Construction Review:

Maintenance

On is page I want to tell about some flaws and breakdowns which happened over time. Occasionally such an incident leads to an extended knowledge about the broken item which is worth to be shared. Here are some compiled repair reports in chronological order (at present there is only one):

Trackball Repair (Dec 2012):

When I received the two 3" Happ trackballs in 2007, I found one of them operating very smoothely while the other one rattled slightly when it was moved in the y- direction. Since my experience with trackballs was rather limited, I assumed this to be due to normal manufacturing tolerances and simply mounted the latter trackball into the rarely used slave controller. Recently, when I configured Marble Madness and Golly! Ghost! for two players in MAME, I once again stumbled upon the jerky behaviour of the second player trackball and decided to do some further investigations. Here is the faulty trackball dismounted from the slave controller:

 

In order to remove the top part of the trackball's housing, I had to release the six red encircled screws of the above right picture. I recommend to leave the wire strap (red arrow) intact because it acts like a hinge between the upper and the lower housing part. In the open trackball the roller shafts are easily accessible:

 

It is already visible from the upper right picture that there is somthing wrong with the roller shaft for the y- direction. When I opened the trackball the first time, some gooey kind of grease was sticking at the red encircled area. After I cleaned this spot carefully with soft tissue and Kontakt 60 (a fine cleaner for corroded electrical contacts) a few tiny spots appeared where the hardened steel coating of the roller shaft seems to have flaked off:

These faulty spots might be manufacturing defects, but being five years late, complaining about definitely was not an option :-). Polishing was no option either, because any kind of grinding would have enlarged the chipped- off areas. Therefore, I had to find a way to purchase a replacement part. The European vendors of arcade parts like ArcadeShop.de or Ultimarc don't offer Happ parts any longer, and so I tried to order a replacement part kit from SUZO-Happ's website itself. While following the ordering process I was informed that using Happ's web shop from outside the USA is discouraged. However, the SUZO-Happ office in Germany was willing to sell the needed replacement parts if only my order exceeded the minimum amount of €100,-. Finally, I purchased two items of 95-0831-WB (roller shaft kit) and A052-1011-00 ("red board"), respectively:

 

This way I got my roller shaft and some additional parts which might break in the future. Pushing the roller shaft slightly upwards, its bearings pop out of their place in the trackball's housing and the shaft comes free. While doing so, I became aware of another displeasure which could easily have emerged into a real show stopper. Look at the fastening screw of the encoder wheel:

The screw was in this worn- out state *before* I started to remove the encoder wheel - but I was lucky: I took the best fitting "Kreuzschlitz" (Phillips)- wrench, wrapped a rubber ring around the shaft in order to obtain a tight grip and tried to loosen the screw while pressing the wrench firmly into the slits of its head. Eventually it came off without further damage:

 

This "exploded view"- arrangement already includes the replacement shaft. After the roller shaft unit was reassembled and put back into place, I degreased everything again with the Kontakt 60 fine cleaner. Now the bearing system of the trackball looked much better:

Needless to say, the refurbished trackball works as smoothly as that one of the master controller. One might legitimately ask whether a rattling trackball is worth a > €100,- repair? Of cause it is! This is a hobby after all, and the hobbyist's creed should be to gain the least revenue from the most effort (not my words). Look at it this way: