Problem with trackball!

[dontpannic]

Hi guys,

The trackball on my Orbit has stopped recognising being rolled up, left or right, and the silver clickwheel is stiff. Is this repairable myself, or should I be looking at a new motherboard?

Cheers,
Nick

[amfasis]

hey dontpannic, don't panic :p
at least not too hard.

It is possible to exchange the trackball unit. You can sell a new one on the internet (I bought one via eBay, it was in your country and very cheap) Allthough, it is kind of hard to get the old unit out of your phone. You will have to totally apart your phone, because the trackball unit is stick to the daughterboard which is behind the LCD :(

There are a number of guides to help you apart your phone, you can find it somewhere on this forum. Once apart, you can blow the dust out and uncover your current trackball (mine was kind of hidden :p) Or you can get the whole trackball off the board and replace it.

(I should note I got my phone apart couple of times, so have some experience. It can be tricky)


ciao!

[B73C]

I agree with amfasis, it can be tricky but gets very easy once you've done it a couple of times and know what to expect (how much force to apply separating parts...)

Everything on the daughterboard is pretty open under the cover so I suspect something sticky got dripped in there (cola?) from the symptoms you mention.

I thought I had a problem with my daughterboard as well since I was getting random scrolling action in all applications, but it turned out I had some dirt stuck on the side of the screen giving a bad signal on the touchscreen.

I took apart my whole trackball and even took the silver cover off the silver scroll wheel toggle and took out the tiny spring... that was an adventure getting it all back together correctly after cleaning!

I chalk all of it up to an excellent learning experience and now have no fear of taking it all apart just to look at it again. You will too.

Good luck!

[dontpannic]

Thanks guys! Will give this a try and see what happens :D