Dead Mouse Reincarnated As Macropad

[Taylor] wanted to join the cool kids club and build a macropad for CAD work and video editing, but didn’t want to do it the traditional way with an Arduino. We can get behind that. In fact, [Taylor] wanted to reuse some old piece of tech if possible, which is even better. With a little luck, they found a used gaming mouse with a set of 12 tiny macro buttons on the side that were ripe for reuse. Only the scroll wheel was reported to be broken.

After verifying that all the macro buttons worked, [Taylor] tore down the mouse and extracted the daughterboard, then removed the sticker that held the rubber dome actuators in place. Then they wired up twelve Kailh box jades to the pads, doing some nice diagonal work with bare 30 AWG wire to join all the common pins together.

[Taylor] designed and printed a simple enclosure that’s a slim 21.5 mm tall including the switch plate, and then made a dozen keycaps to match. That was until [Taylor] remembered some relegendable keycaps they had lying around — the kind that let you print your own labels and trap them underneath clear plastic. The only problem was that they are stemmed for some cylindrical actuator, so [Taylor] designed an adapter piece so they would fit on MX-style sliders. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.

If for some reason box jades aren’t clicky and satisfying enough for you, try making your own maglev Hall-effect switches. These days, you even have design options.

9 thoughts on “Dead Mouse Reincarnated As Macropad

  1. I’m also using my dead Razer mice as a “macropad” now, when its sensor stopped working. Just didn’t bother making a custom enclosure for it. Maybe I should after seeing this, it just makes a lot more sense

  2. Oof. What a hill to die on. They isn’t just a plural pronoun, it’s also a singular pronoun and has been since the 1300s. The only identifying information in this project is a name (Taylor) and a picture of hands. Neither of which are sufficient to establish a definite pronoun. How would one get around this? Use they. Here’s a handy example. “Why is it not good to steal from someone? Well because it’s THEIRS and THEY may be upset about it”.

    The author could have just as easily said “her” as Taylor is one of those ambiguous names but, instead of adding “her”, or “him” to the story, chose to go with “they” as the person’s gender really isn’t what this story is about. THEY ARE LITERALLY DOING WHAT YOU WANT AND LEAVING GENDER OUT OF IT. Yet you still complain. Really, it all boils down to you being the very thing you’re complaining about… radical.

  3. I’d love to do this for a broken Logitech G604 mouse where it still works as a mouse. The side buttons started breaking. They sent me a new mouse, but the old one would still work if not for the broken buttons. 3D printed shells for the G604 and G602 mice would be nice too. Alas, not enough time nor ability to do it.

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