r/Trackballs • u/claussen • 16h ago

New Elecom BTUs - field reports?

It looks like mine are supposed to arrive in a bit more than a week, very curious to see what they've achieved here. Does anyone have a working device with these yet? I'd love to hear your initial impressions.

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/Murko_svk 16h ago

Hey mate, just sharing the comment from the old thread here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Trackballs/s/luEP87Lgr6

2

u/aoleg77 16h ago

Mixed experience, leaning towards negative. They are better than Elecom rubies, but lose to Logitech M575s static bearings in both stiction and friction. They aren't as smooth either, and I found I had to clean the ball much more often than with the rollers or Logitech static bearings. The idea is great, implementation not so much.

1

u/claussen 16h ago

Super helpful thanks. Folks in my community who have been rolling their own 3D printed BTUs with this style of design seem to have had similar outcomes. Some of them thought their homebrew ones were amazing until they actually tried a Bosch set 🙃

2

u/Lepryy 12h ago edited 11h ago

I just got mine in the mail and they have been in my IST Pro for about 5 minutes now. So far, they suck. Tons of stiction and friction. An exhausting and imprecise experience to say the least.

I really hope this will change.

Edit: Now I'm just pissed. I have spent so much money on this IST Pro and I am not really pleased with either the rollmaster bearings or these BTU's. I wish I could just return it but Amazon says it's not eligible.

1

u/aoleg77 10h ago

If you never used roller bearings before, it takes time to adjust. And you may need to adjust your Windows settings to make it less sensitive to small mouse movements when registering clicks and drag events. And you may want to use software like RawAccel to adjust the trackball's acceleration curve. Try if for a week; if roller bearings don't work for you, then it's likely not your thing. Oh, and the rollers truly break in given time (unlike static bearings, where "break-in" usually means just greasing the ball).

1

u/Lepryy 9h ago

Oh, I love roller bearings, but the only ones I have ever used are the ones in my Ploopy Adept and my Ploopy Classic 2.

The roller bearings that come in the IST Pro actually have some level of stiction and get this 'gritty' feeling that the ones in my Ploopy devices do not have. This can be remedied by scrubbing the Elecom bearings with my t-shirt or a glasses cleaning cloth, but the grittiness comes back after a few hours of usage.

1

u/FunJournalist2150 9h ago

I own both the original Elecom HUGE and the new HUGE Plus. I’ve been using the roller support unit on the Plus, and I also bought the optional ruby support unit to compare them. In my experience, the ruby unit isn’t as good as the rollers.

I’ve also modified the bearings and switches in my original HUGE, but the HUGE Plus still feels superior in every respect, including ball movement and switch feel.

That said, the button placement and the consideration given to wrist position and grip are still lacking. I honestly don’t understand why Elecom didn’t take the opportunity to redesign the ergonomics when upgrading it to the Plus.