A picked up a Millipede a while back mostly because the price was right. My game is Centipede – but it was too good to pass up.

Firing up the game – It ran – but the shooter would just lock up now and then even thought the game kept playing normally.  I put it aside since I had plenty of projects in front of it.

Fast forward to today – I got a Millipede board to repair.

Once I got the board up and running – the shooter would lock up same as my board. Clearly I did not have a board issue. It was external.

My original trackball needed a rebuild and I thought it was maybe a red board/green board issue. My bench Centipede trackball was available – so I swapped the boards from it. Same thing. So it wasn’t the optical boards. The trackball needed a good cleaning and de-rusting. Rolls great now.

Lockups could also happen at any time, 10 seconds to a couple minutes into a game. I had been powering off/on every time it locked up – but once it locked up when I ended a game. I hit start and the shooter started working again?! Then it occurred to me – could this be caused by static discharge? My MAME cab has a Happ Trackball and it has copper foil on the bearings that is carried out to ground straps.

I started a game and spun the trackball as fast as I could – it locked up in 5 seconds. Reproducible problem! Static!

Added copper foil like the Happ. The copper beeps out from the encoder wheel to the screws.

Added a ground strap – been rock solid! Static is real.

While I was swapping trackball parts around – I pulled apart the Happ Trackball that I had replaced my original with in my Centipede. After reading debates on white vs. the ivory colored original. I wanted to see if there was a difference (and see how the foil was used internally).

The original trackball weights 158 grams. The new Happ ball was 120 grams. I put the original in the new housing. The Happ is now in my bench test trackball. It will take a while to adjust I’m sure. It does have a heavier feel.