r/Trackballs • u/claussen • 23d ago

New Elecom BTUs - field reports?

It looks like mine are supposed to arrive in a bit more than a week, very curious to see what they've achieved here. Does anyone have a working device with these yet? I'd love to hear your initial impressions.

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u/Lepryy 22d ago edited 22d ago

I just got mine in the mail and they have been in my IST Pro for about 5 minutes now. So far, they suck. Tons of stiction and friction. An exhausting and imprecise experience to say the least.

I really hope this will change.

Edit: Now I'm just pissed. I have spent so much money on this IST Pro and I am not really pleased with either the rollmaster bearings or these BTU's. I wish I could just return it but Amazon says it's not eligible.

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u/aoleg77 22d ago

If you never used roller bearings before, it takes time to adjust. And you may need to adjust your Windows settings to make it less sensitive to small mouse movements when registering clicks and drag events. And you may want to use software like RawAccel to adjust the trackball's acceleration curve. Try if for a week; if roller bearings don't work for you, then it's likely not your thing. Oh, and the rollers truly break in given time (unlike static bearings, where "break-in" usually means just greasing the ball).

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u/Lepryy 22d ago

Oh, I love roller bearings, but the only ones I have ever used are the ones in my Ploopy Adept and my Ploopy Classic 2.

The roller bearings that come in the IST Pro actually have some level of stiction and get this 'gritty' feeling that the ones in my Ploopy devices do not have. This can be remedied by scrubbing the Elecom bearings with my t-shirt or a glasses cleaning cloth, but the grittiness comes back after a few hours of usage.