My current trackball has lost its smoothness and feels “sticky” no matter how well, or often I clean it.
So, I’m looking for a trackball (thumb controlled) with the following features:
- Bluetooth wireless with support for at least two connections (for laptop and PC media station).
- Uses AA or AAA batteries.
- Uses bearings.
- Set at a tilt/ergo angle.
- Repairability is also important, but not a total dealbreaker if the mouse is high-enough quality.
So far, most that I’ve found will lack one of those features, but I’d really like to have all of them, if possible.
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who offered tips on getting my current trackball working better. Today, trying to roll the ball left became very difficult, like it didn’t want to move. I took it out, looked at the little white ball (bearing?) supports that the ball should be rolling on, and noticed that the left-most one was almost pushed in, and flush with the cup that the ball sits in. The other two are higher up, so the ball can “float” on those, but not this other one. The manufacturer is already sending a replacement mouse, so it should work better, but I’d still like to find my unicorn 😄
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As others have said, Logitech MX Ergo springs to mind. Lacks bearings and repairability, but is of decent quality.
If Logitech isn’t your thing, there’s also the ProtoArc EM01 - basically an MX Ergo clone with RGB and USB-C, but inferior tilt.
There’re also Elecom, whose EX-G is also decent but on a personal level, Im not a fan of the right click - too light. Sanwa – Amazon Link – and Perixx are competitors to/similar to the Elecom offerings.
Ploopy might be your best bet in terms of repairability, though their offering is a little rough around the edges (figuratively and literally, they’re a 3d-printed startup but seem to have a decent following).
Links with the exception of Sanwa are to the manufacturer’s pages.
The EM01 is what I’m using :) Maybe my expectations are too high, but this just feels bad, especially when trying to move the cursor just a little. And it’s only like 2-3 months old.
I’ve got a standard Perixx mouse, but might have a look at their trackball mice.
Ploopy has been on my radar, but misses too many points on my feature list, namely wireless connectivity.
Elecom is hard to get here, apparently (Canada), but I’ve been looking at their mice, too.
Goddammit, Logitech! I’d be totally happy adding another Logitech product to my life, but they miss too many features.
You may try to find where your ball stick/grind in the cup, and fix it.
This is what I did with my Sanwa Gravi, I liked the design so much, index ball, thumb LMB/RMB with wheel in the middle, that when it ground in the cup, I basically took my dremel tool with a kind of sanding ball attached and ground the places where it was touching. I also changed the bearing (like in this post), and also put a LCOT ball (biggest improvement, as it is maybe 0.5-1mm larger so it really stands on the bearings and not in the cup. Some people changes the switches too, but I like them because they are completely quiet and I never had any problem with them (compared to logitech switches in the M570…)
Using it for 1.5 year now and it’s fabulous.
It supports a USB dongle and 2 bluetooth connections, and is using 2x AAA batteries.
I love it so much that when I bought it, I bought another one as a backup, that I fully moded too, in case of the 1st one die one day.
My partner uses a Logitech MX Ergo. It doesn’t match all your specs, but it’s a very nice mouse. The initially purchased mouse was refurbished from Amazon and it was having problems connecting to multiple devices. Logitech sent a completely new mouse no questions asked!
When you clean it, are you just cleaning the ball? Depending on the type of trackball, there may be some small plastic rollers inside that have gunk built up on them. If you can safely take it apart and clean those well, it can make a world of difference. Back in the days of mechanical mice, this was a pretty common issue.
If your trackball uses some kind of optical sensor(s) and isn’t mechanical, my apologies for wasting your time.
It looks like it has a sensor and three white “balls” that the trackball sits on.
I do clean those, and they never have gunk built up on them (maybe I clean them too often?), but I only wipe them clean without using isopropyl alcohol or anything like that. Maybe I should try that?
Absolutely use isopropyl alcohol!
Tried with isopropyl alcohol, and it feels worse :( Like rolling a wooden ball on more wood.
Kensington says to use Vaseline to lube the ball. I can only imagine that would gum things up, no?
When reading your post, I started thinking of silicone lubricants. Have you tried anything like that? Ideally, you would only lubricate the parts that come into contact with the ball.
That might be an idea! I’ll see if that’s safe to do. 👍
I would try PTFE. Some people report using the grease from your nose / face works well, but that’s a bit icky for me. You don’t want to use a lubricant that will make the ball too slippery or you won’t be able to manipulate it with your fingers. And you don’t something thick that will gunk up. PTFE is safe for electronics, very thin, and safe to touch at room temperatures. It gets toxic at a very high temp (like 500F or something). I would put it on a cloth and rub all moving parts with it. Add it in small amounts gradually and see if the scratchy “woody” feeling improves.
What make and model is it?
I’ve got a Protoarc EM01 as my daily driver. An EM04 as a spare, but it’s not as good :(
I would search YouTube for a video where someone completely disassembles one that’s similar to yours and see if you can learn more about it. I’m not suggesting you take yours apart. But it might show you if there’s a potential fix for it.
My boss uses a trackball mouse, but it’s a Logitech. I am not a fan of Logitech, personally. Their stuff always breaks on me after about 12-18 months.
So, it looks like this may be a hardware issue with this particular model.
I’m hoping to find an alternative trackball mouse with all of my feature requests, as I don’t want to be trying to fix something that wasn’t designed to work well.
I love my mx570 but it is rf not bluetooth. The MX ergo is nice too, but that’s internal not aa batteries.
All my other hardware (gaming mice, keyboards, etc.) are Logitech, but as you said, each model is missing a feature I’m looking for :(
Is the current trackball removable from the current one?
I wonder if you can replace that component with something new as long as it still fits, can register the movement.
That is if you really like your current one and want to find a way to “refresh” it
The ball is removable, but the ball looks smaller than some other trackballs I’ve seen. I have no sentimental value for this trackball mouse, so replacing it would be totally fine if I can hit all those requirements. :)
Every now and then my MX ergo would feel like that, I take it apart and place the plastic ball holder (just the actual plastic part, removing all electronics) in hot soapy water for a few minutes. It has 3 little ceramic bearings that even with regular cleanup end up gunking up. While wet, i use the ball to jog the bearings around, then rinse with isopropyl and let it dry. Feels as good as new.
I’ve not seen one that meets all of those. Best one I’ve ever used is the Logictech MX Ergo
- Wireless with multi-device support
- Internal rechargeable battery
- Plastic roller style bearings
- Tiltable
- Not repairable, and the mouse button click sensors fail at a fairly high rate. I blow threw one of these about once every 18-24 months. I know you can repair this, but I’m not willing to dust off my soldering skills after decades of disuse.
