hello everyone, went to radio shack and bought everything this morning, the blue LED's , the solder iron, the desoldering iron. Was very happy!!!! I dont know if my solder skills are any good but i did what the package said to do, which i guess i might not have done right. My mod was to put two blue LED's in my optical moouse which had red LED's. Well i desoldered the old LED and put the new blue LED in, and low and behold, it didnt work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope i didnt ruin my mouse, maybe i could desolder and solder back new leds, im hopeless in the mod section of life, but hopefully i can fix this simple problam. . . could anyone give me pointers or idea's on how this could have gone so wrong?!?! here is a picture of the operation. . . . .
Few reasions this could of happened, here they are: 1. The new LED's are not rated for the same voltage. 2. You inserted the new LED's backwards. 3. You did indeed wreck something. Now, to fully diagnose your problem, please relate to us the following information: does windows still see the mouse? Do the clicks on the mouse still register in windows? Do you smell/see something burning? Did you go over the PCB (the bit with everything soldered onto inside the mouse) and check for broken traces (the embedded metal bits inside the PCB that signals pass through)?
hello, well when i turn the cicruit board around, you can obvesouly tell which ones i did. They are not soddered like all the other ones, i wish i had a high resolution camera to show you. ok i just tried taking some pictures, its not gonna happen, its to blurry to even post on the boards, i hooked up the mouse and it does still work, both button work and so does the scrolling wheel. If the solder does not go completly around the rest of the pin will it not work, also, can i desolder this and try it again, or are the LED's no good??? Thanks in advance!! I forgot to add, (im not electrical smart so this might sound stupid) i checked the package on the LED's to get the information, it says 5volt*30mA*300mcd and its a stupid "keio" mouse i bought for 5.99.
do you know the voltage ratings on the new LED's? you can use a voltmeter to check for the new and old led's to see if they use the same voltage.
So, the new LED's are 5v, this means that they most likely require more voltage than the old ones. This can be a problem, but there is a way to get arround this, but I don't know if it's beyond you or not. Basicly what you have to do is take the power directly from the USB line insted of drawing it from the board, as this will provide you with the 5v you require for the new LED's. If you don't provide enough voltage for LED's they don't shine correctly, and thus the mouse won't be able to pick up the information it needs to 'see' where it's going.
Malfoleo do you know of an online guide that will walk me through this??? If i go back to radioshack what voltage should i get??? Just spent 6 bucks on two LED's but i guess messing up is just learning, and for starting off, soldering a simple LED and having it not work makes me look like a complete idot, but everyone starts off i guess?!?! ill wait for your reply then walk my ass back to the shack. . . . . Malfoleo you said it wont be able to shine correctly, in my case it doesnt shine at all!!!!! Not even a single blur of blue.
Heh, you proably just inserted them wrong or something thats why they arn't lighting up at all Anyway, I don't know of a guide, nor could I really walk you through this without being there (I don't know the exact specifications of your mouse, so it's kinda hard to visualize and walk you through something like this). As for the voltage to look for, I don't know, you would need to use a multimeter to check and see what the voltage is. But I'm guessing you don't have a multimeter (no worries, up untill christmas I didn't either ) And don't get down, lots of people fail on their first/second/third/fifth/seventeenth mod. Maybe one of the other nice people here at bit-tech will help you further, as I'm not overly a coneptual electronics guy Have a look about though and get ideas from other people on how they did this (it's been done before, and it's been screwed up before, worse than what you did, trust me). And btw, the search isn't working, so you'll have to do some manual searching Oh, on a side note (just remembered lol) you can desolder the new LED's and put in the old one's again, but before you solder up the LED's, plug the mouse in (yes, just leaving it sit open while connected to the computer won't hurt it) and just test and see witch way you sould mount the LED so that it lights up (one way it will light up, the other it wont). Hope that helps.
i did what you said, just place the LED into the curcuit without soldering it, and the light doesnt even come on, i dont know if thats what you wanted me to do but i think it was. So no light comes on, do you think i did something wrong to the circuit and destroyed the LED part, hold on im going to try to put the RED LED in and see if that works. . . . ok i put the original red LED's back, putting it through the holes and they didnt work. . . . ill try to solder them and see if it makes a difference. thanks for all your help so far Malfoleo
you will need a higher rated LED.. try about 3000MCD, i am about to put 12CD white LEDs in my mouse as soon as i get them
well It sounds liek something is messed up, but those blue LEd's are definately too high V and not enuff Mcd about 2000mcd is the minimum for blues to still work. My guess is that your installed them the wrong way. When I did this I just snipped the legs of the old one and soldered the new one to it. Anyways good luck I suggest you dont buy LEd's from radioshack as they are a rip off and ususally dont carry good ones www.eLed.com is where I get mine
a couple of times while i was soldering i hit the circuit coard, so now when i just plug the mouse in and everything it still disembled with just the circuit itself, i tried to put the original red leds back on to see if they will turn on, and they didnt do anything, i hope i didnt mess up the circuit from touching it with the soldering iron, first time soldering lol. . . . thanks in advance.
you had a lot of guts messing with a circuit board when it was ur first time soldering... i m not surprised you messed up tho it's probably a burnt out trace which can be fixed by even more soldering next time. practice on an old motherboard or a pci card that you don't use anymore... practice alot
this isn't exactly something to solder for a beginner... anyway... try to put back the original LEDs the same way as the originally was... also look over the PCB's and look for damaged tracks or components...
http://www.creativemods.com/content.php?article.74 Look! isnt that just what you were doing??? Maybe this will save your butt, i am such a sweetheart, i signed up just to reply to your post
x3x3non you were right on that link. . . thanks . . . guess there were easier ways of doing it oh well . . . .
don't ever let someone put you down for not knowing something, including yourself. nobody was born with this knowlege, they learned from this forum (and others) and trial and error, you might be starting out later than some people, and earlier than some others. if you learn something from this (check the voltage, correct sides, etc.) than what did you lose? a few bucks? but if you learn from this and double check, you learned something important. there are very few things people get (that are as hard as modding) on the first try, did you ride a two-wheel bike the first try? almost certainly not, but you got back on and showed that bike whos boss! P.S. I'm pretty much at the same stage as you are modding wise. lets hear it for the inexpierenced! Oh, yeah, are you in metalshop? or have a friend in it? those stands have the hot element pointing up and could burn you if you're not careful. just make a coil of steel wire (heavy gauge, maybe 1/8" thick or so) that the soldering iron fits into. weld a little stand so it's positioned about 45 degrees up, or whatever angle is best for your grip style. wouldn't be too hard, I'd get a fairly thick peice of round stock (solid round bar of steel) and drill a hole in it. then stick the peice of steel wire in that hole (to hold it). put that sucker in the lathe (on the lowest speed = more torque) and wind the wire around the barstock. round and round it goes! sorry, spaced out there for a second... did i explain that good? your soldering iron looks like it's shaft would be the perfect design for this idea. find a peice of round stock the same diameter... cool project. good luck if you try this!
Dude, you inspired me to do this mod myself, i am gonna get me a led and do it ! You always learn from mistakes.
