Trackball desk toy
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Turn an old, spare or replacement trackball into a satisfying little desk toy!
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I'm toying with plans for a custom game controller including a trackball, and this experiment in mounting a trackball securely while allowing it to spin freely is a step towards that. My first prototype looked a bit like a fancy desk toy, so that's the direction this idea took in the meantime - and a couple of folks said they'd want one themselves, so here's the model!
To make this, you'll need:
- To print the model with a support tower under the top arch - the underside is flattened so there's only two distinct ‘steps’, so if you switch to a break-away support interface you'll only need to do that twice. That's the only place you should need support - the three screw mounts around the base are at about a 60 degree angle and should print fine. I printed my stand with a 0.16mm layer height but it doesn't make a huge difference to functionality.
- Four M5 mounting screws. I chose grub/set screws with ball bearings at the end, so the trackball can spin freely. If you wanted to go all out, you could get some “Hex-Drive Ball-Nose Spring Plungers” from McMaster-Carr: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/spring-plungers/spring-plungers-2~/hex-drive-ball-nose-spring-plungers/ however, especially for my early experiments, I bought a pack of 20 of these “M5 x 12mm Thread Rolling Hex Socket Ball Cap Tip Drive Grub Screws” for under AU$1/each from eBay: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/304306619038
- A spare or replacement trackball. The ball displayed in mine is a little over 44mm in diameter, or about 1.75". The spherical cavity in this model has a diameter of 48mm, so any trackball up to almost that diameter should fit (although you'd have to adjust the screws inwards for any smaller balls).
It'd be relatively trivial to re-design this for trackballs of other sizes, so if you're super keen on that let me know. It should also be possible to parameterise a model like this, although that's not my area, so if you'd like any notes about how this came together angle- and size-wise, comment below.
Check out the Mastodon thread where I documented the development of this idea: https://digipres.club/@timixretroplays/112523157941238523