I still haven't figured out why they no longer make wired trackballs. The thing never moves, why do I need it to be wireless?
Who is "they"? Perixx seems to be still selling wired trackballs.
Building the mouse Logitech won't make
31–40 of 332 posts
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#32I miss the old microsoft track ball. The ball wasn't a thumb exercise as it was under your index-middle-ring fingers and you clicked with the thumb.
Don’t current Kensington trackballs have this layout as well?
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#33I still use the older blue ball (ahrem) mouse that takes in a AAA battery. But being able to replace switches to something a bit better would be a godsend.
I’m looking at the price list for this job and I’m shaking my head. Up here in Canada shit is so expensive I foresee a future where the person with the hot air rework station has more business than the shops because a mouse like the normal MX is almost $120, and fixing stuff in the long term may prove to be more economical due to our stagnant wages. A lot of electronics and appliances can survive for a very long time with a few part changes or upgrades.
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#34I wish Logitech upped the polling rate on their MX range of mice (when connected with 2.4GHz). It’s very noticeable seeing windows jitter around on a >100Hz screen. I had to settle for a “gaming” mouse to avoid this, but otherwise like the MX mice.
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#35"Balking at the $50+ charge for turnkey assembly, I opted to take the financially responsible route and pay $200+ for a hot-air rework station to solder it myself." Yeah, I feel this :)
For just straight up assembly of one-sided SMT boards (i.e. not reclaiming components from a donor board), a $30 plug-in electric skillet and a solder paste stencil from the PCB manufacturer (or patience and a solder paste syringe) works far better than it has any right to. https://www.instructables.com/Simple-Skillet-Surface-mount-S...
The hot air station is called a "rework station" because it's very helpful for rework, too.
Using a hot plate to reflow boards is fine if you already know everything is correct. Having a real hot air station is very important if you need to change any parts or even fix reflow problems.
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#36I have the MX Ergo, it’s great, but I’ve never felt the need to install the official Logitech software on macOS. Works fine without it.
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#37"Balking at the $50+ charge for turnkey assembly, I opted to take the financially responsible route and pay $200+ for a hot-air rework station to solder it myself." Yeah, I feel this :)
But now you have it for "next" time....
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
That hit home for me too. My DIY cupboard is full of quality buy-it-for-life tools and accessories that I've used only a handful of times (or sometimes not at all).
you might consider contributing to your local tool library or hackerspace
This is easier than many assume: If you can find the Discord or even an e-mail for your local makerspace and send them a photo, they might urgently send someone to pick it up from you if it's useful to them.
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#39My favorite mouse is the Logitech Anywhere MX. It's highly comfortable despite being pretty small. The back/forward buttons on the side are indispensable for web browsing, file management, and switching weapons in first-person shooters. It takes two AA batteries which last for months and take seconds to swap out. The dongle is small and has good range. The scroll wheel switches between clicky and free-scrolling.
It's pretty much the perfect mouse, IMO, to the point that I built up a back stock by hoarding new and open box on eBay. But there are two main problems:
1) The the microswitches go bad after a couple years. It's possible to replace them, but it's tedious and you run a very real risk of damaging the PCB (as I have already done).
2) The dongle is USB Type-A only. Logitech actively refused to make a USB-C unifying receiver. I assume they wanted to shift to bluetooth but they still made unifying receiver devices for years and years after bluetooth was everywhere, so I dunno.
As far as newer iterations, the Anywhere MX 2S is somewhat tolerable, but it has a built-in battery which must be charged every couple of months, which is annoying. All of the newer Anywhere MX mice are even worse because they changed the basic functionality/features of the mouse with each revision. Oh, yes and they cost $90 (!) retail now.
So basically one of my side-projects, one of these days, is going to be to try building an open source Anywhere MX clone. Should be a fun yet challenging endeavour. I know there are a bunch of online communities making their own keyboards from scratch and at great expense, is there such a thing for mice?
Re: Building the mouse Logitech won't make
#40I modded mine to remove the friction in the middle wheel. But switching the switches is next. If there’s one product that absolutely needs to be shamelessly ripped off it has to be this one. It’s a mouse so close to perfection it boggles the mind why Logitech wouldn’t go the last mile. Manufacturers in china, if you see this, do the thing!
what was causing the friction / how did you fix it?