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u/Whatdoiputhereok_ 4d ago
I had to open my brand new sbp and adjust the bearings one wasn’t protruding all the way and causing rolling issues. Seems they need adjusting if you have issues, it’s fairly easy thankfully. I had to take a thin screwdriver and essentially push my ball out of the hole as much as possible.
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u/Scatterthought 4d ago
My bearings seem to roll fine when I run my thumb over them, but I'll keep this in mind!
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u/Muadiv 4d ago
I bought the Slim also and now I changed for the Ploopy adept, you should consider it 😘
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u/Scatterthought 4d ago
I've thought about it, but don't care for buttons going all around the ball. If anything, I might get a Nano and then merge it with my Razer Tartarus v2 to make a left-handed thumball.
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u/tungvu256 4d ago
the 4 button keypad is wireless??? how long does the batt last? is it bluetooth or those 2.4ghz dongle?
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u/Scatterthought 4d ago edited 4d ago
Unfortunately not--you just can't see the USB-C port on the top-left side in the photos.
I think I saw one or two small keypads with 2.4GHz dongles. There were definitely larger ones on Amazon that are wireless, but the SBP already takes up a lot of room on my desk.
I have a couple of Bambu Lab Mouse Kits that I haven't used, because the results are generally pretty mediocre. I might try to convert one into a wireless three-button macro pad.
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u/Scatterthought 4d ago edited 4d ago
I've been testing a SlimBlade Pro for a month, going back and forth on whether I'd keep it. I love the twist scroll and the 55mm ball, but the stiction and lack of buttons have been a problem.
I feel like can live with a bit of stiction if the buttons are decent, and this is what I've cobbled together to improve the situation.
Rubber pads
First, I've added rubber pads to the tops of the SBP's buttons. The photos in the comments show how I've positioned them near the edges of the top buttons, which enables me to "pull" on the buttons a bit when pressing them. I also like how it's easier to find the buttons by touch.
I'm not certain that the pads are necessary on the bottom buttons, which are easy to find and press. I've tried a few different positions, but I've noticed that my hand position changes a lot while using the SBP.
These are actually nose-bridge pads for eyeglasses (which also work great as rubber feet). I don't know how long they'll last, but so far they're sticking well despite being repositioned a few times.
Macro keypad
Inspired by this post from u/samananetk, I've added a four-button macro keypad to use as dedicated back/forward buttons (plus a couple of other macros). I wanted to get the pad as close as possible, so I made a 10mm riser for the front of the SBP and a faceplate that cuts away the right side of the macro pad. This enables the keypad to slide in flush alongside the SBP. I also printed low-profile keycaps for the bottom buttons, so that they're close to the same level as the SBP's buttons and differentiated from the other keys.
There are a lot of these cheap clone keypads on Amazon, most of which use the ch57x chip and are programmed with software called MINI KEYBOARD. I was hoping to avoid the software, but out of the box I found that one key was "c" and the rest did nothing. There were also no instructions for downloading the software, but I'd already found a bunch of versions to try. All I needed to do was program the keys to output unique characters, and I chose ASDF.
HID Remapper
Once I got the keypad set up to output ASDF, I could feed it into an HID Remapper dongle. The dongle intercepts the device signals and substitutes commands that are programmed using a web utility. I wrote a post about how I'm using HID Remapper with my Trackman Marble, so I won't go into it too much here.
I also program my SBP with the HID Remapper, which allows me to avoid installing the KensingtonWorks software.
I think there's more tweaking to be done, but this has already been a significant improvement!