[bohdanz]

I made a mistake by blowing compressed air cleaner in and around my Kensington trackball. Now it moves in a very difficult, jerky way. I've taken out the trackball, cleaned the interior of the casing, etc. but it continues to behave erratically.

Is it shot?
Or any way to make it roll smoothly again?
Thanks.

[ddiokno]

Hey Bohdanz,
I'm sure you've tried this, but if not (sometimes the simplest solutiosn are the ones the elude us), try taking some alcohol and cotton balls and cleaning the actual trackballl it self. and then use Q-Tips and the alcohol and gently clean the rollers inside. I have two different trackballs, one made by MS and the other is a logitech. With the MS one it was teh cleaning of the physical ball that actually did the trick for me (which surprised me, because I kept thinking it was inside that needed the cleaning), and with the Logitech, it was actually swabbing down the internal rollers.
good luck and let us know what works...
dave

[ddiokno]

You also want to inspect inside of all of the recesses inside the trackball to see if the compressed air dislodges some dirt/grime/hair and moved it to an area that is interfering with the rollers. Sometimes tweezers help at getting out crud that is lodged in there...
good luck!
dave

[Macola]

I had a couple of Kensington trackballs and liked the design, except for the rollers getting gummed up eventually. Cleaning with alcohol as Dave suggests works well. However, tracking is affected in the long run. I switched to optical trackballs instead (I now have a couple of MS Intellimice) and I've been really happy with them. They do require occasional cleaning, but at least there are no moving parts to get stuck.