How to Illuminate a Trackball for Certain Games

[NinjaMcBritster]

Hi,

I'd like to have my trackball only illuminate when a trackball enabled game is running. Is there a simple way to do that?

Thanks in advance.

[NinjaMcBritster]

OK, maybe this can't be done So, people WITH trackballs, do you just have them illuminated all the time?

[Adultery]

Well I don't have ledwiz or anything but I imagine it's possible if you have it (or another similar led controller) the same way it illuminates your buttons, but my trackball/cab buttons don't light up so I won't be of much help. Sorry!

[Draco1962]

I would probably start at the BYOAC site and forums. If you can get it working outside of GameEx then you are 90% of the way there.

[GeorgeT]

my trackball is just illuminated 24/7 and it's always blue (i'd like to figure out how to change it to red)

[tthurman]

My IPAC 2 has a set of header pins for this. I used the scroll lock header to toggle my trackball LED on/off.

Works great!

GameCab used to make a LED driver board that could use these headers to power several different functions, but they are no more. You could direct wire it too

Might want to check out this review and see if you can dig up something similar, or perhaps even a old new stock. If you find them somewhere, please post where in this thread!

[stigzler]

my trackball is just illuminated 24/7 and it's always blue (i'd like to figure out how to change it to red)

Same here. But mine's green. Unless you trigger one of the two linked buttons. Then it turns red...

Whoa that's some esoteric stuff there, tthurman....

[tthurman]

nah, it just looks that way, it's just a set of header pins on the PCB.

The other card in the linked review in my post above is a daughter card of sorts,that can work with these header pins.

Like Draco mentions, BYOAC is a great resource.

mayhem has a real informative post that gives a good general overview, and may give you some ideas for your trackball...