Spacemouse Pro

All of our Spacemouse Pro's have a finish issue on the top face, it's as if a coating or sealant is delaminating. Not sure what 3dconnexion was rying to accomplish by doing that, perhaps a coating was a cheaper method than overmolding with soft rubber. Whatever it is, is scrapable but it literally is all over the entire surface of the main surface that has the knob and 1-4 buttons, but not on the left and right sides. It's just plain nasty looking so when customers show up I hide it with a print lol.

I've tried a few cleaners but nothing works well. Does anyone have tips on cleaning it up?

We've got a bunch of them and some of the older models like the Spacepilot Pro and haven't had any issues with finish on any of them. Do yours get coolant or some other solvent on them?

Got a guy here at work that has the same problem. He said he read something about isopropanol and a toothbrush, but he didn't follow through with trying it. I would say try some naptha on a rag(or ronsinol ligher fluid) for the sticky bits.

BluishInventor said:

Got a guy here at work that has the same problem. He said he read something about isopropanol and a toothbrush, but he didn't follow through with trying it. I would say try some naptha on a rag(or ronsinol ligher fluid) for the sticky bits.

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Thanks!

jaguar36 said:

We've got a bunch of them and some of the older models like the Spacepilot Pro and haven't had any issues with finish on any of them. Do yours get coolant or some other solvent on them?

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No, positive about that. Whatever 3dconnexion applied over the molded panel is what's coming off. I have a brand new one at my other office so I'll see how that one holds up.

You might try Windex....I experienced this on an older unit I had, and it seemed to improve things considerably. The one I've got currently hasn't degraded in the same manner (yet?).

There's a thread (several, actually) addressing this on the 3D Connexion forum: https://forum.3dconnexion.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18919&p=112045&hilit=sticky#p112045

I suspect they were trying to build in some planned obsolescence on the hardware side. They have a history of removing support for still working devices from their driver releases to keep people buying their newer products. My SpacePilot works fine with older drivers, but it is not recognized by their newer drivers indicating it was simply removed and is not incompatible. Furthermore, their plugin for Rhino, which 3dconnexion develops, requires the latest driver and for no apparent reason. Their older plugin works fine with the most recent release of Rhino, but they won't supply it when asked. I had to install an old version of Rhino, copy out the old plugin, update to the newest version of Rhino and replace the new plugin with the old one to get it to work.

SD&M said:

You might try Windex....I experienced this on an older unit I had, and it seemed to improve things considerably. The one I've got currently hasn't degraded in the same manner (yet?).

There's a thread (several, actually) addressing this on the 3D Connexion forum: https://forum.3dconnexion.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18919&p=112045&hilit=sticky#p112045

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Definitely is an issue according to that thread and it sounds like 3dconnexion may have addressed the issue.

The solution to all electronic problems...Black electrical tape...

Areo Defense said:

Definitely is an issue according to that thread and it sounds like 3dconnexion may have addressed the issue.

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The newer one I've had for a couple of years *is* starting to lose some of the coating on the knob, but it seems to not be getting sticky in any way-thankfully.

They *are* handy to use (and some folks swear that they can't do without 'em), but it was disappointing too experience this on a $300+ device. Glad they seem to have (mostly) fixed this.

Of topic but do you guys recall the old Magellan Spacemouse? It had a wierd shaped puck and a simple layout of 9 buttons. I loved those models, they worked great. As far as I can tell, the only reason they disappeared is because they were obsoleted by discontinuing driver development.

How about the old Spaceballs? Those were incredibly bad, every one we purchased quit functioning, with a relatively short lifespan. Many of them had balls that became almost completely disconnected. Also on a number of them the purple rubbery cover of the ball would become loose and to make matters worse there was some sort of nasty, weird, grease underneath the cover, similar to petroleum jelly. Dielectric grease perhaps, I don't know.

You'd think after the long history of these devices, they would get it right. Especially since the old Magellan Space Mice have proven to be the most durable IMO.