Yeah, I feel this :)
I learned it from Superfastmatt. He needed a piece of plastic that retails for $1500 for his van, so he said: “either I have a $1500 solution or I have a $1500 solution but I get a free fancy 3D printer in the end…” that stuck with me.
I also did a USB switch project for fun, and ended up spending probably $250 for something I could have just bought for $15, but it was a great experience. (Here if anyone is interested: https://shielddigitaldesign.com/posts/2021/susb/ )
I have a brake bleeder, an oil change jugs with a cap on top and the side, cellphone tool kits, and more...
Sometimes it takes a while to derive the tenets of labor specialization from first principles.
How many of us can make more making nets for fishermen than making nets AND fishing yourself?
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.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008863940082.html
And here is the cheap hot air rework station I use. <$15
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005989227215.html
You can even opt out of the stencil but I never do cuz it's much easier than not having it.
Not sure why they'd need to remove SMD LEDs, but whatever.
They are "PTC" which means they top out at a certain temperature, usually 260 degrees.
I would recommend using an inline fuse holder for some semblance of safety though.
One of these, a lamp cord, some solder paste and a toothpick, and you can easily assemble SMD boards.
But then we bought a new house and I started renovating it. I think I have probably used every single tool I ever bought by now, and every time I used one for the first time, I was so happy that I didn't have to go and scout for a good deal first or drive to Home Depot to buy one right now or anything like that.
So in my case, it actually paid off in the end to have PTPA (premature tool purchase addiction).
We aren't doing these things to save money.
I feel this too.
Card board. Recovered cables. Recovered entire circuits of formerly used boards that fit inside my palm (#jewishConstraints) #Undisclosed parts of my how~yo (how drunk are you willing to get (to train yourself) (while raising a now 23 years old .... "kid" #PGurNOTeventrying #sry4urKId that is already "there"
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?
The smaller size is actually ideal for my fingertip grip, and I actually like the rechargeable battery. It lasts well over a month on a single charge and then charges really quickly (if it ever does go flat, just chuck it on the charger while you make a coffee, 2-3 min is enough to last the rest of the day). And I love the scroll wheel.
The microswitches going bad is a massive downside.
I read somewhere that it's caused by static build up due to Logitech using much lower voltage/current than what the switches were originally designed for... After a bit of experimentation, I found that simply breathing warm air into the side of the left button clears up my issues for a few days....
Which is stupid annoying workaround, but what else am I going to do, buy a second one which probably has the same flaw?
I went to get a new one to keep at my office last year and noticed that the buttons had changed from clicky ones to silent ones. That drove me nuts and I returned the new version. However, the issue you mention with static and the buttons might explain the change. I thought it was just a vendor making a good device cheaper to manufacture. Maybe it was a better version after all?
Nickel metal rechargeables are a good AA/AAA substitute for devices designed to tolerate their lower voltage. For more power, 14500/18650/21700 cylindrical lithium cells are my go-to.
Personally though, I find it more convenient to have a charging cable on hand vs keep some charged batteries on standby. When the built-in battery eventually goes bad, I am confident that I could replace it myself (not a universal position).
Any consumer electronic using standard format batteries is superior by default. Because 10 or 20 years from now, it still have brand new full batteries lying around.
Any device that can't is arguably broken as designed. Much of the energy (the majority, in a higher current application) in an alkaline battery is found under 1.2V.
See discharge curves: https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Duracell%20Ultra%...
NiMH actually stays above 1.2V longer for all but the lightest loads: https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Eneloop%20AA%20BK...
Personally I've never come around to their side of things, although I do recognise the inconvenience of charging cables while you are using a peripheral (Apple Mouse charging port location especially :D )
I share this preference. Replacing a battery has a device back in a working state a couple orders of magnitude faster than onboard charging, and when built-in batteries wear out, replacement is often difficult to impossible.
I always use NiMH rechargeables; alkalines are wasteful and sometimes leaky.
You can quickly swap in a new pair, and recharge the other one. Some mice can even charge the batteries themselves. You get the best of all worlds.
(Yeah, the computer tells me when the mouse battery is getting low, but I do not have the discipline to remember to plug it in hours later when I'm done with the computer for the day.)
I use them almost everywhere nowadays. Most devices tolerate the slightly higher voltage and even expensive hardware usually cheaps out on proper battery circuitry.
For certain activities like hiking having AA or AAA is preferred. If they run out of charge they are trivially replaced with a light weight inventory and this is probably sufficient to last your trip.
You don't need to keep them, you get warned many days in advance, so an overnight recharge of existing batteries works just as well
For clarity, I plug my main receiver into my workstation and use Synergy to take the M&K over to an adjacent laptop in software, but the secondary receiver is useful when testing installers for NUC, Jetson, etc. Basically I've got a bare metal device on my desk plugged into a mini monitor and with one little dongle I can trivially get my keyboard/mouse on that device including in a preboot environment like the EFI firmware.
I've got to mention how reliable the switches used to be. I purchased a wired Logitech mouse in the 90's that lasted through three different computers.
More recent models fail quickly with such regularity that I just stopped purchasing the brand at all.
It's still tedious, as the metal strip is really small and is hard top manipulate, but far easier and less risky for the pcb than desoldering.
I have the same problem (with a different mouse model/manufacturer). Sometimes you can even "repair" the switches without de-soldering them by opening up the case and bending the metal contact a bit. I put "repair" in quotes because the repaired switches don't seem to last as long as new ones but at least it's easy to do and doesn't need any tools besides a screw driver.
I had this happen to my shop PC mouse's left button. I was too lazy to get another mouse or desolder and put in a new switch, so I tried drilling a small hole in the top of the switch and squirted some Deoxit in there. That fixed it. Later, the right button went bad too, so I did the same thing. Now it's been a year and it's still working.
It’s not necessarily that switches have lowered in quality, it’s that you get less current flow at 1.8V or whatever than 5V and any added resistance exacerbates that.
Maybe adding another pull-up resistor in parallel with the existing one can buy more time per switch.
Although the first one had its primary button stop working after 3 months. But they sent a replacement. I fear it won't last much more after the warranty period ends.
I'll also add that it works great over Bluetooth — look ma, no dongle!
I have three recent electronic devices that I would like to keep using but cannot, as their battery has reached end of life, replacements are hard to find, and changing the battery involves performing surgery on the device that I'm not confident I can do safely.
I switched to using Logitech's MX Vertical mouse and I love it. There was a learning curve period, especially when it came to finer grained movements, but I'm totally used to it now and it feels much more comfortable and natural to me that any other mouse I've used. It has a USB-C port and I can switch between 3 different Bluetooth connections (press a button, connects to my work laptop, press it again, connects to my personal one). I'm not much of a power user so I don't customize the buttons but I know it's possible with an app. I don't use the app.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/shop/p/mx-vertical-ergonomic-...
I developed serious wrist/hand pains after switching to the MX Master 3S for a few months, but its magnetic scroll wheel and build quality was absolutely glorious.
The MX vertical is a plastic toy in comparison, but it costs the same.
https://kinesis-ergo.com/products/#mice-and-pointing-devices
I've been using a left handed Evoluent but they never released the latest generation wireless left handed, and the price for the old version is 3x as expensive as it was a couple years ago (and they don't last very long, having owned a couple I get double/triple clicks within a year of buying it). I do like the separate middle mouse button though.
https://perixx.com/products/perimice-513l
The mouse has disappeared into my hand and I've forgotten its existence. When I read your post I remembered how pain free my mousing experience has been lately.
I've tried everything after setting my seating and table properly and it seems this is my thing. I bough 4 more because I fear, like with everything good, Logitech might stop selling them and I'd be lost...
The Logitech middle button is awful hard to click.
Also, it can be used as a bluetooth mouse on my Samsung phone, which was neat.
I've been dreaming of a set of lego-style bits of a mouse that can be assembled together... want another button? here you go. Want it on the side? Modify the 3D print file. Want bluetooth? Use this board... Want USB-C? Use that board... Want both? We've got you covered... Want a hyper-scroll wheel? Well, Logitech has a patent on that one, but here's the closest thing you can get on a DIY mouse. Now click these buttons in the configurator and hit "upload", and the firmware is installed to use your new mouse on any machine.
If I want to build a mouse with 32,000 buttons, the limit should not be the operating system's mouse event.
I don't really care about the weight, what caught my attention was they offer ceramic? coated magnesium scrollwheels. My otherwise mild skin condition completely destroys the shitty grippy/gummy rubber they put on scrollwheels and sometimes the sides of the mice. They offer the same coating on the shells, which I really enjoy.
Yes, it's expensive but it still costs less than replacing mice over and over. I spend too much time holding this damn thing to settle for anything less. The quality is exceptional, assembly was easy, and the carbon fiber rod that snaps into place horizontally across the shape makes it more rigid than the stock mouse.
I’m not sure it’s even skin conditions. I think it’s just the natural oils in the skin. It’s part of what polishes plastics (e.g. keyboard keys), and over time it impregnates the rubber which swells then falls apart.
This process is why wet belts are stupid, no reason to think mouse wheel rubber is any different.
Also turned out that disassembling the mouse was easy, so you probably might just swap the wheel entirely.
> Yes, it's expensive but it still costs less than replacing mice over and over.
I have a ten year old Razer Ultimate still going strong, buddy. $100 new.
> My otherwise mild skin condition completely destroys the shitty grippy/gummy rubber they put on scrollwheels and sometimes the sides of the mice.
No, whatever you're putting on your skin is. In any case: buy a $20 set of grips/pads and problem solved...
> the carbon fiber rod that snaps into place horizontally across the shape makes it more rigid than the stock mouse.
If you're having issues with rigidity of your mouse, you're holding it too tight...
- Relearn the way they grip their mouse completely
- Stop secreting skin oils
- Stop some ointment that you are assuming they use for some reason
- Buy mouse grip replacements constantly
Or:
- Just buying a slightly more expensive mouse that they like
I don't think you're going to sell them on this...
> Finalmouse
Trash product, none of the people I play with or against use one. You've kind of outed yourself here but I'll humor you further.
> I have a ten year old mouse that works fine
Good for you. I assure you I use mine far, far more than you. If you knew who I was you could go find me on esportsearnings, I've won against and have played with some of the people you see in mice ads.
> No, whatever you're putting on your skin is
I don't put anything on my skin. My body makes far more of everything than it needs. I have to wipe them down with a bit of soap and water every few hours or they will be absolutely caked in skin. If I wait more than 4 days to file or cut my fingernails they are disgustingly long.
> buy a $20 set of grips/pads and problem solved
Have you ever tried doing this? They are attached to the shell with adhesives that cannot be removed without also destroying the plastic underneath.
> rigidity
Was highlighting how the weight reduction does not come at the cost of structural stability. If you knew what you were talking about you'd know many struggle with squeezing the mouse too hard. I do not have this issue
They've apparently suspended shipping to the US, though. Not sure who to blame for that one..
QMK, or Quantum Mechanical Keyboard, is an open-source, community-centered configuration tool for keyboards and other input devices. QMK software is handy for creating layers, moving around specific keys, adding functions, etc.
I've done some mouse PCB mods myself (swapping dead switches mainly). My biggest annoyance is resoldering through-hole components - unfortunately aftermarket PCBs for mice are quite rare, and my favorite mouse isn't all that popular in the "mouse community".
Kensignton makes a good one with a scrollwheel ring around it, the ball XY is perfect though the clickers are so-so in longevity. Working without a physical middle click and two button software middle click emulation is frustrating sometimes.
They are a little pricey, ~$200, but I love mine (so much that I bought an extra). Also, they use a pool-sized ball, so I replaced mine with a green ball.
Because I have wired trackballs from both Logitech and Kensington, and have for many years. You can pry my Kensington Orbit from my cold, dead hand.
https://perixx.com/collections/mice?filter.v.t.shopify.conne...
Kailhs have a sharper click feel, travel is smaller than stock. Huanos feel like they have more travel than stock, with a very long (soft?) tactile bump. Kailhs are marginally quieter. I don't prefer either, both are so much nicer than stock. I highly recommend swapping mouse switches, the stock omrons that logitech (and others) put in are loud, rattly trash. Huano makes really good clicky switches too. The good thing is that you can upgrade (fix) after the inevitable death (more likely double clicking than not clicking at all) of the stock ones. You'll likely want to buy both, because you will need (at least for G305) a square footprint switch to put under the scroll wheel. Kailhs despite being square and 2 pin, work fine for the main switches that have a 3 pin footprint. The third pin doesn't do anything.
I've not experimented with nor researched the scroll encoder yet. Maybe there are quiet options to swap in. It's not bad as is, but it'd like something quieter with softer jumps.
Except the obvious tools for soldering, don't forget to buy a new set of skates, because the screws will be under them. If the mouse is new, you might be able to unstick them intact. If it's not, you'll likely bend them and it won't glide as good.
About the mouse - I just like the shape of G305, the wireless is good and with a lithium battery it is pretty light and lasts a long time.
Lithium cells are like 7x the price, last maybe 2-3x as long, but are like 7-10g lighter, for mice get them only for weight reduction or working in cold places. People say Energizer ultimate lithium are the best, in my experience they last longer than lithium cells from Varta.
I replaced the Logitech mouse with an inexpensive vertical mouse from ProtoArc and haven't looked back.
You might check out https://hackaday.com/blog/. They quite often feature projects from people who built the thing they wanted, instead of buying it. (Often because the thing they wanted couldn't be bought in the first place.)
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!
You can see it off to the side in this post https://www.reddit.com/r/Trackballs/comments/u0f9kn/smooth_s...
But know that it won't make the onscreen scroll smooth. Only the physical feel
I also gave up on waiting for the Ergo S and grabbed a Kensington TB550. The name is awful, but the trackball is excellent.
It's to the point where I'm considering just commissioning a hardware hacker to make me a custom mouse.
I think I nearly know how to replace most of the mouse.
I can resolder new switches, mouse-wheel button and those buttons below the mouse wheel.
And replacement pads for the mouse feet are easy to buy, if not, you can buy a pad uncut and custom-cut it.
I just now need to learn how to replace the side dome buttons individually instead of replacing the whole PCB, since I cannot keep buying replacement mouses for just those side mouse buttons as the price seems to be creeping up with the increasing scarcity.
Would really be glad to know of a contemporary equivalent with USB-C.
I came to the MX Ergo when having shoulder surgery and found it worked perfectly only 1-2 days post-op, just putting it in the sling, but it is so much more efficient to use, particularly for CAD work than any regular mouse in the previous decades. Also great for use on airplanes where there's no real space to run a regular mouse.
Will definitely check out SteerMouse, as the Logi software is often so marginal I just uninstall it and run the mouse bare.
Thank you for posting and HN for getting this to the front page!
Edit: I am wrong. They recently released USB-C receiver after years and years of refusing to make one.
Also, I think it's criminal for any USB chargeable mouse to not just work as a regular corded mouse when plugged directly into a PC.
PS - would it be possible to make a mouse use Cherry MX hotswap switches so that people could customise their clicks?
It's a lot of organizing work mostly if you have the design ready for a factory
Been there before. 2 min of research could have saved hours (obviously fun project regardless). The thing is to do the research at the initial idea and then AGAIN before starting the project.
While I had the mouse, I kept looking for ways to "fix scrolling" and everything repeatedly pointed to third party software. If you have an iPad or Android device, you're completely out of luck.
How does a company become so out of tune with customers that customers feel the need to "fix" the design flaws of devices they bought?
I'm not one of those people to "fix" the device, because when I found the polling speed and latency couldn't be increased, that was a complete stopper for me. I really wanted to make the mouse work for me, I really tried to make it work, but I couldn't get past the many flaws. It felt as if they went backwards from their old devices like the MX Revolution in many ways.
The [insert random brand] 959D rework stations run around $55 and are suitable for hobbyist use.
A few paragraphs later:
> PCBWay to manufacture the boards for my project (I ended up ordering 10 so I had spares).
No hate, it’s ok to have hobbies, but i think 9 pcbs in a drawer somewhere forever cancels out any e-waste benefits you gained from not buying a new mouse XD
I got one recently due to some persistent wrist issues I've been having because it is the first ergo mouse I've had that ticks every box for me. It's not flawless but I still strongly recommend considering it if you're looking for something in this category.
The designer previously posted about it on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35613630
Was like $50 new, so nothing too expensive, has LIGHTSPEED wireless which has super low latency, but also has bluetooth in case you forget the dongle or can't use it for some reason. Or it's also really convenient to switch the mouse between 2 computers simply by pressing the button on the bottom, and it instantly switches.
Uses the HERO sensor which is really power efficient and has a slot for 2 AA batteries of which you only need to actually install 1. Lasts several months off a single AA battery, and also so I just use those rechargeable AA batteries with built in USB port under the cap, so I can just charge it from the computer if I need a little more juice.
This is slightly funny, but I've noticed over the years that Google's decline in function as a quality search engine has correlated with lots of wasted time on my end, DIY-ing things that I later found to already exist somewhere in the world.
For big hands I still like the MS Pro IntelliMouse. The Logitech MX Master 3S is a solid modern choice.
Also have an MX Master 3 Advanced for travel, USB-C charges, and supports switching between 3 BT devices with an optional USB transceiver that stores away, and it also works on iOS devices but that's really more of a gimmick.
Since I switched to a vertical mouse all my hand pain is gone. Highly recommend the MX Vertical.
I complained to the merchant and Logitech, and luckily they sent me a new mouse each. I also bought some replacement switches and repaired the lot, so now I have four mouses/trackballs. Still, they should make better mouses.
https://www.kensington.com/p/products/electronic-control-sol...
My current mouse is a ZOWIE FK2-C. It's simple, wired and it just works. Been using it for years, and no switch issues yet.
I even use it while gaming (it's heavier, but I used my g9x with max weight config, I like it that way).
the design respects the most neutral position of the human arm anatomy, which lies between a slant angle of 20° up to 30° [2]
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1jksi0x/...
[2] https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2004.34.10.638
I'm about to test the "wetting current" theory by using a bench supply to actuate the switch near max specs.
What worked for me on other sticky plastics was rubbing alcohol. I does leave the finish slightly different than it was initially (less grippy), but I've had good results.
Logitech uses shitty microswitches that either stop working or start 'bouncing' - a single click becomes two or more clicks.
This has been an issue with logitech mice for 10+ years and it's so prevalent it can't possibly be by accident. Their mice are disposable as a revenue model.
Mice should not fail, and in fact, I've never had a non-logitech mouse fail.
A friend heard me say this and said "Well I love my logitech mouse" and I said "and how many have you bought?" They admitted they'd had to replace it several times because...drumroll please...various buttons on it stopped working or started double/triple clicking.
I have gaming buddies who have had their very expensive logitech gaming mice fail, repeatedly, barely months into owning them. My ten year old Razor is still going strong, save for reduced battery life. The battery still lasts for many hours while gaming, which is plenty for my purposes, so I haven't bothered yet.
The real joke would be Xbox Elite controllers. Several hundred dollars and infamous for failing sometimes within months. Never, ever buy one without a replacement plan.
It's a kind of magical mouse driver that supports nearly every USB mouse made, including _all_ the quirky little buttons and extra functions. As the author said, it's ultra-light-weight, native Mac UI (none of that weird chrome slop that companies like Razer insist upon using).
I use mine with a funky Razer "MMO" mouse that has a funny numeric keypad on the side — all ten of the keys (plus the normal assortment of buttons) can be mapped any way I like.
It came out all the way back in 2005, and has worked reliably ever since. Flat fee for the license, no subscriptions, free demo. Basically everything we all wish apps were.
Guess I have just used Linux too long and expected mice to just work.
They released the plus model which uses USB-C so at least this point is no longer valid.
Who knows if there is such thing?
How many times does this happen to people?
I mean, in my life i probably spent hundreds of hours writing code and hacking things together - forcing them to work - for tasks that turned out to be...already solved, I just couldn't find it...it was under the sun all along.
Yeah you know, like when that Lenovo Thinkpad's trackpad needed some specific kernel hack on Linux for it to work...
for the more obscure things however, I am glad and I respect those youtube uploaders that literally will post everything they discover just for the sake of sharing knowledge!
Once you get older it gets even more annoying - sometimes you end up solving a problem, and later on you realize (or, even worse, a friend points it out) that you've solved that already once before a decade ago _and_ published your solution back then.
https://www.kyleniewiada.org/blog/2024/05/mx-ergo-usb-c-mod/
But in my case, it was 3 months before Logitech announced their USB-C revision.
Is this a known enshittification issue at Logitech?
it has a 8k sensor and 1k polling. it is awesome.
and if you go to logi's subreddit they want to gaslight you that 125 polling is enough lol
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.
But no, here we have... replaced a micro USB port with USB-C. Something fixed with a $2 cable at Ikea. The epitome of first world problems and he even had a custom PCB made. That's not even worth the academic part of this.
