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U-Trak review with pics and vids ***UPDATED WITH FINAL RESULTS***
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blind_dado:
Here is a supplement to my review to answer some of the questions that have been posted.  First, thanks for all the positive feedback.  I’m glad that people found the review useful!  And TAG is right, I pretty much wrote the review because no one answered my post asking for a review!

cmoses wanted to see what the U-Track looked like with multiple lights on.

Here is Red and Green:



Here is Red and Blue:



Here is Blue and Green:



Here is Red,  Green, and Blue:



And here is no lights:



And here is a video of “attract mode:”



cmoses also asked about avoiding the 5/8” + plexi problem by simply using a 1/2" piece of MDF for your control panel.  That is essentially what you get when you use a router to take out 1/8” from the bottom of your 5/8” panel.  You are then essentially mounting the U-Trak in a 1/2" panel.  I don’t have enough experience to tell you if using 1/2" material for your whole panel is adequate, but personally I feel more comfortable with at least 5/8”.  But in either case, you raise a good point, which concerns the adequacy of 1/2" material for the expanding inserts that the U-Trak uses.  Here is how much you have sticking out the top for mounting:



As you can see, 1/2" of panel doesn’t leave much room!  But the thing is, every bit of bolt that extends past the insert is unnecessary.  What you really want is something like this:



And that would give you a bit more room in a 1/2" panel (or 5/8" with 1/8” material removed).

Well, you can achieve that result by just putting some washers between the bolt head and the plastic housing, which isn’t that big of a deal (but is kind of annoying!).
cmoses:
Thanks for answering all the questions.  I have so many because I am very interested in this product and there has not been a lot written about it.  I have gotten a good review on this product from a user here, but just the one.  I am really trying to decide which trackball will be best for my needs. 

So the Red and Green together appear to not make a good Yellow and all the colors together do not make a good White.  Maybe the LED's aren't bright enough?

I agree, I would prefer to have a 5/8" control panel and only route out what was needed for the trackball.  But when mounting with the bezel you are only using 1/2" to mount.  I would hope that this is sufficent enough for some solid game play.

I am leaning towards the U-Trak as it is looking to be the best all around option for my needs.  Small footprint, no mounting plate needed, colors can be easily changed on the ball.


blind_dado:
Although it's not perfect, I still think it is the easiest mounting system, because using a router on the bottom of your panel is a lot easier than the precise work that would be required to cut out a perfect square for a mounting plate on the top of your panel.  And you can remove the U-Track without having to take apart the whole top of your panel and remove the artwork.
AndyWarne:
This is all good stuff and some great pictures here, something I am never very good at.
There are a couple of points which I am wondering about, firstly how the USB interface board became detached from the trackball harness because they are supposed to be shipped pre-attached and I will speak to the person who packs them about this.
Second, not sure how the LED board became broken in shipping, we maybe need to look at better packaging but of course we would have replaced it without question if notified.
The information on our site does state that the height of the raised part of the casing is 19mm or 3/4 inch so the various mounting options based on panel thicknesses, use of overlay etc can easily be determined without all of the experimentation, but I get the impression the trials of various methods were done for the purpose of showing all the options which is great.
We do actually have blue translucent balls in stock  but I never added them to the options on the site. Blue is the most difficult LED color and so it is no surprise that a blue ball lights better than the pearl one with blue. The Happ trackballs we sell hardly ever sell in blue so we have quite a few of them left in stock.
We have extensively tested the inserts (which dont need to be hammered in, they are press-fit) in MDF and they do not come loose. There is absolutely no need to drill through the panel and bolt right through.
One last point, this also cropped up in another review. On the website we suggest that the pilot holes for the mounting are drilled right through the trackball holes rather than marking first. This way the accuracy is spot-on. But the earlier reviewer did not do this either, preferring to mark through the holes. Would welcome any comments on this. Maybe people just dont want to wield a large drill near to the trackball unit.
Andy
blind_dado:
Andy, thanks for adding your comments.  That's what makes this community so great, and the products ultimately better.  Yes, all of the different mounting options that I demonstrated were for the purpose of describing the different scenarios and talking about the issues that one would encounter under each one.  You’re right that you can pretty much figure out everything I said with a little math!

On the lighting module: there really needs to be a little more board there.  Those little wings are attached very precariously.  Especially the one where you’ve drilled the hole for the mounting screw.  Can’t you just take out those circular cut-outs that go around the inner circular board?  It seems that that would make it stronger.

On marking the pilot holes: I would never run my drill through the plastic housing unit and then turn it on.  That is a disaster waiting to happen.  If you angle the bit just a little and it catches the housing, it's going to do some damage and possibly grab it and spin it around and hurt somebody!  Marking the holes with a pencil should work just fine.  As you can see from my picture, I used a screwdriver that just happened to be the same exact size as the hole, so there was no play at all.  That helped ensure that the holes were lined up perfectly.  But honestly, I think a nail and a careful hand would work fine.

Definitely offer the blue ball on your web site!  That would have saved me some money, and the blue ball looks really good.

On the inserts, did you do testing in a 1/2" panel?  That is what a lot of people will end up using (or, actually, a 5/8” panel + 1/8” plexi and 1/8” removed from the bottom of the panel, which is the same as a 1/2" panel).  I would be curious about the results.  Especially the issue of how close the end of the bolt is to the top of the panel.  If you don’t use the washer solution, then it looks like the pilot hole has to be drilled within 1/16” of the top of the board.  (Using washers helps this.)

(BTW, I changed “hammer” to “press”)
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