exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Tried painting Copydex on the surface of the bearing?

stephen_usher wrote: 29 Dec 2023 18:25 Tried painting Copydex on the surface of the bearing?

Similar thoughts had occurred, but I haven't tried.

Maybe looking at this the other way round could work?

You have a perfect size ball but the rollers wont grip. Try to fix the rollers lack of grip!

What does the mouse look like inside? I presume the rollers are either hard plastic or metal,
how about a tiny bit of thin heatshrink tubing covering the points of contact?
probably practice heat application on something else like a wood kebab stick to minimise risk of overheating any plastic parts(like the discs with holes)
or even a tin foil wrap?
Try the NON glued stuff so you can remove it if the idea is a bust. Maybe try the idea on other `cheaper` mice a couple times first?

Would the slightly larger diameter increase sensitiviy x/y?

juz400 wrote: 31 Dec 2023 11:06 Maybe looking at this the other way round could work?

You have a perfect size ball but the rollers wont grip. Try to fix the rollers lack of grip!

What does the mouse look like inside? I presume the rollers are either hard plastic or metal,
how about a tiny bit of thin heatshrink tubing covering the points of contact?
probably practice heat application on something else like a wood kebab stick to minimise risk of overheating any plastic parts(like the discs with holes)
or even a tin foil wrap?
Try the NON glued stuff so you can remove it if the idea is a bust. Maybe try the idea on other `cheaper` mice a couple times first?

Would the slightly larger diameter increase sensitiviy x/y?

Yeah, I did already try, first with heatshrink, which was just as slippery as the original plastic (It's nylon on a steel shaft BTW), and I also tried silicone tubing as well, and that was close on being successful, but the other issue was that of the ball gripping on whatever surface you used it on. It's odd as the old ball looks to have been made of epoxy, or some other plastic, so would have been light (And the pile of crumbled ball was definitely light) so it seems a little odd that the Delrin ball I have doesn't work at all, as it is the correct size, and probably a similar weight to the original.

What is odd is that the Logitech mouse I currently use has a really light ball that works on a smooth desktop, but it does have a rubberised coating. Annoyingly the ball is a different size yet again, but clearly a different manufacturer so no real surprise. I've looked at a lot of other mouse balls, but they are all too big sadly.

As for making the X/Y more sensitive, it's not really an issue as the heat shrink is pretty thin, and though the silicone tubing is a bit thicker, it's not really a problem.

And by the way, if you are going to suggest a steel ball with the silicone tubing and a mouse mat or similar surface, I already did :)

It sort of worked, but still far from ideal.

I did have a read through the thread before I posted, quite a few ideas have been quashed in the past year! Proving to be a difficult nut to crack!

Tried Wooden balls? not sure how the weight would be vs plastic/resin but may be easier to coat in something grippy and fairly cheap to experiment with.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265091599953 ... SwZUNfyVoD

juz400 wrote: 31 Dec 2023 17:03 I did have a read through the thread before I posted, quite a few ideas have been quashed in the past year! Proving to be a difficult nut to crack!

Tried Wooden balls? not sure how the weight would be vs plastic/resin but may be easier to coat in something grippy and fairly cheap to experiment with.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265091599953 ... SwZUNfyVoD

I tried hard rubber bouncy balls, but the problem was always the seams and quality of the roundness. Wood might work, the problem is getting hold of them, but there are some very dense woods that would probably work, and with the tighter grain of the denser woods, they would probably work well.

I have some other ideas that I'm considering, such as trying to make a 'proper' mouse ball by coating a smaller (15-18mm) steel ball with a hard rubber compound to take it to 20mm, but the main issue would be getting the thickness of the coating even. If I can make a suitable mould, it would make that possible/easier.

I even tried to get a sample of rubber coated steel balls from AliBaba, but the price got prohibitive and they were angling for a larger order that I had no need for.

It may take me a while but I won't give up :)

OK, so the metal powder has arrived:


Let's see how it goes casting the ball with some of this in it.

I hope that you get somewhere this time.

stephen_usher wrote: 04 Jan 2024 14:51 I hope that you get somewhere this time.

Me too..

:sigh:

At least I still have the mould to work with.

:crossed1: