trackbowl-mk2 VS pmw3360-breakout

Edit Actually /u/jfedor has a build where the entire trackball is in the ball and that uses an Adafruit Feather bluetooth controller.

All the electronics is hidden inside this trackball by Jacek Fedoryński (video, git, blog post). (Posted by u/deekue.)

Code and 3D models are on GitHub and here's a blog post with some more pictures and details.

Here you go: https://github.com/jfedor2/pmw3360-breakout

A core module just consists of nice!nano and a pmw3360 breakout board by jfedor2 (https://github.com/jfedor2/pmw3360-breakout) which is shown in the last picture. (By the way, jfedor2 has a lot of cool custom trackballs based on RPI which provide lots of ideas.) I'm planning to use this module to apply in various setting, and this was the first prototype to replace my Ploopy Nano.

Outside of the Ploopy, if you haven't checked out u/Jfedor's stuff I highly recommend it. They created an open source rp2040-PMW3360 pcb specifically for creating new kinds of trackballs. I have bunch coming on the way now (It's a little pricier due to the smd components) and the parts to make trackball 7 when I get here. It's bigger (uses a standard billiard ball) but it seems closer to the direction I'd like. /u/azat-dev on here posted a modified Kyria using Jfedor's 3360 breakout but I don't think they can post the files because it uses modified closed source code.

Personally I'd use one of Adafruit's nRF52 Feather boards with an optical sensor breakout like this (this one happens to be mine, but you can find others).

Here's a nice one if you want to order your own from JLPCB: https://github.com/jfedor2/pmw3360-breakout

You're absolutely right and in that spirit I've posted the STLs here and the sensor breakout here.