Hey all of BT!! First off I was introduced to modding by one of my friends, tm36usa. We had a day off from school on friday so we just had to mod something. I had a plain, beige, optical mouse and it needed some serious attention. We decided on just a simple glow wheel and paint job. I had some 1/2" acrylic in my garage so we decided to use that for the wheel. My neighbor was on vacation so we couldn't use his shop so we had just the basic tools in my garage. We first cut the acrylic to a 1 and 1/8" square with a hacksaw. Then we cut it in half because the wheel for my mouse was 1/4" wide again with the hacksaw. Next we drilled a 3/4" hole in the center of the square. Then we chucked it in my drill and put the drill in my vice. The next 3 hours were spent sanding and fileing the wheel round and smooth and adding the rounded edges. Then we painted the body of the mouse with Satin Black Krylon Fusion. This paint works very well for painting plastic. After about an hour when the paint dried tm36usa figured out how to get power for the green led to light the wheel. He ended up looking up the data sheet for the mouse controler to find out what pins were the +5v and the ground. He then soldered an led to the those pins along with a resistor. He was also going to replace the led for the optical sensor with a green one but we found out that it took a special led. It turns out when the mouse isnt moved for a couple seconds, it cuts down to brightness of the led considerably. So he pulled out his multimeter to check the volatges. It turns out when the led is at low brightness it is only reciving .25 volts and when its being moved it is getting 3 volts. We decided just to leave the red led in the mouse but to cover it with black tape so the light would only go to the sensor and not light up the wheel. You cant even tell that there is a red led in the mouse when its on. I did most of the fabrication of the wheel and tm36usa helped with the electronics. The whole mod took about 6 hours (including the paint drying time) and I like the end result. Anyway, enough of my yammering, onto the pics!!! As soon as i order some more parts Im gonna post my project. Lets hear some of your comments.
Yeah I thought the wheel would be slippery also but actually it isnt at all. It works just as fine as ne other wheel.
