help my space navigator has a skin decease....... serious!

[~master]

I was hoping to hear from you all how well your 3Dconnexion device is lasting.

Mine still works but the black rubber material on the knob is shedding.  It is disgusting to touch as it feels sticky and greasy.

Anyone else seen this?

[cbenner]

This is normal.  After a while it gets to be just shiny plastic.  Windex will help cut the sticky feeling.  It's not leprosy, I promise.

[jtylerbc]

Yes, normal.  Most of the engineers at my previous company had them, and almost all of them were doing the same thing after a year or so.

[SBix26]

That's true for just one of our Spaceball 4000s, but has not happened to any of the Explorers or Navigators that I know of.

[~master]

I am beginning to understand why 3Dconnexion is sort of ignoring this.  They know.

[JDMather]

We have 25 Navigators and 25 Spaceballs.
Only see this problem on a couple of them.
Sounds like 3DConnexion (or vendor) had a manufacturing issue.

[jtylerbc]

JD, how old are the units you're talking about?  Of the ones my company had, mine was the oldest (by at least 6 months - it was a sample provided by our vendor when we first started using Inventor), and was by far the most heavily used.  Yet it was one of only a couple I remember that weren't peeling, and the other was one that was mostly used by a part-time intern. 

I always suspected they had done some sort of "cost reduction" change that caused the issue, between the time mine was bought and when we purchased the ones for everyone else.

[~master]

Mine is about 3 years old. It has been like this for at least 8 months.

[jtylerbc]

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@~master wrote:

Mine is about 3 years old. It has been like this for at least 8 months.

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That seems about right for the purchase timing for the ones we had that peeled.  If so, you actually did better than us - ours bought around that time were peeling in less than a year. 

[cbenner]

Mine is just about 4(?) years old now, Space Explorer... and the peeling occurrred within the first year or so.  Most of the rubber is gone now, the plate where my palm rests was first to go.

[~master]

I am not using it on a day to day basis.

[DVDM]

My 3 y/o space navigator started just a month ago, after I had put it in bag to take it somewhere. It rubbed a bit during transport, which broke that thin skin in a couple spots. Now as I'm using it the peeling is accelerating.