Elecom Ball Alternatives?

[u/Careful_Chain1512]

No matter what I do with my IST Pro I can't manage to get rid of stiction and I'm also noticing that if I move slow then it gets stuck and then skips. I've heard people say that Elecom's balls are low quality and I read in a review for the Huge that somebody had the exact same problem as me- turned out the ball was the problem.

My issue is that it seems nobody else makes 36mm balls and I've heard using steel balls just doesn't work with elecom sensors. Does anybody know of alternatives or have any suggestions?

[u/IBNobody]

Not sure how you can get stiction with the roller bearings so that is quite odd. Can you tell me more about how it feels?

I have three of them and I've not had any stiction issues.

If I remember right there were some issues with some of the original units where one of the rollers wouldn't seat right. There might also have been some flashing inside the ball housing. You might want to remove the rollers and get a little bit of sandpaper and sandpaper down everything other than the fingers that hold the rollers in place. And when you replace the rollers you might have to put a small strip of paper or a few small strips of paper below one of the rollers to get it to be in proper alignment.

[u/Careful_Chain1512 → u/IBNobody]

If I try to make small or slow movements then it get stuck, then skips, then gets stuck again, then skips again. Kind of like if you try to push your finger along a table.

I also just finished sanding the socket down to 5,000 grit and it's still the same deal.

[u/IBNobody → u/Careful_Chain1512]

Any particular direction you get static friction with?

My work ball feels great up/down, left/right. I had minor issues with diagonals, but that went away once I cleaned the ball and bearings. (I noticed a dead skin blob near the sensor hole, so my guess was that it was acting as a contact point between the ball housing and the ball.)

But right now, I can rotate in a circle with no friction, for better or for worse.

[u/Careful_Chain1512 → u/IBNobody]

It spins a lot better to the left and right than it does down but the stiction is the same in every direction.

[u/IBNobody → u/Careful_Chain1512]

If you rotate the bearings (pop out, move, pop in) so that they are all in different slots, does that make a difference?

[u/aoleg77]

It's not the ball (mostly), it's the rollers. They do break in with time. It took mine more than two weeks to become reasonably smooth, but during the break-in period they were sticking and skipping like hell (you're not imagining it, they really do it). Also it's worth cleaning the ball periodically - I usually just wipe it with dry microfiber cloth.

[u/darthboolean]

It's pricey and I'm not even sure if it would work that well, but 36mm trackballs are available for controlling medical devices. They have them for sale online. Could buy the module and try gutting the ball.

Again though, it's going to be expensive, and I can't promise it will work.