Changing to an illuminated trackball

[dprush83]

Thanks to everybody that's helped so far, I've made a lot of changes to my arcade cabinet in this past week (hooray for a holiday weekend!).  I have an X-arcade stick and have purchased new buttons/joysticks for it, but I'd like to change to an illuminated trackball.  The X-arcade comes with a 3 inch ball, is there a way to simply swap out the ball for another and mount a light beneath it?  I can post pics from above/below if needed, I can not find any threads (or googles) on how to customize the trackball, though I've seen it done.

[arzoo]

Yes, you can swap out the 3" X-arcade ball for translucent ball. You can go with a single color (red, blue, etc.) or GroovyGameGear.com sells a pearl color ball which can be used with RGB LEDs for variable colors. As for actually swapping the balls, you'll have to disassemble the X-arcade unit - which may or may not be easy. For the LEDs, do some searches on lighting trackballs - there are a number of solutions. For mine (a Happ 3"), I drilled out three small holes in the tb base to mount individual LEDs. Another option which does not require any tb modifications would be the Lightmite TB.

[dprush83]

Yes, you can swap out the 3" X-arcade ball for translucent ball. You can go with a single color (red, blue, etc.) or GroovyGameGear.com sells a pearl color ball which can be used with RGB LEDs for variable colors. As for actually swapping the balls, you'll have to disassemble the X-arcade unit - which may or may not be easy. For the LEDs, do some searches on lighting trackballs - there are a number of solutions. For mine (a Happ 3"), I drilled out three small holes in the tb base to mount individual LEDs. Another option which does not require any tb modifications would be the Lightmite TB.

Okay, so the Lightmite TB attaches beneath the trackball; I think I can do that easily enough.  What do I use to power the unit?  Also, I went to Happ's website to take a look at the translucent balls and most of them are Red Translucent, Yellow Translucent, et cetera...which would you recommend to go with the Lightmite?

[arzoo]

Okay, so the Lightmite TB attaches beneath the trackball; I think I can do that easily enough.  What do I use to power the unit?  Also, I went to Happ's website to take a look at the translucent balls and most of them are Red Translucent, Yellow Translucent, et cetera...which would you recommend to go with the Lightmite?

If you want the TB lit up all the time, then you can tap 5v off the PC power supply. If you're lighting the TB and the buttons (you mentioned above that you purchased new buttons) and you want control over everything like the ability to control the LEDs on a game-by-game basis, then you'll need an LED controller such as the GGG LED-Wiz or the Ultimarc Pac-Drive.

As for the TB color, blue and red seem very popular, but it's totally your preference. The Lightmite will work with any. If you search around, you can find vids and pictures of various trackballs lit up. Mine is blue 

[dprush83]

Okay that sounds great.  I am just lighting the trackball (the other buttons are a different color and higher quality than what I'm using now, but not illuminated).  How do I go about using power from the PC?  Is there a USB converter or anything of the sort? 

[arzoo]

Okay that sounds great.  I am just lighting the trackball (the other buttons are a different color and higher quality than what I'm using now, but not illuminated).  How do I go about using power from the PC?  Is there a USB converter or anything of the sort? 

Rather than USB, I would just tap off one of the spare molex connectors from the PC's power supply. You can buy a molex extender cable and then cut off the end. The Red wire is +5v, the Yellow is +12v, and the Black is the Ground. Since you're going to use the Lightmite, you don’t need to worry about any resistors, and I think it can use 5v or 12v. I would go with 5v - just hook up the Red and Black wires.