I've got a Logitech Trackman Marble+ that you may have saw in my goodwill thread.
I'd like to take the ball out and clean it, but I can't seem to figure it out! Most trackballs the ball will just pop right out but as you can see in the picture this has a ring around the ball that I assume you have to remove. It has a little pinhole which I would assume is the key to removing it, I've messed with it but haven't been able to remove it. I don't want to break it, so I figured I'd ask here even though I'm sure nobody here has a mouse like this!
push a pin in the hole and see if it pops off, ALA emergency eject on an optical drive.
Try twisting the cover counter clockwise (like a normal ball mouse).
If neither of those work.. Do what I'd do. TIME FOR AN OVERHAUL, just keep removing screws and forcing till it's in bits for a clean!!
The ball was not moving smooth at all any more, so today I had to figure out how to clean it. I tried Ian's method of using the little hole like a CD-drives emergency eject. I too thought that would do the trick, no good. I thought about taking Zoidberg's advice of taking it apart, but I thought nah there has to be a way to clean the ball easier than that. Turns out you stick a pin in the little hole than rotate it, the outer bezel around the ball pops off giving you access to clean it. It was pretty gunked up in there. Cleaned it out and the ball is rolling as smooth as it did in 1998!
I had read that this is an optical mouse but upon taking the ball out I didn't see an optical hardware. It has a little metal roller. I can't say that it really matters as now that it is clean it is just as smooth as my Microsoft optical.
