Anyone know anything about this trackball?

[marcoval]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3219163773&category=3945

Good/Bad for MAME hacking? Anyone played with these before?

[BobA]

From the poor schematic it looks like it puts out the same signals as those from the arcade type trackball.  Maybe you can get the seller to email a schematic that is more readable.  My preference would be a imperial or wico because then you know spare parts are available.

BobA

[rampy]

i've heard both that these are and aren't good for arcade hacking...

One of the mods here has bought one of these before (I forget if it was pj or saint or ?)

*shrug* I'd rather have (do have) a "real" arcade trackball and would wait for a good deal to come up... and snatch it.

you can get a new wico 2 1/4" for 25 bucks... you can get a refurb'ed 3" imperial betson for 29.99...  so 20 - 25 bucks for a used (?)  military/CAD trackball (this isn't mame or jamma - the listing is B.S.) doesn't seem worth it...

*shrug*

rampy

[OSCAR]

i've heard both that these are and aren't good for arcade hacking...

One of the mods here has bought one of these before (I forget if it was pj or saint or ?)

*shrug* I'd rather have (do have) a "real" arcade trackball and would wait for a good deal to come up... and snatch it.

you can get a new wico 2 1/4" for 25 bucks... you can get a refurb'ed 3" imperial betson for 29.99...  so 20 - 25 bucks for a used (?)  military/CAD trackball (this isn't mame or jamma - the listing is B.S.) doesn't seem worth it...

*shrug*

rampy

Yes, someone here did buy some of those.  IIRC, that thread was posted in the Buy/Sell forum.  Also, I believe that person wasn't exactly thrilled with the trackball's performance, but I could be wrong.  See if you can did up that old thread somewhere, all the info is in there.

[mcleanjoel]

They don't roll very freely - there is a vinyl washer (the white ring you see in the picture) that holds the ball in place causing friction. I think it was designed for engineers building stuff so it is not optimized for gaming.

You can probably loosen up the feel by backing out the screws a little and putting some loctite on them.

The good things are:
It can fit in a crowded cp since the box is very small compared to a Wico or Happ 2 1/4"
It does come with a patch cable that you can just strip and connect to an optipac.

I agree that the Wico for $25 would be a better choice unless you can only fit this one due to it's size.

[dhansen]

When I was putting together my first cab I bought a couple of these...bad news.  They were out of a ultrasound machine and they were in poor shape.  They would barely spin even after I got all the rust out of them.  I would not recomend then.

[marcoval]

Yeah it doesn't seem particularly like a good trackball. More curious than anything.