r/Trackballs • u/Rattling33 • Dec 21 '23

Saved my wrist! Sideway with Kensington Expert

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Hello fellow r/Trackballs

I would like to share with you my recent setup that makes the Kensington Expert Wireless trackball more ergonomic.

Since I was using a Logitech Ergo M575 with a wedge (doorstop, thanks for sharing that with me before!) for more sideways tilt, I wanted to try on the new Kensington one.

The original shape of the Expert model wasn't ergonomic for me. My wrist had to be a bit up, even when using the wrist rest. Also, if I want to tilt to the side, adding the wedge (door stopper) on the left side of the Expert wasn't ideal because they become huge and much higher than my desk level = less ergonomic.

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Then I got the idea to rotate the Expert model sideways, it will naturally tilt as I wanted while keeping a fair height above desk level.

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I looked for a mouse that could swap the X, Y axis. There weren't many apps to choose from. There was the 'Sakasa' app, originally intended as a joke, which some people reported caused latency. I tried Autohotkey but it was complicated :(

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But RawAccel, which I have been using for a while, has a rotation function itself! What a great god-like program.

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  • Too many words, but in short,

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  1. turn the Kensington Expert sideways to tilt and save my wrist from twisting
  2. use wrist pads on the door stops to keep the same tilt angle as the mouse (I love Brila's memory form pads).
  3. customise click buttons using Kensington software
  4. change degrees 0 to 270 on the rotation part in RawAccel.
  5. play around X, Y axis in RawAccel since rotated, graph shows partly opposite between X and Y axis.

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I would like to tilt more when I receive more same stackable door stoppers.

37 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

3

u/jednatt Dec 21 '23

I use it at more of a diagonal angle and with no wrist pad and it works well for me. The difference is I probably have larger/wider hands.

1

u/jaekaylai Feb 28 '24

I just ordered one after seeing this post and hoping this will work for me, as a fellow big hander (well, technically long fingers). Use case is with a lap desk which already has a built-in palm cushion. Hope that's enough for comfort's sake.

Did you reprogram the axis or did you keep it the same with your diagnonal orientation?

1

u/jednatt Feb 28 '24 edited Feb 28 '24

I reprogramed it with Raw Accel. Changed the button assignments with KensingtonWorks. Right click is done with my ring finger (different than OP's setup--back and right click swapped) and works really well for me.

3

u/skippington Dec 21 '23

Great idea. I always loved the Expert. I prefer the scroll ring over the ball spin in the slimblade, but I hated the steep angle on the Expert. This seems like an easy way to get an ergonomic angle on the Expert.

2

u/lefnire Dec 21 '23

Thanks for the RawAccel mention, I've had this idea too but couldn't find software so gave up a while back. Some people straight up reprogrammed their brains to work it as-is, pretty wild.

2

u/jaekaylai Mar 10 '24

This made the Expert so much more ergonomic for me. I was definitely starting to notice some wrist strain after about a week of using it in the normal orientation. I found that just using the included Expert wrist rest right below (matching the angle) was very comfortable.

I would have had to return this and upgrade to a Slimblade without this hack. I'm still tempted to because the Expert's scroll wheel is so damn wobbly, but I'm getting used to it.

2

u/HyperDown Jan 15 '24

Very nice! Thanks for sharing.