Rollermouse Free2 cleanup/checkout

[Hak Foo]

Today at the junk shop I found two things I was in need of: a set of ~3.5kg dumb-bells and a complete-looking-in-box RollerMouse Free2. While it looks like it had limited use before being boxed back up and discarded, I want to clean it off from the shop of who-knows-who sneezing and coughing on it. Can I safely swab the device down with 70% alcohol, or will that rot out some lubrication or surface material?

Is there anything that needs initial checkout/degunging/lubrication/maintenance, or any obvious "if it feels stiff/scratchy/... do this" maintenance items? I know roughly where gunge collects on a typical mouse or trackball, but the RM is a new experience, and I'm happier to test it for ~USD15 instead of 150+

[Hak Foo]

Okay, after slopping the unit down with alcohol and poking at it for 20 minutes, I feel like I'm stuck in a "you're holding it wrong" loop.

The rolling mechanism is nice, but I can't figure out placement. I sort of want to treat it like a Trackpoint, although obviously with way more play, but the position is wrong for that.

If I try to work it with a finger, then I'm way off from typing easily. If I use my thumbs, it's imprecise. Either way, the buttons may as well be in another postcode, and press-to-click the bar makes it jerk the cursor uncontrollably. It also gets weird and stuttery when you move to the end of its run; I'm not sure if it's supposed to try to continue to move, or just be jerking like using a Mouse-Keys feature.

I almost feel like I need some sort of instructional video to explain how to use it. Maybe people who use trackpads on laptops adapt to it more naturally, they're used to the buttons being well below the keyboard. I suspect it won't be great for a lot of games that assume WASD + Mouse; tried a bit of Genshin Impact and it was playable, but definitely weird.

[Muirium]

You’ve just spelled out—in glorious, painful detail—exactly what I’ve always thought a roller mouse would be like to use. I heard about them before I even got into keyboards, as Low End Mac regularly sang their praises. Never struck me as a natural, let alone appealing, mechanism however; so I’ve never tried one.

A vertical mouse once came in the DT Surprise Box, which I tried and found immediately infuriating! These alternate pointers just aren’t made for me. My hands are plenty cosy with regular mice and trackpads.

[kbdfr]

[…] If I try to work it with a finger, then I'm way off from typing easily. If I use my thumbs, it's imprecise. Either way, the buttons may as well be in another postcode, and press-to-click the bar makes it jerk the cursor uncontrollably.
[…]
I almost feel like I need some sort of instructional video to explain how to use it.

Here the text version of the video you are asking for
When typing and just having to move the pointer in-between, I do use my right thumb on the bar, and it works very well. When mousing is more than a single move in the middle of typing, I usually rotate my right forearm from the home row down to the Rollermouse until my middle and ring fingers rest on the bar, where they move it up, down and sideways and also press it, while using my thumb for the scroll wheel and the middle and right button.

It probably helps that I never used a wrist rest, but always hovered with my hands over the keyboard, so from the outset the hand motion was a very natural move.

I actually needed some time to accurately press the bar to click, but have no problem at all with that now - it is absolutely precise. A question of practice, I guess. After all, you don't simply grab a guitar and start playing

[…] Maybe people who use trackpads on laptops adapt to it more naturally, they're used to the buttons being well below the keyboard. […]

No idea, I used a trackpad for a short time and disliked it at once, while I absolutely love my Rollermouse, particularly for allowing me to keep my hands in front of me.