Kensington Expert Trackball - Make That Scroll Wheel Usable!

ripster

The ridged ring on the Kensington Expert acts like a Scroll wheel. The PROBLEM is that it is scratchy and feels horrible. This simple mod makes it better, but not completely smooth.

Remove the ball. Note: can't stick a pool ball in this one. Too small - 2.165 inches versus 2 1/4 inches. Why 2.165? Probably to keep America's youth from pool halls.

First peel off the rubber feet. 4 screws.

On either side are the switch buttons, held in by screws.

A couple more screws and the ball holder comes out.

Eww.... Clean the plastic red "jewel"

That's better. Interestingly enough Logitech sells replacement bearings - no idea if they would work here. You can also get 3mm Zirconium oxide bearings that I THINK would work on Ebay.

If you wanted to do a LED mod there is a good ground and power connection here.

Here's a shot of the scroll mechanism. A metal ring with square punchouts rotates around and is tracked by an optical sensor. The silver metal bar is a magnet.

Now I applaud the Engineer for creativity. You could see it creating a complicated "magnetic notched effect" making the Engineer a "Kensington Fellow" with lots of Corporate awards. Unfortunately nobody bothered to check how it works. It sucks royally.

So pull it by poking something in the magnet hole and lifting.

Now it's better but still not great. The scroll wheel rotates on these small white bearings.

Squirt some Dry Lube at each of those locations.

Reassemble and you're done. It's smoother. But still not nearly as smooth or as usable as the CST mechanism for the trackball.

The CST has a nice wide comfy scroll cylinder. Note that Harry is pointing at the middle button which is distinct from the scroll wheel. This makes the middle button much more usable than on most mice.

Which friction rotates the simple optical reader.

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