Opening Up Optical Mouse

I am having trouble opening up my computer mouse. I am hoping to be able to clean the mouse more thoroughly by opening it up. I found 3 screws, which I have removed. However, the bottom still doesn't open.. there seems to be something still holding the bottom panel to the rest of the mouse. Any ideas?

 

I think opening the mouse would be a bad idea. The remaining screws are likely under the Teflon pads. If you remove the pads, they will get bent out of shape and you will not be able to bend them back. Then the mouse will not slide properly at all.

Generally, a quick blast from a canned of compressed dusting gas is all you need to do to remove any dust, eyelashes and other debris.

 

Gigabyte GM-Force M7. I just now searched for instructions or a video but didn't find anything.

 

Thanks. I didn't think of using canned air because in my experience some of the accumulation of dirt and grime on mouse is a little sticky and so it might be tough to get off with canned air. I tried using a piece of cardboard to scrape it out a little. I will take your suggestion and try some canned air, too. That could even help after scraping it out because the dirt and grime might be more loosened.

 

It is true that kitchen grease, even oily skin dander (or worse, tobacco smoke) contributes to the dust and grime that can get into a mouse. And that can be sticky enough compressed air or dusting gas won't remove it. But just removing the dust can help.

You did not say why you want to open the mouse. If it is just because the pointer jumps around or doesn't move properly when you move the mouse, then a blast of dusting gas can help immensely. If the optical lens remains dirty, some eyeglass lens cleaner on a cotton swab can take care of that.

But if the problem is the wheels or buttons/switches, that can be a problem. You might try squirting in some quality electrical contact cleaner. But note in spite of their claims, some plastics can be discolored by this.

 

Sorry that I didn't answer the question about why I was trying to open the mouse. I actually forget why. The idea of opening my mouse was on my to do list for a while. You see, I needed to borrow the right sized screw driver in order to perform the task. So, it got put off for a while, given the added hoop to jump through. I think the right or left mouse click or scroll wheel was not working correctly or I just noticed grime on the mouse and decided that it needed to be cleaned. I will have to check out the idea of electrical contact cleaner. I don't remember ever hearing about such a thing but that does sound useful. I will probably pick some up the next time that I make a purchase at a computer store.

 

Electrical contact cleaner has been around decades longer than personal computers. Not sure your local computer store would carry it. It is often found in the electronics department of home improvement stores. Electronics repair shops always keep it on hand, but they don't always sell to the public.

Radio Shack used to carry it around here, but they went out of business.

 

Got a good link for those sticks. That one you posted does show them.

I like the idea of no lint. I usually give a quick blast of compressed dusting gas after using a Q-Tip just to ensure no cotton strands were left behind.

 

I have used foam swabs before. Some, like these, are even designed (or at least marketed that way) for optical surfaces. The suede ones sounded like a nice alternative.

 

I believe they're chamois swabs.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=chamois+swab

 

Doh! I should have known that as we used to use "chamois sticks" back in the day to clean the record and playback heads of our 40 channel tape decks, as well as VCR R/W heads.

I sure wish I could remember the things I forgot!

Well, the description does say "synthetic suede! That said, when it comes to genuine chamois and suede, not sure there is any difference, except for the animal it comes from.

 

I want one!

 

No you don't. These were big, monster, dual deck systems used to record air traffic control (ATC) tower console positions. The 40 tracks recorded each radio frequency and phone line in the tower "cab". So they were for voice only and had a frequency response of ~300Hz to 3KHz. They were used for ATC logging purposes only. Effective but the quality was nothing to brag about.

 

When something needs a really good clean and 99% isopropyl alcohol and air won't do the job I have an old kit of flexible polishing/burnishing sticks with leather surfaces. You can use them with or without the polishing paste that is supplied and they are great for getting into tight places. One of mine sits in a metal tub of ultra fine Pikal metal polish that was supplied in the 1980s by Sharp Corporation for polishing their CDS (cadmium disulphide) photocopier drums (from when I used to service microproceesor based copiers). I still have half a can and don't even know if it is still available because as we know, many cadmium products have fallen from favour due to the toxic waste and they now use unserviceable OPC (organo photo conductor) drums so no need to polish them.
These are similar to what I have except these are probably synthetic and my ones are real leather
https://www.amazon.com/SM-SunniMix-...38168858&sr=8-93&keywords=metal+polish+strips

This is the same can of Pikal that I have and it has lasted me since 1980 as only the thinnest smear is ever used so the residue can be easily cleaned off with isopropyl alcohol.
https://feb29.org/wp-content/uploads/DSC02791.jpg

DISCLAIMER
PLEASE NOTE: Burnishing sticks will take off small amounts of material so if you use them to clean up gold plated contacts on PCBs and connectors, then be aware most gold contacts are only flash plated to only 4 or 5 microns and once the gold is removed the copper or sometimes brass underneath will readily oxidise and cause high resistance connections.
I suggest cleaning gold contacts with a soft child's toothbrush dipped 92% or stronger isopropyl alcohol. If you use rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl) there is too much water in it and it can leach into the FR4 printed circuit board fibreglass reinforcing material and cause intermittent problems. If the contacts are on FR1, FR2 or FR3 PCB material then this is much worse as these materials are basically phenolic resin pressed into fibres (usually thin cardboard) and they are used on any electronic device that is made to the cheapest possible quality.
Here is some PCB 101 if you are interested
http://www.bestpcbs.com/blog/2016/08/whats-the-difference-for-fr1-fr2-fr3-and-fr4-materials/

One last point is that water on FR4 PCBs is not too great a problem on one or two layer boards as they tend to have much wider tracks and with a wide track spacing and can easily be dried but water can be a major problem on multilayer boards that have very narrow tracks and track spacing and may have cracks in the conformal surface coating or if they have too large a soldermask relief at the manufacture stage which may allow water ingress to the inner layers and thus causing the problem.
Water is also the enemy of BGA sockets in particular but any IC socket really and this applies to processor and EEPROM (eg BIOS chip) sockets.
FR1, FR2 and FR3 material should never be cleaned with water unless they are fully encapsulated with epoxy and there are zero cracks.

 

When I search my local computer store's website, the only thing that seems to be relevant is a container labeled
"Isopropyl Alcohol." Maybe it's the 99% isopropyl alcohol, which was mentioned by another poster in this thread.
Is that the same as the cleaner that you were referring to originally?

 

If it is not marked as Rubbing Alcohol / Isopropyl Alcohol then it should be OK in most instances. FYI Rubbing alcohol is used on skin to prevent infections and bed sores on people who are bed ridden so it has more water in it to have less adverse impact when regularly used on skin. If you use the stronger stuff regularly as an antiseptic then it can lead to dermatitis and dry skin problems such as cracking.

A quick test to check the strength if it is not mentioned is to moisten (not too wet) a dry towelette or tissue with the alcohol and do one quick wipe on a smooth hard surface and time how long it takes to completely dry. I use a window as the hard surface because glass is non porous and very smooth. The stronger it is, the faster it evaporates and 92% or stronger evaporates very quickly (<10 seconds). Rubbing alcohol on the other hand evaporates quite slowly (30 seconds to 1 minute) and the slowest part to evaporate is the residual water which is 30% to 40% by volume. In the right light you can see the water as very faint rings around the outside edge as it evaporates.

If you have trouble getting isopropyl alcohol, over here in Australia, you can get it from a Chemist shop so maybe try a drugstore as they often use it for cleaning.

 

As I said above, it is not something a computer store would normally carry. Electrical contact cleaner is primarily used by technicians, not normal computer users. You need to visit a home improvement store, Amazon, or even an auto-parts store might have it.

 

In the US, there is isopropyl alcohol in drug stores (drug stores are a pharmacy which has prescriptions and basically a convenient store but with slightly different things [for example, doesn't have sandwiches]) and grocery stores (most grocery stores basically have drug stores integrated in them).

 

I used folder paper to clean out the mouse and then I used some canned air on it. But, the left mouse click button performs very poorly. I will try the electronic cleaner next.

 

I was able to get a bottle that's labeled isopropyl alcohol electrical grade. Here is a link to the product:
https://www.microcenter.com/product/362015/isopropyl-alcohol-electrical-grade---16-oz
There doesn't seem to be much additional detail on the bottle as to what's in it. It does say moderate evaporation, safe on plastics. Below that in smaller writing it says circuit boards, electronic equipment, electrical repair.
Can I spray that into the crevice that's under each of the 2 main mouse buttons?
I tried using canned air (didn't help really at all), and running a cut piece of cloth with isopropyl alcohol on it (not from the bottle that I linked to, just from a bottle purchased at the drugstore). The latter did work somewhat.
I understand that there was the idea of using the suede brushes or something similar. But, that plan seems to just get too costly (based on what's available on Amazon). I am not sure how much this mouse is worth but I see on Ebay there are a couple of listings for used ones around $65.
The idea of taking off the bottom pads/ strips (see pic in the OP) with the idea of taking the mouse completely apart doesn't seem bad. If I take them off, wont it work fine as long as I leave them off?

 

The Teflon pads are there for one reason - to allow the mouse to slide effortlessly and precisely across the mousing surface. And how a mouse moves and tracks is a major characteristic of the mouse. Remove the pads and a major part of how it feels is altered - in a bad way.

The pads will deform if you try to remove them so you cannot put them back on.

I have seen universal replacement pads but have never seen any "favorable" comments about them.

I would just shop around for a new mouse.

I have never used Isopropyl Alcohol spray. It probably works but I'll stick with contact cleaner.

 

The only cleaning spray I use on electronic/electrical things is contact cleaner. When I use isopopropyl alcohol I pour some in a clean dish and either brush it on with a good quality art brush or a lint free Q-tip which can be bought from specialist electronic/electrical wholesalers or something similar from ebay like these
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Lint-fr...h=item23a7d71a90:g:twIAAOSw~1tbc3HH:rk:3:pf:0
or these
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ABN-Foa...h=item51fedc1767:g:dw4AAOSw9KhaAy3Y:rk:2:pf:0

For a problematic mouse Digerati has the right idea.......I would be shopping for a new one as they are so cheap that it is not worth the time and effort and besides if you have to go out and buy the cleaning supplies then you will probably spend the mouse replacement cost and after cleaning you will still have an old mouse that may still fail for some other reason.

BTW I have several Logitech MX Revolution mice and tried replacing the teflon pads on one of them with several different brands of replacement pads and although the mouse worked it no longer felt the same and always seemed to lag. Also the replacement pads don't stick anywhere near as well as the original ones so they keep peeling off which is annoying.
These were the best ones I found but they are still not as good as the original ones https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Gaming-...h=item3ac16f700b:g:ogwAAOSw-RRXDUBj:rk:7:pf:0

 

I use to worry about lint free swaps. Now I just clean, then blast with compressed air to make sure no lint remains.

 

Hehehe...probably ok most of the time but I come from an Electronics Research & Development environment and when you work in a clean room, clean habits are hammered into you and become imprinted in your brain .........besides I have a big box of lint free swabs that was given to me by a supplier many years ago and I am only half way down the box so there will be a few more years before I have to buy any

 

Well, I worked in clean rooms for many years too. And for sure, you do a lot of things differently there than you would in typical shops or when working on your dining room table. We even had sticky floor mats to pull any dirt off our shoes, then had to wear ESD booties too!

When regular cotton swabs cost 1/10 the cost of lint free swabs for 10 times the amount - its a no brainer. And frankly I have not found regular swabs cause a lint problem anyway. Sharp component leads and electrical contacts can shred a lint free swap just as easily as a regular swab.

That said, if I had a box of lint free swabs, I would sure use them up before the foam started to disintegrate due to aging.

 

I must admit that there have been many times I have used ordinary Q-Tips when I have been out of my workshop and the soft bristle paint brush didn't have enough cleaning pressure to shift the dirty deposit and my swabs were at home.
Previously the biggest use was cleaning the slot in the rotating VCR heads and now it is the laser in CD and DVD players although I also have used them on the glass prisms and mirrors for boundary scan laser light curtains on industrial machines.

BTW I was given 12 dozen by 10 packs of medium/small lint free microfibre swabs on plastic applicators which is 1440 swabs. Each 10 pack is foil wrapped and has a long life inert gas inside. I was told they were developed for servicing classified military equipment in the field and had to be reliable in very hot sunny environments as well as very cold environments.
I was the head of the R & D PCB department of a major international company and they gave three boxes to the company and one box to me and one box to my PCB team leader in the hope we would start using their products and after some trials we started using their swabs as after testing, our quality control people said they had three times the life at only 1.5 times the cost of the swabs we were using so in the end it was an economic decision made by the bean counters.

 

Yep! Video and audio R/W heads is where I first started using them. But it was really for scratch and streak prevention rather than to prevent lint from remaining behind.

And yep, microfiber swabs were what we used for the R/W heads of the 40 channel tape recorders in our air traffic control facilities when I was in the AF. These were cheaper than the chamois swabs we used previously.

You mention "the field", I suspect that was just marketing hype. Generally such repairs are not done in the field when deployed. If something breaks in the field, they usually just swap in a quick spare and then the broken unit is sent back to a fixed base or repair depot. You generally just don't want to open up and expose the innards to such harsh environments as might be seen out in the field.

Generally, lugging around the necessary tools, test equipment, and supplies to make such repairs in the field takes up as much (or more) space and weight in back packs and trucks as known "good" and "working" spare unit does.

There are a lot of fake look-alikes out there so if looking for real "microfiber", make sure they say "microfiber" on the packages like these do. Note they look very similar to the plain "foam" swabs seen in your 2nd link in post #28 above. Those foam pads work okay (if they don't melt in the cleaning solution) but microfiber pads seem to be better at leaving no streaks behind.

But actually, if you can get your fingers in there, any clean microfiber cloth will work.

 

Jeez 40 channel tape recorders....... i thought I was working on some pretty fancy gear with several 16 channel Tascam decks that were originally out of a recording studio lolol. Were these 40 channel recorders for recording all of the the air traffic controller's conversations with pilots etc?

Hmmm....you may well be correct........hype.............and what you say makes very good logistic sense and after all it was technical marketing people talking to us and when it is all said and done they are still just salesmen trying to close a deal. They said when the US military setup temporary bases in places like Iran they usually had several modular units that were similar called Rapid Deployment Engineering Modules which could be assembled next to each other and become Engineering services. These modules were essentially several large shipping containers that had been converted inside to whatever technical lab that was required. Supposedly they were air conditioned and had air filters and were armoured on the outside and some had their own built in power generator.
These modules were supposedly deployed to cut down the time delay on their supply lines for servicing several "tactical" things used day to day that were in short supply.........but now you mention it your story seems much more plausible.........oh well I still got a big box of swabs out of the exercise
BTW they never told us what the "tactical" items were that were being serviced...... because it was classified information............ and so reflecting back on their story it may well have been some fanciful sales talk

 

Yep. All radio frequencies and landlines into the tower and GCA (ground control approach) RADAR facilities. They were dual deck systems. If, for example, the top deck failed for whatever reason, the bottom deck would automatically take over.

The audio quality was lousy, however - definitely not audiophile quality. But it was only needed for voice which is good since the tape was only 1 inch wide. If I remember correctly, the frequency response was just 300Hz to 3000Hz. And that was just fine for archival purposes in there was an accident or other "incident".

Yep. Slightly modified units could even be used for emergency field hospitals. Never seen any that were "armored", however. At least not what the military would call "armored". But then I retired from the AF in 1995 so there may be something out there now. That said, armored would make them pretty heavy. Good for protection, not to transport 1/2 way around the world.

Tactical can mean anything they can use immediately and "in theater" or short range. There is a good chance they had no clue what was classified or not. A radio system, for example, may not be classified. But the frequencies and authentication codes used for "today's" mission would be.

Remember, you need two things to have access to classified information. (1) The proper security clearance and (2) a "need to know". So even if you have a Top Secret clearance, if you don't have a "need to know" that information to do your job, you don't get access to that information. This means, with only a very few, select exceptions, no salesman is going to know much they can't tell you about.

Oh well, I think we have gone just a little bit off-topic!

 

Interesting the "need to know" part of the deal. I had a misconception that if you have a high security clearance then you could get any information up to your clearance level but obviously this is wrong.

Hehehe yep but an interesting hijack because I learnt something new

 

Many who have never had a clearance think that. And yes, if you have a Top Secret, you can see lower levels secure information (Secret and Classified) - but again, only if you need that information to do your job.

 

a more budget option for cleaning might be to wrap a coffee filter around a cotton swab or maybe glue it there. I read something that was recommending coffee filters for cleaning the thermal compound off of the CPU.

 

I sure would not glue anything to anything. If you want to use a coffee filter, just wrap it around your finger. Glue hardens then might scratch the soft copper or aluminum surfaces of the die's IHS (integrated heatspreader) or the heatsink. That would be bad.

Coffee filters are often recommended because decent ones don't leave any lint behind. I never found lint from a cotton swab any problem because I typically give the mating surfaces a quick blast of compressed dusting gas before applying TIM and mounting anyway.

 

what does "applying TIM" mean?

 

TIM is Thermal Interface Material.
In computers, it's applied between the CPU and heat sink.

FYI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_sink#Thermal_interface_materials

 

Thanks Eldon.

@Silverthunder - you mentioned "thermal compound". TIM or thermal interface material is the catch-all name the various products that are used to fill the microscopic pits and valleys in the mating surfaces of a heatsink and the device it is trying to keep cool to push out any insulating air that might get trapped between them.

You said thermal compound, but there are also thermal pads for example. There is also thermal film, thermal tape. Some call it thermal grease or silicone grease or the highly scientific and technical term, "goop". Some is also adhesive type for those heatsinks that are not otherwise clamped or screwed in place. Regardless the type of TIM used, the most effective transfer of heat occurs with direct metal-to-metal contact so typically, any excess is in the way. And for sure, any big scratch (visible or microscopically speaking) would be a place insulating air could gather - not good.

And it is essential any fresh new layer of TIM be properly applied to thoroughly cleaned surface. Hence my reason to blast out with compressed air any tree size logs (microscopically speaking) of cotton swab lint before applying TIM and mounting the cooler.