How to rewire a trackball to rotate it 90 degrees - fixed

[diverdown]

 

I have just plugged in my CP and found I have installed my trackball 90 degrees out. 

I have wired up 4 player everything with LEDs to all buttons and a spinner so I CANT remove the trackball and spin it around.


What do I have to do to make this right in Windows and mame.

It is a betson trackball from GGG.

I believe if i swap the sensor boards around inside and then swap the yellow green wires over this may work. 


Or is there a simpler way of swapping the wires around that go to the optiwiz?



Now to try to get the trackball off the mounting plate


Any ideas?

[DaOld Man]

I think you can just swap the wires around. Just dont touch the reds and blacks.
I have a betson and it's not marked as to which way is "up", so I dont think it really matters, however on a Happ it is marked, (arrow pointing to monitor).
I would try the wire swap before re-designing my CP.

[csa3d]

Funny you should ask.. i just went through this same thing

Seems the Green/Yellow wires control one mouse axis, and the Blue/Brown control the other.  After talking with Randy, it appears very important to have a main roller positioned so it's facing the bottom of your monitor once mounted (for fast spin games).  My process involved rotation my installation by 180 degree to place a roller at the top, then swapping the circuit board positions inside the trackball (they just pop out with slight pressure sideways).  Then after checking my axes.. I had to snip the blue/brown wires and cross them to reverse the polarity.

It was pretty easy, and took about 10 minutes of figuring out "which was was up".  Check out my link, feel free to ask if you have problems.  It's pretty easy, just annoying.

-csa

[Ed_McCarron]

Does the optiwiz present as a mouse to windows?  I swore there was something in accessibility for re-orienting your mouse...

[csa3d]

Does the optiwiz present as a mouse to windows?  I swore there was something in accessibility for re-orienting your mouse...

Even if you do find a software fix.. if you do not have a roller at the top of the trackball, it spins very differently when trying to get it to spin up very quickly.  Give it a try and if that doesn't bother you, this fix might be for you as well.

[u_rebelscum]

Does the optiwiz present as a mouse to windows?  I swore there was something in accessibility for re-orienting your mouse...

In addition to what csa3d said, I doubt the rotation with driver will help in mame in the current mame.  Mame now uses RawInput, and it's very likely that the driver does the rotation after RawInput (but it might be before).

Of course, you can remap the axes inside mame.  Tab, game (general), player 1 (probably), trackball X analog, enter, spin trackball, repeat for Y axis.  But won't help outside mame, such as in the FE.

Again, as csa3d said, it's not hard to swap boards and the wires on one of the boards (or you could move just the 4 wires).

[diverdown]

FIXED
Did exactly that - ground off the nylok nuts holding the trackball to the plate (couldn't just undo them as the bolts are not actually attached to the mounting plate and the whole bolt and nut turned - grr) GOD I LOVE DREMILS

removed the base of the trackball

swapped the sensors over so x became y.

admired the simplicity and beauty of the gutz of a trackball

put it all back together

cut the yellow and green wires and swapped them around

plugged it back into PC

recut the yellow and green wires and joined them back the way they were

cut the brown and blue wires and swapped them

plugged it back in

VOILA

Even if you do find a software fix.. if you do not have a roller at the top of the trackball, it spins very differently when trying to get it to spin up very quickly.  Give it a try and if that doesn't bother you, this fix might be for you as well.

csa3d

 I cant remember where the rollers are now but I assume thay are in the  wrong place (like left and base instead of right and top)  Does this actually affect game play and if so how?



And now to work out this Led Wiz gizmo - that looks confusing....

[csa3d]

csa3d

 I cant remember where the rollers are now but I assume thay are in the  wrong place (like left and base instead of right and top)  Does this actually affect game play and if so how?



And now to work out this Led Wiz gizmo - that looks confusing....

If you have your trackball back together, give it a good, hard test spin in the up direction.  Note the spin.  Now try it again for the down position.  Note the spin.  You should find that one of those directions has a longer spin time.  The one that does, is the position of the roller.  Since the trackball is more or less free floating in there, the long roller gives it a more sturdy surface area to contact for fast spin.

Gameplay?  I don't know.  I  am trying to NOT hook up my machine until I'm done (I could end up taking as long as Missle Command to finish up )  I did however, hook up the control panel to a pc to verify the axis.  Based on the spin test from above, I'll assume golf and bowling games will play lame if the horizontal roller is not towards the monitor.

The ledwiz wasn't hard to install (finished that the other night as well).  The hardest part for me was trying to remember which 1 of the 4 wires that come with the RGB drive where what.  I also initially plugged the common wire bundle into the ground instead of the +5v slot.  Once you have that figured out, it all sorta works.

-csa

[diverdown]

ta I gave it a spin. I assume it will need some time to get the grease displaced in the bearings. It spins ok in up and right, but sluggish in down and left - ahh well I will probably really use it as a mouse in windows/jukebox etcx anhowq.

Thanks all for your help