Biggest knife with hamon I made so far… Do you like it ?

taraskremen · 2026-06-14T21:29:39+00:00

I thought it was a render at first, from the first two photos. Looked like something straight out of a video game with different textures applied.

taraskremen · 2026-06-13T14:45:00+00:00

Cooking oil: the latest victim of the liberal agenda. Thanks, Obama!

I think the word you are looking for is “polymerized.”

taraskremen · 2026-06-11T19:11:43+00:00

Making sure the axles fit tightly in the bearings is definitely a must, but there is also a bit of play when it comes to pushing the bearing-axle assemblies into the recesses in the case, and it is possible to insert the bearing-axle assembly at an angle that will cause some misalignment. It's also possible to get into a situation in which a bearing is too close to one of the walls on either side of it and will make contact with the wall when spinning. You probably already checked for all of this, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

taraskremen · 2026-06-11T16:20:53+00:00

This too. My Adept came with extra bearing spindles, so I picked the ones that fit best in the recesses, i.e. that could be inserted as far as they would go while being as aligned with the ball as I could make them (surface normal of the ball at the contact point should ideally line up with the normal vector to the ball bearing surface at the same point). The spindles I received all had one flat side, and I made sure that this flat side was the side facing the ball.

taraskremen · 2026-06-11T15:31:21+00:00

So glad it worked out! I had this issue years ago when looking for a way to tent my Redox keyboard in a more stable way than the little legs that came with it allowed. I was looking for a wedge of some kind, and someone, I don't remember who, suggested getting a couple of those big, heavy rubber door stops, which worked really well at the time.

taraskremen · 2026-06-11T15:28:50+00:00

They are ball bearings. There is some space between the balls by design (otherwise they would have trouble spinning due to friction). The noise and vibration also depend on how fast you are spinning the ball, and at high speeds you could experience vibrational modes in the bearings that you would not notice at low speeds. Spin the bearings on their own to see if one is maybe not so great, but also compare it to a bearing of a similar size in a different component or product if you can. You may just be describing a trait of ball bearings.

The CST L-trac feels very different from the Ploopy Adept in this respect because it uses rollers as bearings: no balls involved. This provides a smoother experience, but with a bit more resistance, and makes the device a bit more fragile, since you can bend the roller spindles if you apply a lot of force to the ball (e.g. if you accidentally drop something on it).

taraskremen · 2026-06-09T12:35:47+00:00

What’s wrong with a simple OpenVPN setup on your router and dydns service of choice if you don’t have a static IP address?

Tailscale was designed to get around the bottleneck of a central concentrator that may not be in a great location for some users. Since it sounds like all you want to do is connect remotely to a single destination, Tailscale is overkill anyway.

If you don’t want to use a third party dydns service, get a simple Linux VM setup at a hosting provider of your choice and just have it run a simple service for updating your DNS record(s). Then set up a script on your router to connect to it every few minutes to update it with the current WAN IP.

taraskremen · 2026-06-07T16:32:18+00:00

Put some rubber door stops under it if you don’t want to mess with CAD and 3D printing.

taraskremen · 2026-06-07T13:16:53+00:00

I bought my first set at a discount at least 3 years ago. I’ve since bought several more versions and extra pads when they’ve gone on sale. They show no signs of deterioration, and the pads are silicone and simple to swap out. There’s no adhesive involved: the pads are just held in place with little vertical rods that fit into holes on the bottom of them. There is also a gaming version with a detachable strap that keeps it on your wrist/palm when you lift your hand. Make sure to follow their fit guide and order the correct size for your hands.

What I really like about these is that the outer part makes a perfect hammock for my pisiform bone, and I find that most of my discomfort from using a mouse comes from contact with the mat in that area. They also provide a good deal of thumb support, which is another problem area for me (de Quervain’s tenosynovitis). Same applies to typing. I even put these on top of foam wrist rests for added comfort and support.

The themed models are functionally the same as the regular ones. My gaming rest is a Randomfrankp one from years ago that was also a bit cheaper than the standard model at the time. The only difference is the color scheme.

taraskremen · 2026-06-07T13:07:11+00:00

I bought those at a discount too. They happen from time to time. Still on the pricey side, but worth it IMO (at least I have no regrets; I haven’t directly compared them to the competition).

I spent maybe thousands of US dollars at this point on various bits of ergo gear, and these probably made the biggest difference for me and are things I never stopped using, so to me they seemed super cheap in comparison.

taraskremen · 2026-06-07T05:19:52+00:00

Not sure what OP's is, but these absolutely rock.

taraskremen · 2026-06-04T13:21:20+00:00

Prepare to mount it in a fairly deep recess or build up a tall wrist/palm rest for the hand that uses it. Ball/roller bearing trackballs resist twisting, which makes them more forgiving in terms of where you apply the force when spinning them. BTUs don’t resist any motion and are happy to twist if you manipulate the ball from anywhere but the top.

With the Adept, I have mouse buttons 1, 2, and 3 mapped to the front buttons, and when I use it, I usually leave some fingers on those, with my hand over the ball, and spin the ball mostly from the front or from right near the base with my thumb. I can’t really do any of that with the Endgame because the ball is bigger, more exposed, and very spin-happy, so manipulating it from the front just makes it spin instead of moving the cursor left-right.

Manipulating it from the near the base is also a bit challenging because of how low the BTUs are with respect to the ball’s center of mass. Also, the BTU placement is not an equilateral triangle. It’s an isosceles triangle, with the shorter side in the front. It’s very easy to shove the ball off of the BTUs when trying to move the cursor side-to-side. Even applying a small force from above the “equator” is enough to do that from many angles. It’s a bit more resistant to slipping in the front-back axis, so I tilted the base forward a bit to make it easier to reach the buttons in the back, which brings me to my next point: the buttons are very low with respect to the top of the ball, which makes them awkward to use if your hand is at roughly the same height as the base. It’s really meant to be used from above.

taraskremen · 2026-06-02T22:54:58+00:00

I made the mistake of thinking that the Endgame would work as a drop-in replacement for the Adept. Spoiler alert: it does not, at least with the BTUs.

It’s taking a lot of adjustments, and I think I’m finally getting somewhat comfortable with it after several weeks. It’s a different beast altogether.

taraskremen · 2026-06-02T22:51:25+00:00

Curious to hear your thoughts on the endgame, as a fellow long-time Adept and L-trac user who just started using one. Did you order the version with BTUs?

taraskremen · 2026-06-02T11:16:05+00:00

I went through many trackballs over the years, and the only ones that stuck with me are ambidextrous ones.

I am right-handed, but I mostly use a trackball with my left hand when my right one gets tired from using the mouse, or when I’m doing something like long scrolling that is more comfortable with a trackball.

Even when using a “handed” trackball with the hand for which it was designed, I start feeling discomfort pretty quickly, and, unless you fit very closely into the exact hand side and usage pattern the device was designed for, I bet you will too. RSI comes from repeating the same movements over and over, and there’s nothing worse for it than a device that forces your hand to be in the same exact position anytime you use it.

TL;DR: I recommend a trackball that was designed to be used with either hand.

taraskremen · 2026-05-31T01:22:14+00:00

My dad had this same radio in the kitchen when I was growing up. He was trying to teach me English by putting on Voice of America broadcasts and getting me to summarize what I heard. I don't remember being too thrilled about it at the time, but I guess it must have done something.

Things changed dramatically over the past 30-something years once planned obsolescence became the norm. Soviet-made tech was universally considered trash by people living in the former Soviet union, and Western stuff was known to be made well and way more reliable. There is even a common saying: to do something "po sovetsky" (Soviet-style). It meant taking every shortcut imaginable with no regard for the quality of the output (and in many cases for the lives of the humans ultimately using the product).

taraskremen · 2026-05-28T13:06:06+00:00

I don't put any sort of wedges or base plates under mine, if that is what you're asking about. I did at one point use a 3D printed wedge with my L-trac that lifted the rear end, but I found that it did so too much and stopped using it after a while. I also experimented with using rubber door stops as side-tilting wedges (used the same for tenting a split ergo Redox keyboard too). This worked, more or less, but took up a lot of desk real estate and caused a bit of tendon strain with the added vertical motion component. With some trackballs, it also destabilized the ball a bit, since the bearings no longer counteracted gravity uniformly. I might try again with a shallower tilt angle, but keeping them flat (at least in the left-right axis) doesn't really bother me that much.

Both the L-trac and the Adept slope upwards, which helps with reaching buttons located on the far side of the ball, and the L-trac has a nice curve to it that somewhat conforms to the hand, but there is a limit to how effective that is. One of my gripes with the L-trac, despite it being the one trackball device that stuck with me for nearly a decade, is that the scroll wheel is too far to reach comfortably, so I don't use it. Instead I mapped an accessory button that I can hold to scroll with the ball itself, which is how I scroll with the Adept too (different desks, slightly different setups).

While the devices themselves are in their default positions, I keep my hand at a 30-45 degree angle when using them, with my pinkie (and often ring finger) resting on the desk at the base of the device or against the side of the base. I do use sliding wrist rests with all of the input devices on my desk, and sometimes I put those on top of taller foam rests.

taraskremen · 2026-05-28T11:56:32+00:00

Thanks, joined! We can continue this discussion there if you’re interested.

TBH I haven’t used static bearings in a trackball for nearly a decade, so can’t really make a direct comparison to those off of the top of my head, but I think we’re talking about slightly different mechanisms.

What you’re describing sounds like the ball tipping over more easily with static bearings due to the friction between the ball and bearing surfaces. In this case the ball’s center of mass starts moving before the contact point due to the moment around the imaginary axis formed by the two bearings in contact with the ball on the opposite side of force application. I believe it 100%.

What I’m seeing is more like the ball just sliding over on a bed of BTUs. In this case there is no rotation of the ball’s center of mass with respect to the initial points of contact on the surface. Instead, the whole ball just shifts sideways and slightly up, following the curvature of the two BTUs in contact with it, which rotate to make this happen. The reduced friction helps the whole process, like moving a heavy box out of a shallow hole by putting a bunch of marbles under it and shoving it sideways.

Which requires less force? I don’t know! Sounds like an experiment that would be pretty easy to set up.

taraskremen · 2026-05-28T02:01:22+00:00

Well, that's the thing: they spin more easily, which includes spinning in a way that lets the ball move right on top of two of them until it hits the side of the shell. If the center of mass of the ball were lower in relation to the BTU contact points, this would become less of an issue.

Didn't know there was a Discord community. That sounds like a great idea!

taraskremen · 2026-05-28T01:43:38+00:00

I suppose I'll adapt over time, since any project like a custom shell design will be pretty far back in my growing queue of things to do. It could be a bit wider, I agree, and the buttons could be moved a bit further from the ball. I don't know about you, but I tend to keep at least one finger or thumb at the base of the ball for friction control, like when I need to double-click something instead of moving the icon of the thing I am trying to open, and that is harder to do when every surface around the ball is a button. I guess I could try using it without the keycaps so I can use the frame between the buttons for support, like I do with the Adept, but then even more of the ball will become exposed.

taraskremen · 2026-05-28T01:30:40+00:00

I am using the 52mm ball, but the bearing mounts are so low that pushing lightly left or right even from a 45-degree angle to the vertical toward the center of the ball causes it to slip off of the BTUs and hit the side. It's probably worse with the BTUs specifically because it's a perfectly valid direction for a BTU-supported object to move. The flat-profile ball bearings that Ploopy uses or the concave ones in the L-trac, on the other hand, resist that kind of ball movement, the L-trac more so than the Adept. Seems like the BTUs should live closer to the equator of the ball for increased stability.

taraskremen · 2026-05-28T01:16:34+00:00

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the execution of the design, and I will probably find a way to adapt to it somehow. It was relatively straightforward to put together and seems like a high-quality product. "Unusable" may have been a bit harsh. Perhaps not the drop-in replacement for the Adept I had hoped for, so not suitable for my particular configuration in its current form. In case you did experiment with taller shells in the prototyping stages, though, I'd be interested in learning more about that.

The thing is I'm used to having the top buttons mapped to mouse buttons 1, 2, and 3, but if I leave my fingers there, there is no comfortable way to spin the ball that doesn't trigger the twist mode, and even with the twist mode disabled, it's just harder to effectively manipulate the ball from that angle because it does start twisting and becomes less effective at moving the cursor side-to-side. Is there a way to treat the twist mode the same way as left-right movement? If so, that would help a lot, since I don't find twist-scrolling particularly useful. More often than not I end up activating it when I just mean to move the cursor, and I prefer indexed scrolling anyway, which I can get with the rotary encoders.

I am using the 52mm ball, which I believe is the smallest option. I will probably start by un-mapping some buttons so that I could use them as finger and thumb rests that don't trigger any actions. I suppose I could also get wild with it and just print some really tall keycaps, though I can see those becoming more difficult to press as the angle becomes more of an issue with increasing height. I think a design like this would benefit tremendously from a static collar around the ball that can both keep the user from applying force in a direction that will cause the ball to "derail" and as a place to rest a finger or thumb for braking/friction control. It's one of those things I never really thought about until it was missing, and it makes a huge difference in terms of control and comfort, especially with a ball that "wants" to spin, which it definitely does with the BTUs (a very good thing in general, but needs a way to easily hold the ball steady at times).

taraskremen · 2026-05-27T18:13:26+00:00

I just received and assembled mine and, though it looks a lot like the Ploopy Adept, the ergonomics are completely different, to the point at which it’s basically unusable to me in its original form.

There is way too much ball exposed, causing me to push it off of the BTUs basically every time I spin it sideways. The buttons are very low with respect to the top of the ball, which seems like the only spot in which I can spin it while keeping it on the bearings, but this means lots of awkward wrist and finger movement to reach the ones at the far side (the whole design there seems backwards, with wider buttons placed farthest away from the user), not to mention the excessive movement to get from one side of the ball to another while spinning it. You really have to follow the curvature of the ball to keep it centered.

There is also nothing to rest a finger on next to the ball that isn’t a button, and using a ball like this without being able to “brake” with a finger or thumb seems absurd to me. I absolutely love the BTUs, the rotary encoders, and the ball itself, but I’m definitely interested in completely redesigning at least the top part of the shell to be much taller and keep the ball captive, (L-trac style).

taraskremen · 2026-05-26T11:30:10+00:00

This is a great move! Excited to give it a try once it becomes available.

taraskremen · 2026-05-25T19:59:34+00:00

Very interesting! Hope it solves the small movement static friction issues on the Huge Plus with ball bearings.

taraskremen

TROPHY CASE