Filed under: Hardware, Tips and tricks, Odds and ends
OCD Spotlight: Flossing your Mighty Mouse
Recently, TUAW discussed how to clean your apple keyboard. Today, we focus on delinting your Mighty Mouse. Without taking it apart.
Brendan Fenn, photographer and clean aficionado, has discovered a new way to clean the Mighty Mouse scroll ball that goes beyond the conventional dust free cloth and rubbing alcohol methods. He's figured out that a very thin strip of scotch tape, carefully looped under the scroll ball provides effective mouse ball rehabilitation when more traditional techniques do not work.
Complete instructions and pictures are available at his site.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Steve Henderson said 5:38PM on 12-12-2006
This is a great how-to article. I have returned my wireless mighty mouse twice for replacements at the local Apple store, both times due to trouble with the scroll ball that this might have fixed.
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Rorshach said 5:57PM on 12-12-2006
Now why didn't I think of that? Worked well for me!
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Nathan said 6:06PM on 12-12-2006
all you have to do is get a clean piece of printer paper and place it on a flat, hard surface, then roll your mighty mouses ball against it fairly hard for 5 seconds or so, and your scroll will be working like new again. Plus, its a lot easier than "flossing" your ball...
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Tony Fagerlund said 6:09PM on 12-12-2006
Another approach to this, is to go the other way around - sort of.
1, Take a strip of tape and put it on your desk, with the sticky side up (hold it in place with your forefinger and thumb.
2, Now, turn the mouse upside down and roll the scroll ball over the tape.
Just like that!
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Blair said 6:29PM on 12-12-2006
This worked great to ungunk my mighty mouse. Much better than any other noninvasive mighty mouse surgery I have preformed.
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Tom said 7:10PM on 12-12-2006
This didn't work at all for me. I ended up just ripping my mouse apart and cleaning the ball and rollers by hand.
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Jay the Despicable said 9:30PM on 12-12-2006
This only helps to point out just how poorly the Mighty Mouse is made. I love most of the things Apple sells, but it needs to readdress its peripheral designs. They might seem innovative, but once you use the Mighty Mouse enough you'll see what I mean. The ball has failed on three different Mighty Mice for me, and I am not an overly demanding or inept user. The construction of them just doesn't warrant their high pricetag.
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Victor Agreda Jr said 10:26PM on 12-12-2006
Finally! I was really getting tired of washing my hands every couple of days ;)
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Kevin said 7:50PM on 12-12-2006
well last night before reading this I dismantled my mighty mouse to fix it. Yeah I managed to fix it (eventually, after nearly losing a couple of fingers) but I couldn't get it back together without removing the two side buttons, so it feels really weird now. If this new method worls, I really wish I'd read about it 24 hours ago!
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jerko said 8:20PM on 12-12-2006
Goddamnit I still think this mouse is too delicate!! Please two real buttons Apple (good for gaming!) ... I suppose I can get a Logitech for that, sigh ...
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Dylan said 2:18AM on 12-13-2006
90% of the time for me it seems the ball itself is causing no problems, but rather gunk carried by the ball jamming up the tiny rollers that detect the movement inside, so I guess this flossing would be good for a preventative measure, but to actually fix your mightymouse ball there is no other way than to crack it open and clean off those little things yourself, which I have gotten used to doing quite effectively and routinely.
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Dimitri said 6:24AM on 12-13-2006
We lazy consumers choose not to clean our mice but rather bitch at Apple, so we can use our clean white Macs after eating pizza/lasagna without needing to wash our hands!
:)
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Santiago said 8:18AM on 12-13-2006
It worked well for me too. The scroll ball is working again as it should.
Great article!
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