It feels like I am constantly fixing computer mice. The most common issue is the wires breaking near the mouse, requiring me to shorten the cable and resolder it to the PCB. I usually also add some glue or heat shrink tubing as strain relief if I haven’t done so already. Switching the household to wireless mice would solve the problem, at the expense of having yet more batteries to deal with.
I started off today with a new fix: the plastic axle from a mouse wheel broke off. I drilled through the mouse wheel and put a toothpick in instead. We’ll see how long that holds up. If it doesn’t, I’ll have to see if I can find a screw or nail of the right diameter instead.
Likely near future task: my daughter complains of a mouse double clicking. When it earlier had that problem, it seemed to me that it was generating an extra click on release, which sounds to me like a debouncing failure. But then I took it apart and put it back together and the problem disappeared, so I didn’t have a chance to fix it. Apparently the problem has come back, but I can’t duplicate it. If and when I duplicate it, I plan to hook it up to an oscilloscope, and play around with capacitors to debounce the release.
I wonder if problems would decrease if we bought more expensive mice.
I had the same problem, then I noticed that a better mouse would not have those problem. After that I followed by imagining an even better, perfect mouse who would also always be anywhere I needed it.
ReplyDeleteI use this one now.
I presume getting a slightly more expensive one would reduce the damage since the (overall) quality should be better. It also depends on the brand you’re purchasing from as well.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the most common problem we have is caused by flexibility of cable and cost both pushing the manufacturer to thinner cables. I would be happy to sacrifice cable flexibility to have less breakage. I used to have a tiny mouse where at some point I replaced the very thin cable by a fat USB cable from some other product, and the result was a bit more annoying to use, but at least the cable lasted.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing happens with wired earbuds -- I would prefer uncomfortably fat cables if they just didn't break.
swsw made me think what my perfect mouse would be like. :-)
ReplyDeleteIt would be a wireless mouse--so cables don't break--but at the same time it would be battery-free. This may sound like a violation of the laws of nature, but there is such a thing on the market: a Wacom Intuos mouse. It does require a Wacom drawing tablet, and we actually have one large Wacom3 tablet in the household. The tablet, of course, has a cable (I assume the mouse inductively sips power from the tablet, just like I think the styluses do), but the tablet cable should be a lot more reliable than a mouse cable, because (a) it is quite thick and (b) it isn't moved as often as a mouse cable. And Intuos3 mice and tablets are not expensive on ebay if you get the tablet without a stylus.
I wonder what the latency for gaming would be like.
One does lose some portability: all the PCs in regular use are laptops.