Elecom M-XT3URBK thumb-ball not moving smoothly, any advice?
Background: Around two years ago I had an M-XT3URBK and used an M570 ball with it, as often suggested on this subreddit. It worked perfectly. Then a few months ago, I had a glass-of-water-mishap and it stopped working.
So I ordered a new one, popped the M570 ball in it, used it and waited a few weeks for it to break in, and it never did. So I sent it back for a replacement. I popped the M570 ball in the replacement, and the same thing happened, it never broke in. The ball physically skips around and I cannot precisely control where the cursor goes on the screen at all.
Things I have tried:
- Wiping the ball on my forehead
- Using a dab of polish on the ball
- Cleaning the ball thoroughly with soap and water (which helped for about two hours and then it went back to skipping)
- Buying replacement M570 balls on eBay, figuring maybe mine got messed up somehow
It's too frustrating to live with at this point, as someone who (especially during COVID) is on the computer pretty much 16 hours a day. I need a working thumb-ball.
Questions:
- Is it possible/likely that I got two defective replacements?
- What should be my next steps? At this point, I'm even up for cutting my loss and buying a different model or brand; is that the way forward? Open to suggestions/advice/ideas.
Posted Apr 29, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC
I've tried the same blue M570 ball with my M-XT3URBK and I could never get it to be consistently smooth. Sometimes it would seem to work okay and then it would start sticking badly (like it wasn't the correct size for the housing), making it unusable. I also tried using a little bit of teflon spray but it didn't help.
For me the bad thing is the OEM gray ball was smooth to move but it tracks so poorly that I can't even use the trackball for basic web browsing, so I had to try the M570 ball. I eventually gave up on that Elecom and moved to a cheap Logitech finger trackball.
Yeah, it sounds like I am going to have to try a different brand and/or model. It's just odd to me because my original Elecom did work fine, and then the two replacements both didn't. I wonder if they changed something at some point. :(
There have always been complaints about quality control with Elecom (at least with the earlier models like this), so I'm pretty sure I just got a bad one. It is also possible they did some tweaking to the design that's causing the issue with the M570 ball, but I bought my Elecom back in 2017 so I don't think it would be the same release/version as the two new ones you just picked up (if they did make some changes).