New Happ Trackball rolling left

[grbgemen]

Just installed a new 3" Happ Trackball in my MAME cabinet.  Problem is that when i roll the ball straight, it starts to roll left as its slowing down.  It starts out straight but then slowly moves left. 

What might the problem be?  Just need to break the ball in or is it something inside the trackball?  The control panel is level if that matters at all.

[fjl]

Have you opened it up to see if anything is unaligned?

[SirPeale]

How long of a roll are we talking about here?  A little drift is normal.

[grbgemen]

Have you opened it up to see if anything is unaligned?

nope not yet.  I just noticed it last night right when i was cleaning up.

How long of a roll are we talking about here?  A little drift is normal.

maybe two seconds of it drifting left.  i was testing it with golden tee and was getting mixed results.  some shots went straight while others drifted left.

[golfboyusa]

from what I know about Golden Tee, the rolling of the trackball AFTER impact has nothing to do with the shot. I have seen lots of drift either way with trackballs and it can usually be fixed by cleaning the rollers or leveling the CP. I think you will see some drift in all trackballs regardless.
I hope this helps....

[u_rebelscum]

it can usually be fixed by cleaning the rollers or leveling the CP.

Also make sure all the bearings are clean, greased and broken in equally.  If the TB is new, it needs to be broken in, might need better grease, but probably is clean; if the TB is old, it's weighted the other way.

[mst3kpimp]

I just got a semi-used Happ trackball off ebay.  It didn't look like it had much use so I can't attest to how old it was.  I did the mouse hack successfully but noticed the drifting to the left, it also drifted up when spun left and down when spun right.  I unscrewed the 6 screws to look inside.  I could see that the 3rd roller that doesn't have a wheel attached did not spin as freely as the other 2.  First I lubricated all 6 bearings but this didn't help.  Then I took out the 3rd roller and flipped/switched the bearings which would only reverse the drifting.  Then I marked the 2 bearings with a sharpie and switched one of those with one from the other rollers.  This helped somewhat so I then switched the other marked bearing with one from the last roller and this seems to have evened things out.  I imagine at least one of the bearings was off somehow but rearranging them restored the distribution of friction and in turn the behavior of the trackball.

[monkey puzzle]

I had exactly the same drifting to the left thing with my brand new trackball from Ultimarc. I was told that this is perfectly normal for arcade trackballs, and it's to do with drag from the 3rd roller (the diagonal one that keeps the ball in place). Even the original Atari trackballs did this. I did not find that this effected gameplay on any game because you don't usually let the ball spin for that long.

However, I opened the casing and sprayed some silicone lubricant on the rollers, and this improved the problem greatly (but not completely)