Spinner problem

[LeedsFan]

I have the Ultimarc Spintrak spinner and Happs 3" High-Lip trackball installed on my panel. Both are connected through the Ultimarc Minipac.

The problem I am having is that the spinner does not seem to want to work properly whenever the trackball or normal mouse is plugged in to the same USB hub. If I unplug the mouse and the trackball completely, then the spinner seems to work fine. But if I have just one of the axis plugs plugged in for the trackball then it won't work correctly.

I know the Minipac has this feature whereby only one device works at a time while the other becomes dormant. That's not the problem. The spinner just seems to want to move in one direction if the trackball is plugged in. It moves fine one way but kinds of "fights" as I spin the other way. And this is when the spinner is the active device. Once I unplug the trackball then the spinner works fine.

The trackball works fine regardless of whether the spinner is plugged in or not. No problems there. Anyone any ideas? 

[Jdurg]

The only thing I can think of is perhaps there isn't enough current coming through your USB connection.  USB has 500 mA maximum current, and if you have a poor splitter or card, that 500 mA gets split apart and not boosted so if too many things are connected to one main "port" there won't be enough amps to cover everything.

Again, this is just a guess.

[LeedsFan]

I think you may be correct. At least I'm hoping it's something this simple. I never had this problem on my Mame cab, but then again I was using a different PC of course. I got the USB 4-port hub from Ultimarc but I need to get a 5V 1A mains transformer for it.

I found a way to look at the power useage of each device attached to the PC, (click on Properties of each USB root Hub within Device Manager then look at the "Power" tab) but I'm not sure how accurate that power figure is. I think it may be what the device is telling the PC it needs, and not what it's actually using. Or maybe it is accurate and I'm just not getting 500mA per USB port.

[Havok]

Try using a powered hub and see if that makes a difference.

[LeedsFan]

Try using a powered hub and see if that makes a difference.

The 4-port USB hub supplied by Ultimarc is actually a powered hub. But you don't get the mains adaptor with it. Of course the hub only needs the power if the devices attached sap too much current. So today I went to Maplins and got a USB 5V/1A power adaptor for the hub and it solved the problem instantly. 

Thought I was gonna need to buy a new hub altogether, but when I realised there was a power input socket on the one Andy sold me then all it took was the £7.95 adaptor to make things run super smooth. 

[Jdurg]

Happy to hear that you got it worked out.  Looks like it was indeed a power issue.