100" pin spacing.  Connectors for this can be found as scrap from many different sources, such as LED and switch wiring from old computer cases, internal PC CD audio cables, etc.  One enterprising individual even raided the wireless phone battery recycle bin at his local Radio Shack (with permission, of course.) 

The pins are not intended to be soldered to, however, so any difficulty encountered in that process would be expected.

For those without the access to scrap parts, I've added a complete mouse button harness to the store.  It comes fully assembled and has all the wire and connectors to connect 3 mouse buttons to the TurboTwist2 , EI Trackball and Opti-Wiz interface boards.

RandyT

[fjl]

$9.95 sounds kind of expensive for that type of cable. Like I had mentioned in the past, a local computer shop should have such cables in stock. A Fry's would definitely have them.

[RandyT]

$9.95 sounds kind of expensive for that type of cable. Like I had mentioned in the past, a local computer shop should have such cables in stock. A Fry's would definitely have them.

As I mentioned in the description, it's plug and play ready for three buttons with wiring (20 - 22ga) fully shielded .187" female connectors and daisy chained ground wires.  All of our harnesses are hand made for the specific purpose for which they are designed.  So they aren't really the same thing that you'll find at your local electronics store.

But I fully encourage folks to use the most cost effective way to complete their projects, including going the scrap route stated above.  These harnesses are being offered for those whose time won't allow for searching up the proper connectors.

RandyT

[Donkey_Kong]

Awesome job adding those Randy! I would have easily spent the $9.95 had it been available back then. I think it is a fair price and great for folks that don't have a Fry's or the like nearby. Heck I may still order one and get rid of my ugly solder job on the pins.

I'll be ordering a second TT2 & mini wheel for my cab project for racing games. I also would like a pair of the Nova Gem CDR's and a dozen Nova Gem Pushbuttons & an LED Wiz. When I can afford all of that I will definately add the mouse button wire harness. Might be awhile...