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Adding a trackball to your Dactyl

  • Updated

Adding a trackball

This guide is meant to help you add a pimoroni trackball to your Dactyl / DacMan.

mceclip1.png

 

Caveats

At the moment, the trackball is not integrated properly into QMK. It's a bit janky to use, and you will probably need to play with the code - to change acceleration and speed values.

 

Split keyboard recommendations

  • If you are going to use a split keyboard, it's easiest to add the trackball on the Master side
  • Save the pins D1 and D0 for the trackball. If you need RGB and/or Serial, make sure to use another pin (eg. D2 and D3)

Hardware

Components to buy

You will need to source:

  • 28AWG wires (single-core recommended)
  • 2 M2 screws (3mm or more, torx recommended)
  • 2 M2 hex nuts
  • pimoroni trackball
  • (recommended) M4 screw and locknut if you're using a PCB or amoeba

3d printed adapter

Grab the adapter from the files folder on Github: https://github.com/Bastardkb/TBK-Mini

mceclip0.png

Depending on your printer tolerances, you might need to adjust the bottom part size so it fits snuggly into an MX switch hole.

 

Wiring

Connect your Elite-C to the pimoroni trackball as such:

  • Gnd to Gnd
  • Vcc to Vcc
  • D1 to SDA
  • D0 to SCL
  • (Optional) INT to a pin for RGB control

 

Assembly

Assembly is pretty straightforward:

  • Prepare the adapter: insert the 2 M2 hex nuts
  • Insert the adapter into any MX hole of the keyboard (recommended on the thumb cluster)
  • If you're using a PCB or Amoeba, secure it with the M4 screw
  • Install the trackball with the 2 M2 screws

Software

The trackball is not yet integrated into qmk properly.

I recommend using Crote's excellent qmk fork: https://github.com/Crote/qmk_firmware/tree/trackball, which has some documentation included in the .h file.

You need the files in drivers/trackball, then add to your rules.mk:

TRACKBALL_ENABLE = yes
POINTING_DEVICE_ENABLE = yes

 

 

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