Comments on: Silence your mouse: no clicky.

By: Ahmed Mahmoud

Ahmed Mahmoud — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:34:57 +0000

I did something like this to my little optical mouse.. it has the same kind of switches..

but how I did it is a bit different. using a needle I pried off the top part of the switch (without soldering it off) then crammed a little scrid of 2-ply toilet paper between the winging hammer part and the little hook-like thingy above it. this reduced the distance the little hammer has to swing and removes the second half of the clicking (the sound you get when you release a mouse button) while also dampening the first sound by 80%. tactile response is still intact.

the trick is in using a little bit of tissue (or cotton wool, both work) and carefully placing it in that critical wedge. I had to use a razor and tweezers to get it done right.. but it's been working great for months.

By: Harrison

Harrison — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 05:07:31 +0000

I have an anger management problem. I once got pissed off at my mouse, and threw it at the wall. Somehow, this managed to silent the click of the scroll wheel, without losing the clicky feeling.

So, anger management problems aren’t such bad things. :D

By: headbonk

headbonk — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:27:15 +0000

I did this by accident (at first) to my logitech optical at work. I opened it up to remove some hair that had gotten stuck in the wheel. The spring and tooth mechanism that makes the clicky went flying almost as soon as I had it open.

It turns out tho that the wheel sensor has finer resolution than the clicky normally allows. It makes a big difference on applications that make use of the mouse wheel. It also gives you a natural momentum control. There's nothing to stop the wheel so you can give the wheel a big spin and let it coast when you want to scroll a long way.

I've since done this intentionally to the mouse on my computer and my wife's at home. Clicky wheel mice feel totally un-natural to me now.

By: theportmeister

theportmeister — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:22:41 +0000

stuffing your mouse with cotton balls and using hot glue to keep it abay from the switches helps a great deal as well

By: theportmeister

theportmeister — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:11:33 +0000

this post made me think of a way to quiet my mouse up without getting rid of the tactile feedback so instead of doing this, i coated the switch with hot glue and put a pieace of electrical tape between the actual sitch and the button works like a charm. it isnt completely silent but it certainly is 80 percent better

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:29:09 +0000

mark: If you want a silent keyboard it’s more complicated. Get yourself an old mechanical switch based keyboard such as the famous IBM model M. When you press a key on this keyboard, it connects two pins together. One of these pins is 1 of 8 possible rows, the other 1 of 16 possible columns in a matrix. I reverse engineered what each combination did, then built an N2222 based switchboard based on that knowledge (24 transistors). With a 9v supply, This allowed keys to be easily touch activated even through two people connected in series (about 3-6 Mohms?). Building the physical keyboard is trivial and very time consuming (hint: just look at the circuit traces inside the keyboard on the plastic sheets), and where I got bored and moved on to more interesting projects.

By: k

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:51:06 +0000

@16 Yes, yes it does. Motorola e815, and it makes texting pretty annoying.

By: devon

devon — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:35:07 +0000

Plenty of consumer devices provide tactile feedback without “clicking” – most of these use rubber and plastic resistance switches rather than metal contact switches. Does your phone keypad click when you press a button?

By: hack124x768

hack124x768 — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:28:37 +0000

I have an older logitech wheel mouse and the scroll wheel in it was terribly annoying, The clicking was loud and “sticky” and the steps didn’t line up with the scroll steps on screen. To make it go away I just bent down the piece of metal that rubbed the grooved inside of the wheel. Yay! Silent scrolling!

By: mark

mark — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:18:56 +0000

like the idea, just with i could have a silent keyboard aswell

By: n3rrd

n3rrd — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:38:27 +0000

@11

Then don’t perform the mod…

By: PocketBrain

PocketBrain — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:26:06 +0000

But I like the tactile feedback!

By: BAF

BAF — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:55:21 +0000

I have a wireless microsoft laser mouse, and the scroll wheel is silent. There is resistance to turning the wheel some, so there is still some tactile feel, but it is silent.

By: iR377

iR377 — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:54:42 +0000

@2 I did that too and much preferred it, so I modded all my mice to do the same.

By: Ali Raheem

Ali Raheem — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:35:37 +0000

@6 I bet that’s just what you told your mum when she walked in ;).
“My mouse is broken and I clicked that link accidently”.
Hahahaha *laughs at own joke*

Sorry couldn’t help it :(
Nice idea but I think I might make something with seans idea with the transistor.