I dig that the Ploopy knob is QMK based, also high resolution. But watching how much effort E.B. has put into my favorite input device of all time, I can't help but want one of theirs.
The internal LED's are cool here. I like the indicator effect, especially with the partial transparency ball. I do wish this was bluetooh and ZMK based. Even though ZMK is lagging a decent bit behind QMK features. Zephyr is just so cool! Wireless is so great. In my opinion.
Who the hell wants to solder their own trackball? Equivalent products exist at roughly the same price point, fully assembled and tested with a warranty.
There are zero upfront no-questions-asked 3D printing services as well as such PCB/PCBA manufacturing services, but not a Buy Now style Mechanical Turk assembly line service, yet. So you'll have to do the non-scalable work and do the literal manu-facturing when it comes to tiny volume cottage industry products with no cash or volume to foot and amortize upfront costs. Which can be bypassed or minimized if it's supposed to be a kit and you only have to bag some parts. Also it blurs areas of responsibility in favor of the shop.
I bought the regular mouse and had a fun time assembling it. It works fine.
However the "ergonomic" design is extremely uncomfortable for me and caused hand pain. I let it ride for a few weeks hoping I'd get accustomed, the pain got better but didn't go away. Also the far-left and far-right mouse buttons are superfluous and detract from the core experience.
Please do a symmetrical version and maybe throw in a scroll wheel with steps/clicks, I'd happily buy another.
What is a kit here? A trackball? All the parts needed to assemble a trackball? A populated circuit board, where the rest needs 3D printing? A pile of electronic components that need to be soldered together and the rest needs 3D printing?
> Since the Adept is 3D-printed, your Adept can be as unique as you
I am fine with this in theory but would have no idea what to expect here since I'm not familiar enough with 3D-printing. How robust is this for something I'd be touching every day and would want to take apart and put back together multiple times?
Maybe the intention is to consider it disposable and make a new one if and when it gets fucked up? If I had one I would like to try adding some machine screw anchors, because for something that's going to get that much use I would probably be taking it apart and putting it back together a lot, fiddling with it until I got it perfect so none of the buttons rub up against anything, so there are no squeaks when I press on it or rattles if it gets moved around, etc.
Those are totally my own hangups of course; not trying to FUD the thing and would love to touch one first and see :)
Dual knobs sounds incredibly cool and are something that makes me want to try a trackball again. I loved trackballs in the '90s† when display resolutions were small and it was normal to click and drag a scrollbar thumb, but I haven't used on any machine in the last 15 years because, I dunno, just haven't vibed with the feel of them. My little 75% keyboard‡ already sold me on knobs by having just one.
I had the Expert briefly before returning it and the Ploopy Adept. The Expert doesn't have hardware remappable buttons, only software which IMO makes it no good. It is, IIRC a little bigger. The Adept does have QMK hardware remappable buttons, although mine had a button break and I never got it quite feeling right with the replacement case. I feel like they revised things from my early board and case and they didn't quite match up. I also think scrolling by holding down a button and moving the ball on the Adept is better than the Expert scroll wheel.
Generally I like the feel of Ploopy's trackballs and that are Canadian but I do kinda wish they moved towards offering better non 3D printed cases as an option.
It always seems like a missed opportunity that trackballs don't detect when you twist the ball. It would be so natural for spinning a model in CAD or zooming.
The easiest approach would probably be to add a second optical sensor and do some math to calculate the twist rate.
"The original Adept had six buttons. However, ever since we released the original Adept, the PCBs have contained two unpopulated lands for additional switches. Our intention was always to eventually move to eight buttons. The A+ finally lives up to the ambition that we set for ourselves back in 2023."
So they designed it to have 8 switches from the start - but then hid 2 of them so they'd have a "new version" once the sales of the old one slowed down. I don't know if that's genius or sad capitalism...
Around the 2000s I remember playing a match of Unreal Tournament Classic on a LAN party again a player of a major german UT clan of the time - he was using a trackball to play and slaughtered us so hard. To this day I can't imagine precise inputs with a trackball, but I saw it is possible.
My buddy had a Logitech Trackman and absolutely dominated in quake back in the day. So much so that it made me adopt a Trackman in 2001 and I consistently came in top 3 in counterstrike.
I’m sure it’s not the best ergonomic pointing device but I haven’t stopped using it and rock a Logitech ergo trackball these days.
Looking at the schematic it seems that this is a wired only solution. I'm quite a fan of wireless trackballs because you can velcro them onto flat sheets and compute from a couch. Has anyone experimented with a wireless USB hub?
I love the Adept trackball - it's got one of the best bearing setups and rolls really smoothly. However, the problem is that all their products are wired and that's awkward for using with a laptop unless you want to constantly move both laptop and trackball to one side when getting up etc.
29 comments
[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 5.3 ms ] threadI love all I/O devices..
I think the main difference from the Ploopy Adept is they added two knob buttons?
[0]:https://ploopy.co/aplus-launch-countdown/
https://web.archive.org/web/20260814114201/https://blog.ploo...
I dig that the Ploopy knob is QMK based, also high resolution. But watching how much effort E.B. has put into my favorite input device of all time, I can't help but want one of theirs.
The internal LED's are cool here. I like the indicator effect, especially with the partial transparency ball. I do wish this was bluetooh and ZMK based. Even though ZMK is lagging a decent bit behind QMK features. Zephyr is just so cool! Wireless is so great. In my opinion.
However the "ergonomic" design is extremely uncomfortable for me and caused hand pain. I let it ride for a few weeks hoping I'd get accustomed, the pain got better but didn't go away. Also the far-left and far-right mouse buttons are superfluous and detract from the core experience.
Please do a symmetrical version and maybe throw in a scroll wheel with steps/clicks, I'd happily buy another.
What is a kit here? A trackball? All the parts needed to assemble a trackball? A populated circuit board, where the rest needs 3D printing? A pile of electronic components that need to be soldered together and the rest needs 3D printing?
> Adept, a unique trackball perfectly suited […] for 3D-printing
I guess this means it could be any color you want? And yeah their store page for the Adept confirms: https://web.archive.org/web/20260720095136/https://ploopy.co...
> Since the Adept is 3D-printed, your Adept can be as unique as you
I am fine with this in theory but would have no idea what to expect here since I'm not familiar enough with 3D-printing. How robust is this for something I'd be touching every day and would want to take apart and put back together multiple times?
The screw wells in the case parts they sell look like the are just plastic and get tapped by self-tapping screws: https://web.archive.org/web/20260720095151/https://ploopy.co...
Maybe the intention is to consider it disposable and make a new one if and when it gets fucked up? If I had one I would like to try adding some machine screw anchors, because for something that's going to get that much use I would probably be taking it apart and putting it back together a lot, fiddling with it until I got it perfect so none of the buttons rub up against anything, so there are no squeaks when I press on it or rattles if it gets moved around, etc.
Those are totally my own hangups of course; not trying to FUD the thing and would love to touch one first and see :)
Dual knobs sounds incredibly cool and are something that makes me want to try a trackball again. I loved trackballs in the '90s† when display resolutions were small and it was normal to click and drag a scrollbar thumb, but I haven't used on any machine in the last 15 years because, I dunno, just haven't vibed with the feel of them. My little 75% keyboard‡ already sold me on knobs by having just one.
† peep my Macintosh Quadra 700 with my favorite Sihlouette ADB trackball https://i.ibb.co/m5qctLzp/Quadra700-Stack.jpg
‡ peep my NuPhy Kick75 High Profile with my favorite Framework Laptop 12 <3 https://i.ibb.co/bjVTfq0m/P1111881-1.jpg
https://www.kensington.com/p/products/electronic-control-sol...
Even the wrist rest, which I've never seen on another trackball, seems to have been copied from here. Anybody tested out both?
They really need to find a better name than "Ploopy" though.
Generally I like the feel of Ploopy's trackballs and that are Canadian but I do kinda wish they moved towards offering better non 3D printed cases as an option.
The easiest approach would probably be to add a second optical sensor and do some math to calculate the twist rate.
"The original Adept had six buttons. However, ever since we released the original Adept, the PCBs have contained two unpopulated lands for additional switches. Our intention was always to eventually move to eight buttons. The A+ finally lives up to the ambition that we set for ourselves back in 2023."
So they designed it to have 8 switches from the start - but then hid 2 of them so they'd have a "new version" once the sales of the old one slowed down. I don't know if that's genius or sad capitalism...
I’m sure it’s not the best ergonomic pointing device but I haven’t stopped using it and rock a Logitech ergo trackball these days.
I heavily recommend mapping some keys on keyboard for left and right mouse click, to be used with opposite hand.
Instant upgrade for finger operated trackballs.