Trackball wiring question

[Apollo]

I feel a bit daft having to ask this question having been around this hobby and these boards for so long but here goes.

I built my CP with Happ 3" trackball and no separate buttons for the trackball as I was planning on wiring to P2 1,2 and 3 buttons.
I have done this but I am getting some weirdness when P2 is playing e.g. pressing the 1,2 or 3 buttons on P2 activates P1 buttons.
Is there some trick to the wiring or set up that I have missed here?
Can anyone advise me before I drill separate button holes for the trackball in my lovely mnimalist control panel?
Thank you

[u_rebelscum]

Just remap in mame.  The default has the mouse buttons assigned to player1, and sounds like you added the mouse buttons to player 2 without removing them from player 1.

You'll have to look out for single player + TB games, though.  You'll probably want to keep the mouse buttons with player 1 on these.  Depending on the number of 2 player vs 1 player w/ TB games, will determine which one you want to be the default.  And if the number of the least count is high, you might want to look at using ctrlr file to hold the remaps, since cut and paste works with ctrlr file, but not game cfg files.

[Apollo]

If I put a switch in between the buttons and the trackball for the three mouse button wires would that work? Then I could just turn them on and off when I needed to?

[u_rebelscum]

If I put a switch in between the buttons and the trackball for the three mouse button wires would that work? Then I could just turn them on and off when I needed to?

Some people here have done close to that: switch the buttons between mouse buttons and keyboard/gamepad buttons (depending on the other encoder).

However, in your case, I'm guessing the buttons are only connected to the TB, yes?  If so, then if you turn off the buttons, then they won't work for player2 either.

So, how are the buttons wired?

[Apollo]

The wires from the trackball mouse buttons are wired to player 2s 1 2 and 3 buttons. The player2 1 2 and 3 buttons have separate wires for the p2 1 2 and 3 button functionality and they connect to the ipac. So i think if I put a switch in between the trackball 1 2 and 3 buttons and the optipac i can turn them on and off so they won't register as mouse 1 2 and 3 when p2 is playing?

man i hope that makes sense.

[patrickmaher]

I would suggest not wiring those buttons to both the I-PAC and the trackball unless you have a specific reason to do so.

You can just wire the player 2 buttons to your I-PAC and eliminate the trackball mouse button wiring. Then setup MAME to use the player 2 1-3 buttons for trackball games. MAME wont care that they are not actual mouse inputs. As long as you set the buttons you want MAME to use for your trackball games it will follow what you set.

Look back at the post by u_rebelscum for info on mapping the buttons.

[u_rebelscum]

I partially agree with patrickmaher: don't wire to both the Ipac & TB at the same time. 

If you want mouse buttons in windows or other apps (non-remappable), then I'd put a switch to flip the buttons between the mouse and the Ipac.

If you're just using mame, though, I'd do as patrickmaher said, but you can do the switch as above, too.

The reason you don't want the buttons wired to both the ipac and TB at the same time is just as you've seen; conflicting inputs.  For another example: FE that can take a letter input to zoom to the next game starting with that letter, and a mouse click means start game.  If you press a button that is wired to both the letter 'A' and the mouse click, the FE might jump to the first game starting with 'A' and start that game, or start the game you want and then jump, depending which action the FE sees first.