Replacing the trackball ball (or the whole EVQWJN007 module)
Swap the stock ball for a white BlackBerry ball, the ball from a Pimoroni breakout or a fresh EVQWJN007 module — the usual first fix for a jumpy trackball.
What it takes
- Disassembly
- Purchase required
Difficulty 2 of 3 — moderate.
Details
The trackball is a Panasonic EVQWJN007 navigation switch, the same part the DevTerm uses and the one SparkFun sold as COM-09308, so modules swap straight across. tinspin found a white BlackBerry ball from AliExpress tracked far better than the black one that shipped; barry99705 and N0M44M report good stock and Amazon-sourced modules, and MirkoH's thread confirms the EVQWJN007 is a drop-in that feels smoother with its rubbery ball.
Quality is a lottery — one reply got a single usable module out of 25 AliExpress units — so buy a few. Orientation matters: Rex says the silver centre post points toward the keyboard and the two small side posts notch into the keyboard's holes. By 2026 the preferred swap is the ball from a Pimoroni Trackball Breakout (tamartin, beams, DigitalDreams), and a wipe with isopropyl alcohol fixes many dirty balls before any swap.
Links
Open at Forum threadRelated mods
beams' guide revives dead trackballs by roughing the ball on 120-grit paper or fitting a 5.5 mm glass ball, with a printed shim to stop the module rattling.
Open-source QMK port of the keyboard firmware: Select + ball scrolls, Fn + G game mode, precision mode, tap-hold keys and a web tester, flashed over USB.
A modified build of ClockworkPi's own Arduino firmware: QMK-like trackball smoothing and Select + ball scrolling without QMK's USB power quirks.
A clean rewrite of the stock keyboard firmware on STM32 HAL: ten switchable layers, a better trackball curve with inertia, Fn lock and auto-dimming backlight.
SuperMarioSF's xinput middle-button emulation turned the ball into a scroll wheel; ClockworkPi then built Fn + ball scrolling into the stock firmware.
One xinput line remaps the ball's middle-button click to a left click on X11; firmware or libinput hwdb rules do the same job elsewhere.