Mouse Wore Down

[MrAl]

Hello,

My mouse is wearing down pretty thin. I've had it for a long time
now but i like this one and want to keep it. It only cost 20 dollars
but it works very well.

The parts that wore are the 'feet'. There are (or i should say 'were')
four feet that are only about 1/16 inch high, but there purpose was
to lift the mouse up higher so the whole bottom did not make contact
with the sliding surface. This meant that the friction was reduced
so the mouse is easier to slide around as you use the computer.
Now, the two front feet are completely worn down so the entire
underside of the body of the mouse drags on the surface, which
makes the mouse harder to slide around. It's quite annoying.

Any ideas?

I've used baby powered already, but that makes too much of a mess.

Any other ideas?

[Bigglez]

My mouse is wearing down pretty thin. I've had it for a long time now but i like this one and want to keep it. It only cost 20 dollars but it works very well.

Go buy a new mouse.

There are many to choose from, your local
electronics store will have demo units,
Circuit City probably has good deals...

Check out eBay Item number: 200267301419

I bought three of these this year and found the
wireless feature better than the traditional
tethered version. It does eat two AA batteries
every six weeks or so (there is no on-off switch).

[Robert Reed]

MrAl
Do you drink coffee? Almost all containers come with that teflon lid. Just punch out four 1/4" circles, scuff up the back and adhere with contact cement over original feet. I use these lids for a variety of repairs and construction ranging from electronics to automotive.

[MrAl]

Go buy a new mouse.

Bigglez:
I thought i made it clear that i didnt want to buy a new mouse.
Maybe i should have worded that differently?

Robert:
Interesting idea, so i tried it. The coffee top i tried didnt seem
to work however, it still created too much drag. I took your
idea anyway, and tried an old CD disk. It seems to work and it's
already got a hole in it for the light beam. I might next glue it
on and give a few days trial. Thanks for the idea.

[jwax]

Try going commercial MrAl-
Mouse feet!
http://www.slicksurf.com/
John

[Robert Reed]

MrAl
Thats dissapointing to hear. What color was the lid. The ones I come in contact with are blue,white or clear. The clear ones always work the best for a slippery surface, maybe a harder material? But Jwaxe's post sounds like a good way to go if all else fails.

[MrAl]

Hi again,


jwax, wow that's cool. Thanks for the link.

Robert, it was red, but now i realized that the CD isnt working too well
either. At first it seemed ok, but it's dragging a bit too much too.

What i did for temp solution was put a piece of scotch tape across the
whole bottom in the front only. It seems to work ok i guess, but
i'd like something better. This will wear out fast anyway.

I'm also wondering now if i could make some feet out of
acrylic plastic. Maybe cut out four feet and glue them on?
The old feet were plastic anyway so maybe...

[CeaSaR]

MrAl,

Do you have a Dollar Tree or some other type of Dollar Store near you?
The local Dollar Tree has a generic 2 button corded mouse that would
work well as a slider donor. For a buck, it would be worth a shot. Of
course, with the way that store moves product, it wouldn't surprise me to
find them gone next time I go in...

CeaSaR

[frhrwa]

if you could just get some of that material they use to slide furniture around on.. its super slick.. just need to get some that is thin enough to use..

[Dean Huster]

The coffee can lids cannot be Teflon. They're probably polyethylene. A plastic milk carton uses some pretty slick plastic. If you can't replace the feet to your satisfact, how about a mouse pad that's slick instead of spongy? A plastic cutting board comes to mind.

Dean

[MrAl]

Ceasar:
All the dollar stores around here (and we have three or four of them)
dont carry any mice, nor did they ever as far as i know, so im beat
there.

frhrwa:
I dont know what kind of material that is, but if i end up buying
something i'll probably go with jwax's idea of simply buying some
new feet...seems like a reasonable price no?

Dean:
You're right...all the coffee cans i have around all have some sort
of poly plastic, not teflon...too bad. I did have a sheet of
acrylic laying around though, so that's my next discussion...
I like the idea about the cutting board too, i think they sell them
at most grocery stores around here. I'll have to try that too.


All:
Of all the ideas jwax's would probably be the most direct, but i
was hoping to use something i had laying around so i wouldnt
have to buy anything. I'll end up doing that probably though
if nothing i have laying around works, in the long run.
Robert's idea seemed very good because i had coffee can covers,
but unfortunately i dont have any that are teflon...they are all
some sort of crappy plastic, but that doesnt mean i had to scrap
the idea altogether. I stuck some tape on the bottom and that
worked, but i really wanted something more permanent, so keeping
with the plastic/teflon idea i tried some acrylic next. I had
a fairly large piece left over from something else so i cut off
a strip and cut that strip in half and ended up with two strips
each less than 3 inches long. I set the two strips down on
the flat table, layed the mouse on top of both with one strip
across the underside front and one strip across the underside
back and hot glued them on both sides to keep it sturdy.
I could apply hot glue from the top (on both sides) because
the strips are slightly oversized and so stick out on both
sides of the mouse. Ok, so that done, i tested the mouse,
and guess what? It slides better than it ever did! It's like
pushing it on ice Really though, it's very slick.
The two strips are about 1/2 inch wide and around 3 inches long
each one. The thickness of the acrylic is less than 1/8
inch, probably 3/32 inch thick but i didnt measure it. It cant
be too thick because that would raise the mouse bottom
up too high and the laser wouldnt be able to read the surface.

Ok so it's slick as heck, better than i could have imagined
possible, but there appears to be one slight drawback. That is,
it appears that with the mouse raised up a little higher off
the surface like that the mouse action appears to 'slow down',
where the pointer doesnt move across the screen as fast as
before. I compensated by adjusting the settings in the mouse
hardware settings in Control Panel. This seems to help so
i'll have to see how it works out over a longer period
of time. It's turned all the way up now however, so if it
doesnt seem to be fast enough i'll have to thin down the
plastic before the final version i guess. It's really
incredible how well it slides though so if anyone else wants
to try it i thought i would let everyone know. If i had
to buy the acrylic however i think i would try to get
1/16 inch thick stuff instead.
Of course now i have to see how well it wears over time,
and use some more permanent glue, like epoxy.

[SETEC_Astronomy]

Try going commercial MrAl-
Mouse feet!
http://www.slicksurf.com/
John

ok it's official there's now a website for everything. How did you ever find that? I have to bookmark it otherwise when I need them like MrAl I could never find them. +10 points to you.

[MrAl]

Hi again,

Yeah that was an interesting site huh?
It's interesting that other people have thought about this too.

So far the acrylic is holding out. The one piece that sticks out from
the side is a little strange because it hits the thumb a little, so the
final design will have to have this part cut off. The mouse now
looks like a tiny snow mobile, only instead of the snow tracks going
from front to back they go from side to side. I think the extra area
of the 'pads' or 'tracks' (whatever you want to call them) means less
overall sliding friction because they 'ride' the slightly uneven surface
a little better. Sticking friction might be the same or even a little
higher but i made no attempt to measure this yet, and it doesnt
seem to bother anything. The sliding friction seems the most
prominent feature, which is much reduced with larger footprint.

[jwax]

Google is our friend!
MrAl, keep in mind that if you build up the height of the mouse, you're risking increased strain on your wrist muscles.
That's if you do a lot of mousing around!

[jollyrgr]

I know what you mean by wanting to keep a particular mouse. At work I've had the same keyboard for eleven years now. No Windows keys or any of those special buttons. Just a standard 101 Keybaord.

My mouse at work is a Microsoft IntelliMouse with scroll wheel. (It has the ball in it.) I could get any mouse I want from optical, multibutton, etc. but I love this mouse.

While you can keep the same mouse you may want to get a cheap one and have it "donate" its feet to your old mouse.

Off hand, what mouse is it that you like so much? Like I stated, I like the Microsoft IntelliMouse; ball type at work, optical at home. What I really miss is the old IBM click keyboards....