Take Apart an Optical Mouse

cheap jerseys These seem to show up with some regularity in the E waste bins at work. They're USB mice, although apparently they'll talk PS2 as well, using cheap nfl jerseys a merely physical adapter (these adapters don't actually translate between PS2 and USB protocols, they just connect the wires differently. The processor inside the mouse detects which kind of connection is in use, and reconfigures its pins as appropriate.) cheap jerseys Once the screws are removed, the top and bottom of the mouse separate relatively easily. The one in the photos here had three circuit boards, and some additional screws cheap nfl jerseys to remove. The other (older?) mouse only had two boards, and was had its internals held together entirely by plastic tabs and slots. Step 4: So What Have We Got? Clippable and Unpluggable: LEDs and Cables. So is there anything inside that we can use? And how about hacking the mouse to make it do something unexpected? To start with, there are the LEDs.1) Two ultrabright red LEDs, with pretty long leads. One of these is the "tail" LED, which has no purpose other than "art." The tail LED could be replaced with other color LEDs, or LEDs that blink. Or you can take it out and the mouse should continue to work fine without it. These LEDs have long enough leads that you can probably just clip them off with wire cheap nfl jerseys cutters and use them elsewhere; no de soldering required.2) It's a bit sad, but true, that sometimes the most useful bit you can get out of a piece of modern electronics is a bit of wire. In cheap jerseys this case, the mouse has a nice cable cheap nfl jerseys with a USB connector at one end and a little PCB connector at the other. USB plugs are a useful source of power for custom electronics, so this cable, with little modification, may be one of the more useful bits in the mouse. Stripped of its outer insulation and separated into individual wires, we have a source of particularly flexible stranded insulated wire, potentially useful for all sorts of "wearable" electronics. Step 5: Easily Desolderable wholesale jerseys Some components are more easily de soldered from a PCB than others. Through hole parts with three pins or wholesale jerseys less are pretty easy to remove using solder wick, for example.1) Each of these mice has five micro swicthes; relatively nice SPDT ones that might be useful2) Infrared emitter and "direction detector" as part of the mouse wheel. In the mouse wheel, which is also optical, there's a two lead part that is an infrared LED, and a four lead part that is dual photo transistor or (perhaps) more complex circuit that outputs signals sufficiently complex for the microcontroller to tell which way a slotted wheel (turned with the mouse wheel) is turning. This is all on a nice separate board; with a bit of mechanical skill you might be able to use the wheel separately from the rest of the mouse.3) The new version of the mouse has a three pin 6MHz (a common speed for USB things) ceramic resonator hiding under that metal can. (A three pin resonator replaces a crystal and two caps in most microcontroller circuits.) The older version has two 2 pin resonators (somewhat less useful IMO.) wholesale jerseys Step 6: More Difficult to Get At: Chips and SMT Components? That leaves the more difficult components to remove. SMT components and things with lots of pins. The optical sensor is rumored to be usable as a low resolution camera (32x32 pixels?), but in the newer version of the mouse, the camera and microprocessor are put together on the same "mouse on a chip", so perhaps the camera is no longer accessible. It might make interesting jewelery. I managed to get it off the board by wholesale nfl jerseys heating the whole thing over a gas flame on thereverse side of the board till the whole thing was smoldering and the solder was melted, and then THWACKing on a moderately hard surface. The house smelled bad for a week, in spite the exhaust fan; this sort of thing should probably be done outside if you're going to do it. wholesale nfl jerseys Step 7: Conclusion. wholesale nfl jerseys wholesale nfl jerseys from china Done! Wish I could think of something more profound to say. wholesale nfl jerseys from china my mouse doesnt have any screws on it. hepl! check under stickers and the feet of the mouse While reading the steps I was thinking that this would be a great Maker Space item. Often students want to take electronics apart and see what inside. The STEM teachers could use mice disection into a lesson. cheap nfl jerseys I meant, apply mice disection. cheap nfl jerseys My 1000 Mouse (a model 1068) is different to get into nasty Microsoft!!! Two screw holes present, but unused, at the non cable end, none at the cable end... just one under the middle of the bar code in the label. cheap jerseys Half hour to get in and five mins to fix cheap nfl jerseys normal then! Just long hair wrapped around the wheel stopping it running properly I blame the dog but I haven got one!? Still fair amount of other cheap nfl jerseys fluff and dust removed so probably needed to do it soon anyway now just some remotes to refurb. cheap jerseys wholesale nfl jerseys from china One of my project need to get 1000 to 2000 frames/Sec. wholesale nfl jerseys from china cheap jerseys Is it the cable or at the roll up item? cheap jerseys cheap nfl jerseys Most of my mouse failures have been mechanical: switches that become flakey, wheels that break, springy plastic bits that cease to be springy. I guess your cable; the roll up part shouldn have any electrical effect (unless it just the roll up part that broken. You can see the buttons as black rectangles with gray Typically the casing of the mouse will have various cleverly designed plastic bits that end up pushing the relatively standard microswitch style buttons. And typically you can either remove and relocate the buttons, or just parallel alternate buttons (watch out if the mouse electronics connects to all three terminals of the switch, though.) cheap nfl jerseys wholesale jerseys Is there some software to let you use this in any way you like? I thinking robotics where the optics could be used for positioning, the wheel for touch sense and the buttons as bump detectors. wholesale jerseys Any suggestions? I seen some use a PIC as an adaptive interface but software to change it use from a PC based robot.