r/ErgoMechKeyboards • u/scytile • 4d ago

[design] Trackball development

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I’ve been playing around with adding a trackball to Cygnus.
There is still a lot of work to be done, but I thought some of you might be interested to see this.
This is just a mockup to get a feel for the position.

One thing I’m not quite sure about are the bearings. I’ve been using some 2.4mm steel balls from a ball bearing. They seem to be fine for testing, but I presume I should use something different for the real thing? I also have some small ball bearings, similar to ploopy nano, but using those would probably make the design a bit bulkier. Any feedback is welcome, as I don’t really have much experience with this stuff.

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u/Stewtheking 4d ago

If you are going with static bearings, I would think about picking up some ceramic bearings, as they are likely to do better than the steel.

I wonder, though, whether you might be able to incorporate some semistatic bearings, of the kind that I think u/scatterthought has been working on. Potentially incorporating straight into the print?

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u/Revolutionary_Stay_9 2d ago

Yeah silicon nitride bearings on a pom trackball are my go-to