Of Mice and Mods

For a long time I have sat on this mod and been reluctant to do it, but at last I finally found the time. It never really is a five minute mod despite your assurances to yourself. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

We have seen them - optical mice taking the world by storm and ALWAYS with a red LED. Even the Microsoft Blue mouse, as I was disappointed to find out, has blue trim on the exterior and a red LED. Red is not quite my thing so I decided to do something about it - change it.

For those who have been buying - that is the real reason why I happen to stock green LEDs, because I bought the minimum quantity to get a good price and I don't plan to bring any in /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif (but this is not the point..)


First step : strip your mouse using whatever means necessary. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif



Remove the circuit board and locate the LED. You only have to note the polarity and exchange the emitter one for one, right? Simple, easy peas for someone who's been swinging a soldering iron for a year. WRONG. Mr Butterfingers strikes again, tearing off the positive PCB trace by accident. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif if you manage to avoid a catastrophe at this point, simply exchange the LED and close up your mouse. If you are like me, proceed to the next step of locating this resistor on a Logitech optical mouse and soldering a line from it to the LED. Fortunately, this saved the mouse.



The end result looks very pretty.




Unfortunately it has side effects. I hate to discuss computers here but there is a certain element involved. My mousepad is a classic Ratpad from years gone by, and green does not provide enough sensitivity for the receiver to pick up a clear picture of the pad surface. Only VERY highly textured surfaces work properly, such as (of all things) Levis jeans, my speckled tile and so on.

But it sure looks pretty and is a guaranteed attention-getter. Now maybe all I need is a R/O Lux3 with 230 lumens in there. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nana.gif

So, will MORE POWER solve the problem? Bypassing R15 produces a dramatic increase in brightness (as all of us know, when you take the resistor out of the equation..).

Yup, things improve slightly. It still mis-tracks more on certain surfaces, which I fully expected - the sensor on the mouse may be specifically tuned to red light, so you never know. But I did enjoy the mod.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

you seeee everyone what happens when you give someone tools and too much time on there hands!!!!!!! a GREEN mouse.. argh what it the world coming to the humanity of it......

btw looks good
doug

Do you know how much current the LED is getting?

Ive seen people mod them to using blue instead of red. Not sure about the usability hit that you're experiencing.

Shane

What about a Nichia white? I say that because they tend to last and you'll need it to be brightest for many hours of use..

Or even an AMBER led would be cool..

It's a Nice mod Kevin /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Thanks for sharing....

I also have done similar mod about a year back.. to Keyboard & Mouse...
(sorry for the dark image... its 2:10 AM in the night....) cant switch on the lights /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif



(this happened by an accident actually...) some coffee fell of on the keyboard... and the "HJKLNM<>YUIOP" keys on the right half were not working for this Microsoft Keyboard... so i had to open the keyboard to fix it... and looking at the structure & the way LED's were placed, (no solder was needed to do this mod)... just replaced the Pale Yello - Green LED's with White, Red & Green 3 mm LED's. ... for the Num Lock (White) , Caps Lock (Red) and the Scroll Lock (Green). Less than a monute for this mod

yes Nichia White will work in the mouse ... I don't have it's picture because it's in my office at this moment. it dosent work as well as the "Mono Chromatic" LED's but it works /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Red, Blue and PG work .... best .. blue-green led's and White LED's have some trouble... donno why.. may be perhaps sensor is sensitive to MonoChromatic light

I believe it is an infrared sensor.

Hi buddies,

Blue leds is not very far from red leds in terms of wavelengths(nm) so it should work fine, slight performance drop. YMMV depending on your mouse tracking sensor.

Click here(Optical Mouse technology review, by Richard L. Owens) to read more about mouse optical stuff.

-vince.

Look at this mod for your mouse. Kind of funny...

http://metku.net/cryo/

BTW: Kevin, I like the title, it happens to be my favorite book.

nah icebreak... it cant be... how will it work with Blue LED's then? .. they are on the other side of table.. if we see the wavelengths....

quite a few mice in market have blue led .. they wont function if it had IR sensor....

It could be MonoChromatic sensor though... or may be some thing to do with Polarized light... (can see a filter there...)

Not sure why it isn't tracking properly.. yeah, I assumed it would be a monochromatic sensor. It may have something to do with the sensor perceiving different degrees of reflection. I notice dark surfaces don't do so well. Dark blue or black seems to provide plenty of mistracking.

Blue has the shortest wavelength but the sensor may be more effective at picking them up. Green is somewhere in the middle, red is pretty long. Hmm... maybe white might be better, I'll check it out some time.

Haven't had the opportunity to break out a DMM but I think the LED is getting a full five volts, after all that is what USB power is regulated to and I don't see a step down. This would be commensurate with direct-driving it on two CR2016s (put the green LED in a keychain light as a mod) - I see similar brightness levels. Which of course leads us to the longevity of the LED, I would wonder, but for now I am just enjoying the mouse. For this reason I'll carry it to work tomorrow but I'll make sure I have another unmodded mouse as a backup (since I can't work without them if it goes kaput!)

[ QUOTE ]
ViReN said:
nah icebreak... it cant be...

[/ QUOTE ]I see what you mean. Thanks for the correction.