great... I killed my trackball! (Betson/Imperial 3")

[brandon]

ok... so as the title states I just killed my trackball.. or at least half of it.  I sucessfully completed my first mouse hack tonight and everything was going great.  I decided to get adventurous and connect my Arkanoid spinner.  So I removed the 4 pin molex from one of the TBs optic boards and connected it to the spinner.  TADA!  it worked and I proceeded to play Arkanoid until nearly 3am.  Well at some point during my hot swapping of optic boards I fried one on my Betson.  I dunno if I zapped the 74HC14N chip on there or the optics..   so now what?  I have 4 or 5 old, rusted out 2.25 Atari Trackballs laying around but the optic boards arent the same.  Any advice?

[Encryptor]

Go to the thread below and see if fixumdude has any more of his optic boards.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=48855.0

Encryptor

[brandon]

hmm.. well the thing is I have plenty of optic boards I could take out of my Atari TBs.. but they arent the same.  The Betson optic board is a different size (I think)  and it has a 74HC14N chip as well.

[DeLuSioNal29]

hmm.. well the thing is I have plenty of optic boards I could take out of my Atari TBs.. but they arent the same.  The Betson optic board is a different size (I think)  and it has a 74HC14N chip as well.

The optic replacement boards he sells are only $8 or $9 each.  A small price to pay for a $99 trackball!

Buy the part.  Be fortunate that it was only a $10 mistake and not a $100 one!

~ DeLuSioNaL

[brandon]

Thanks guys   Apparently the chip on the Betson just cleans of the signal into a nice square wave.. but like you said the mouse already has a chip for that.  so I'll just trim down one of my Atari optic boards and make it fit.

They fit Atari style trackballs unmodified and will fit Wico and Imperial trackballs if you sand or cut them to the white lines on the board.

[brandon]

well.. here's an update.. I trimmed an Atari optic board to fit and it worked... BUT it absolutely will not work with the Booster Kit that I got from RandyT.   If I put the old crappy plastic wheel on it works fine.  I also found an old Wico 2.25 inch trackball which had optic boards that fit perfectly in the Betson and it did the same thing.  So in summary the Betson optic board works flawless with the boosters but the Atari or Wico ones totally suck...   The Fixumdude optic boards seem to be based on the Atari/Happs design.. Has anybody tried them with the Booster kit?