rp2040-pmw3360 VS trackball

Not sure what issue you're referring to. Making a 1000Hz trackball? Yes, of course it's possible. I've made several. Any decent sensor (e.g. PMW3360) and microcontroller will do.

One example: https://github.com/jfedor2/rp2040-pmw3360

It might be helpful to use jfedor's PMW3360 + RP2040 PCB - it has a Raspberry Pi RP2040 chip on it as well as a PMW3360 mouse sensor. Then they also designed some smaller PCBs for mouse switches.

Quite a lot of work seems to have been done to allow PixArt PMW3360 (or similar) .. https://github.com/jfedor2/rp2040-pmw3360 … https://www.printables.com/model/131450-trackball-15

Guy on the right is a Trackball 7 by u/jfedor. I had the RP2040+PMW3360 pcbs printed out and added Kailh GM 8.0 switches in there. The billiard ball is an Amarith Black cue ball (not an 8-Ball) I got off of ebay. Due to a parts shortage it's actually missing a few SMD parts that I'm having a hard time tracking down.

It's worth asking /u/jfedor if he has used the nice!nano in his builds. I know his dual-trackball build uses a Raspberry Pi Pico.

I've been into spheres lately and I've made this trackball. It doesn't sit on a desk, you have to hold it in your hand. It only has one button, but it totally works. The ball is 57.2mm and it sits on 2.5mm zirconium oxide bearing balls. 3D models, electronics and code.

If anyone's curious I put the 3D models here and the files for the PCB and code are on GitHub.

I did lay out a simple carrier board as a direct replacement for the breadboard in a more permanent build, and had a few of them made up through OshPark. It's really basic -- no components, just some traces and solder pads. (My first time trying to use kicad, I think it turned out decent for what it is.)

not quite sure what you are getting at... regarding thumb use, you can always buy used FXes (or new ones if you want a crazy markup). if you want something slightly more modern, there is the cordless FX. the DIY trackball you speak of is publicly available here: https://github.com/monroewilliams/trackball

isnt a scan, but its a 3d printable trackball with roughly similar shape: https://github.com/monroewilliams/trackball

For me, the hand position used with the Logitech Trackman Marble FX was near perfect for reducing hand and wrist stress. Unfortunately that model was discontinued many years ago, and they're now hard to find, expensive, and generally antiquated (PS/2 interface, dodgy early optical sensor, no scroll wheel). This was the main reason I designed and built my own trackball. Its shape was inspired by the Marble FX, although I modeled it from scratch in OpenSCAD.

Of course. 😎

Sources for all the parts I used are listed here, and there's a fairly extensive assembly guide with pictures here.

For my scratch-built trackball project, I used these breakout boards, and based my initial code off of the seller's sample code. His sample is for Arduino. but it's basically pretty straightforward C code that isn't hard to adapt to any microcontroller. For my purposes I needed to run two of the sensors off one microcontroller, so I turned into a C++ class that runs one sensor per instance, and supports a couple different related sensors (ADNS9800 and PMW3360).

The ball-spin mousewheel is a really nice touch, too