My rapid descent into the world of DIY trackballs

It all started with Ploopy.

I thought to myself, "What a goofy name for a trackball." I thought it would be a funny gag if I got into having a trackball. The problem is that if you take to its logical conclusion, it becomes sincere and I bought a Ploopy and went so far down.

I have become a sickballo.

If you didn't live through the 90s and have never heard of a trackball, that's understandable. A trackball is a pointing device similar to a mouse, but instead of moving the entire device, you use a small rolling sphere to move your cursor. Trackballs used to be common back in the day, and they say it can be an easier and more comfortable way of interacting with the user interface.

The idea of motivating Ploopy is similar to something that has been going around in the keyboard community for a while. The files for all of the products are available for anyone who can make them, and the device itself runs one of a few lightweight keyboards out there. The devices are easy to remap and personalize, and many of the Ploopy products use the same sensors and switches found in high-end mice.

This is a world I was familiar with after having built a keyboard called a Sofle. The small, buttonless trackball with a snooker ball that fit between the two halves of my split keyboard was the thing that sold me on the Ploopy. I could have a small guy placed in the middle of my keyboard for making little finite adjustments on-screen instead of having to use my mouse every single time I needed to change something. I could program a button on each half of the keyboard to act as a mouse button, because I was already a split keyboard freak.

I said, and then I clicked buy.

I was expecting a little more from the Nano, but it turned out to be much more. I put it together and it made doing small adjustments easier, and it was immediately intuitive to my entire work. It was easier to edit. It was easier to switch windows. I still had my mouse, but I found myself using it less and less for scrolling. I was in love.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

I found out about the mod.

An element of the open-source design philosophy is iteration. Since all the documents are out there, you can 3D print whatever housing you want for your Ploopy if you have a good printer.

The first mod that made my jaw drop was one by user sickbabies on the Ploopy subreddit. A tan Le Chiffre trackball with a ball bearing meant to match their headphones and keyboard is a beautiful sand colored ball. Jon, my good friend and fellow trackball sicko, told me that people had gone beyond the simple 3D printed roller bearings that came with the Ploopy and reprinted their housings to use ball transfer units. The path for me was clear after someone uploaded a mod for the Ploopy Nano. I made my preparations after ordering some BTUs and a steel ball.

It turned out that there are other games in town. While I was planning my upgrade, I came across the work of Jfedor2 who had created their own open-source PCB and breakout board for rapidly prototyping new trackballs and mice using the relatively new but game-changing RP2040 chip. He uploaded at least 10 alien looking trackballs and mice, including a trackball with two trackballs and a pyramidal one with a scroll wheel.

• The Nano. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
• It’s called the Nano, but its trackball is quite large. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
• The Trackball 7, disassembled. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
• A trackball at work. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It's not as difficult to make a circuit board for a mouse. If you have the Gerber files, a bill of materials, and a component placement list, the manufacturers will print out your circuit board for you. My fellow trackball friend printed me out some retro-looking, clear-and-seafoam shells for my Ploopy Nano, which is a big brother to my Trackball 7 that uses a full-sized billiard ball.

Both were gorgeous when assembled. The clear plastic on the upgraded Nano made it look better than the base model, and the newly upgraded BTUs rolled smoothly and easily. Not everything went off without a hitch. The chrome steel ball I got felt wonderful to the touch, but it took a little bit of breaking in to get it to track properly. Some people on the internet recommend sanding theirs down to take the shine off of the finish, and others recommend using an acrylic and chemical finish. Traditional trackball makers use a trackball that is shiny.

I made a terrible mistake when I had Jfedor's trackball PCBs manufactured, as two of the voltage regulators on the board were backordered, so I tracked down equivalents on an electronic component distributor. I have a weird looking trackball in my home.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

I was happy despite supply chain issues. I gained more confidence in my abilities and knowledge of how to build something new when I took something and made it my own, and in the process of making these objects, I gained a clear understanding of how I could take the torch and build something new. If you're that kind of sicko, there's very little stopping you from making your own trackball.

There is no rest once you are down this path. The bearings are pretty smooth, but could they be a bit more smooth? I read on gun forums that I could apply a dry coating of disulphide to the BTUs. DLC or Cerakote could be used to coat my trackball. If I built a keyboard that has a trackball in it, like the Oddball, the Splitballer, the Keyball46, the ino, or that one, what would I do? I bought those circular trackpads in the mail after talking to Freznel about their board, so maybe that's the way to go? Now that I know how to swap out a microswitch, why not replace it with a silent one?

Maybe you don't want to be a trackball. Look at what it has done to me.