I can imagine the pain soldering the single key pcbs and then wiring them. I think if i did another build, i would skip the per key LEDs entirely...

Trackball is pretty good. The sensor and PCB are great and it i like the position now that i have gotten used to it. The ball bearings are not perfect, but go a long way. Maybe one day i will look into BTUs. There is a mod that uses a trackpad instead, which i would be willing to try out of sheer cusiosity.

Thanks! Building it really pushed my limits since i had no previous experience soldering surface mounted components and jumped into the cold water. Using solder paste for the LEDs was a lifesaver.

I had handwired a skeletyl before - just to test if it feels better than the moonlander i used at that time - and i wanted a trackball, so i bought the kit from bastardkb. The PCBs are great and putting it all together in the end was not that hard.

Switches are Durock Dolphin 62g. I wanted something heavier than the Kalih Speed Silver i had before, and i am super happy with how they feel and sound (preeetty quiet).

Have you looked into a filament changer like the enraged rabbit carrot feeder? https://github.com/EtteGit/EnragedRabbitProject

I Use altgr-intl Layout as Default in xorg. That lets me use altgr-modified Keys for the German umlauts in need.

Edit: two-key combos to type them then

I have pretty small hands and found the moonlander way too big. Moved to a skeletyl fromm there. If you need more Keys, have a Look at the sofle v2, which has a more aggressive pinky stagger. Or the keyria.