Happ USB trackball... backspin

[Thurman]

It seems like I'm having the same problem that a bunch of other people have with their Happ USB trackball.  I bought it about a year ago and everything worked fine until a few months ago when I started seeing some serious backspin.  When the trackball is rolled too fast, the mouse hesitates for a few seconds until the trackball slows down enough to register the spinning.  This happens while in Windows and I've done all of the troubleshooting so I think it's a problem with my optic board.  I have the older green optic board.  A few questions.....

1. Happ has an updated "Red Board" PCB found here: http://www.happcontrols.com/trackballs/a052101000.htm  Is this Happ's attempt at fixing the problem?

2. Is this as easy as swapping out my existing board with this new red board?  Or is there more to it than that?

3. Can I buy this anywhere cheaper than $25?

Thanks for any help on this!

[Jdurg]

Talk with Divemaster and see if he has any updated boards.  The Red Boards are not an 'attempt' to fix the problem.  They ARE a fix to the problem.   

[u_rebelscum]

The red board is NOT for the USB model; it's for the arcade models.  (If you get the red boards, you'll need an optipac or optiwiz interface, also.)  However, happs does have a "version 2" of the USB boards which are (I heard) an improvement of the old USB boards.

So if you get version 2 of the USB boards (which are not red), it's just swapping the two boards and plugging in the USB wire.  If you go the red board way, you'll need to swap the boards, connect them to the optipac/optiwiz, and connect the opti--- to the computer.  Both are easy.

Divemaster has both type boards (AFAIK), and they're cheaper than direct from happs.


Disclaimer: I have the arcade red boards and the older arcade happs green boards.  I do not have either version of happs USB boards.  I like both versions of the arcade boards on my optipac.  So I'd encourage you go the red borads + optixxx way, if you don't mind the additional cost of the optixxx.

[mountain]

Does anyone know when the version 2 USB models were released? I purchased my 3" USB model from Tornado Terry in early '07. It must be the version 1 model because it has recently started having issues as described above. 

[Jdurg]

My bad.  I didn't read the USB part there.

[u_rebelscum]

Does anyone know when the version 2 USB models were released? I purchased my 3" USB model from Tornado Terry in early '07. It must be the version 1 model because it has recently started having issues as described above. 

Probably.  I tried serching, but couldn't find a solid link.  There's this one, so it was before 2008, and this one, so the problem was still around during summer of 2007.     

That said, IIRC, happs had both versions out there for a while after the better version came out.  (I'd guess happ was getting rid of "current stock".  )  I'm not even sure if all of happs USB boards are now the fixed version or not.  Anyone else with more current data than I?

[pinballwizard79]

I have the same problem.....where did you get your trackball?