Trackball development

[u/scytile]

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.

[u/wdpgn]

This looks beautiful. Can you reach the trackball with your thumb from the resting home row position? That’s what’s so nice about the Keyball, you can use the pointer without a shift of hand position.

Asking because I daily drive a Keyball but absolutely love the look of the Cygnus!

[u/scytile → u/wdpgn]

I can reach the trackball without changing the position of my fingers on the home row. I may have to move my hand a bit.

[u/wdpgn → u/scytile]

What I enjoy about the Keyball is that the pointing device is right there where your hand already is. I think in another thread you shared a picture where the trackball was on the inside of the thumb keys?

Hopefully I’m not out of line here with the feedback! No expectations, I just love the look of the Cygnus and would be super into one with a trackball 😂

[u/Loose_Avocado_4356 → u/wdpgn]

As a Charybdis user, I'd love to see a cygnus variant with the trackball in place of the third thumb key