Preorders for the next batch of Rotatrix Wired are open now through August 5th. Units ship in order, starting early September. Reserve now for an earlier spot.
The Rotatrix Wired replaces the SlimBlade Pro’s controller to turn the trackball into a 3D controller. This past weekend, I brought it to Open Sauce and hundreds of engineers, makers, and 3D artists tried it.
I loved seeing people light up when they pivoted, panned, and zoomed a model with direct 1:1 control they had never felt before.
A limited initial batch of Rotatrix Wired units shipped earlier this month, and now I’m opening the next batch to everyone. The options:
Pre-assembled & tested — US$299. Ready to use with a 1-year warranty. Reserve your spot with a 25% refundable deposit ($75); the rest will be charged when your unit ships.
Self-install kit — US$149. Get the circuit board only and install it in a SlimBlade Pro you source yourself (details). No charge today; your card is saved and charged when it ships. Kits will likely ship faster than assembled units.
All units come with a perpetual license to the software and integrations, with continual development based on user feedback. Orders can be canceled anytime before shipment.
Fulfillment: After pre-orders close, I’ll size the first production run to match — ordering boards and trackballs, arranging for a temporary workspace, and bringing on help for assembly and shipping. First orders ship by early September, in the order reserved within each option.
I set dates carefully; the last runs finished shipping ahead of the date promised. I’ve now shipped hundreds of Rotatrix units so I’m ready to scale this up.
Rotatrix 1.4.0 adds two new integrations: Autodesk Inventor and Rhino 7 & 8. That brings the lineup to six supported apps — Fusion, Blender, Onshape, FreeCAD, and now these two.
Inventor is tested on 2024–2027 (older releases may work but aren’t tested), and Rhino is tested on both Windows and macOS.
Much of the rest of 1.4.0 came straight from user feedback — including cleaner default keybindings: orbit, pan, and zoom now behave consistently across every app and OS, so the muscle memory you build in one place carries everywhere, and zoom tracks the point you’re orbiting around by default.
For the complete list of changes, see the full changelog.
Prototype run for the Rotatrix Wired control board — first unit validated.
TL;DR:
The current DIY kits will be restocked Wednesday, June 3 at 12pm ET — still US$129, at rotatrix.com/kit.
Rotatrix Wired — a new board-replacement edition — is on track for pre-orders beginning late June (US$149 kit / US$299 assembled).
In my last update I mentioned a DIY kit in beta, and a “V1.5” board that replaces the Kensington controller entirely. Here’s news on both.
First, the original Rotatrix design is now called Rotatrix Hybrid. It adds a microcontroller alongside the stock Kensington one, functioning as a Rotatrix over USB, and a Kensington (2D-only) mouse over wireless.
Going forward, Hybrid lives on as a solder-it-yourself kit (too labor-intensive to offer assembled). The kit has now graduated from beta:
Hybrid kits restock Wednesday, June 3 at 12pm ET (UTC−4). More at rotatrix.com/kit — price is still US$129.
Hybrid is for you if you can build it yourself and want to keep the trackball’s wireless mouse mode, or want a Rotatrix as soon as possible.
Rotatrix Wired is the new name for the board replacement: a custom circuit board that replaces the Kensington controller entirely. Installation becomes a quick board swap with just a screwdriver. In exchange for going wired-only, the original 3-position power switch and DPI button are freed up as extra mappable controls.
The first Wired prototype boards are in. I’ve built the first Wired unit and I’m using it as I write this. Next, I’m ordering a small initial batch — if all goes well, I’ll open pre-orders in late June for both self-install kits (US$149) and pre-assembled & tested (US$299), with fulfillment scaling in August. Full comparison at rotatrix.com/editions.
Smaller notes:
Fulfillment on the current batch is running ahead of schedule.
On the software side, I’ve been improving Linux support and started prototyping Inventor and Rhino integrations.
First — thanks to everyone who’s emailed with questions, ideas, and interest. I’ve read every reply and appreciate the support, even where I haven’t been able to respond individually.
Existing orders. Orders already accepted are in progress. Current units are hand-soldered — adding a custom controller into a Kensington SlimBlade Pro with a dozen wire connections. Since interest has outpaced my bench, I’ve been recruiting freelance technicians in NYC to help with assembly.
A kit option, now in beta. A lot of makers reached out wanting to do the install themselves, so I put together a kit version — the same controller mod, but you solder it into your own SlimBlade Pro. I’m releasing it in small batches and opening more spots as I go.
V1.5 is in development. Same functionality, different build — a custom PCB that replaces the stock Kensington controller entirely. Two things this unlocks:
Assembled units get much faster to build — the PCB can be contract-manufactured and dropped in with a screwdriver.
Installation can be DIY without requiring soldering skills.
The trade-off: V1.5 is fully wired-only. V1 offers full 3D in wired mode and Kensington’s stock mouse control over wireless; replacing the stock controller altogether means giving up that wireless mode. Wireless Rotatrix functionality will have to wait for future development.
Reopening assembled orders is delayed. Hand-soldering doesn’t scale well, so rather than reopen on the original timeline, I’m aiming to reopen alongside V1.5, with firm dates to come. Kits will move out of beta sooner.
“The 3D Controller That Should Have Existed 20 Years Ago.”
I posted a video walking through why I built Rotatrix — the case for a trackball with true 3D rotation, and what it feels like to navigate CAD with one — and it broke out well beyond what I expected, picking up 200,000+ views in its first week.
By this point Rotatrix was already a product. I’d shared it across the Blender, FreeCAD, and Onshape communities, but this video is what truly broke it open — it sold out my build capacity for months within a day.
If you’re just finding the project, this is the best place to start.
The first public post — r/Trackballs, February 2026.
Rotatrix began as a mod I shared on Reddit.
The first public mention was a short clip in r/Trackballs: I’d added a custom controller to my SlimBlade Pro that reads the full sensor data and maps it to 3D control — rotation, translation, camera navigation. I ended the post asking, “Anyone here do 3D work? Looking for people to try this out and give feedback.”
Three weeks later I posted a fuller demo in r/Fusion360 — comparing it directly against a mouse and a SpaceMouse — and that’s when it really started getting attention: ~420 upvotes, 56k views, and a wave of early signups.
That early feedback led to the first sales — and once those customers had Rotatrix in hand, several wrote back directly with glowing reviews. That’s what convinced me this was worth building for other people.
