Can I mod my Microsoft Explorer Mouse LED?

hehe i forgot about ROYGBIV ehehe, thank you sir.

-N- said:

does anyone know if the voltage of the LED's matter?

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ya, i wanna know too

erg... i just started on my little mouse LED mod.. took me THREE HOURS to unsolder the damn old LED's... i think i might have scratched the pcb also. ERgggggggg this is hard.

probably somethin i did wrong. Now can someone tell me how to solder? do i just wrap the solder wire around the soldering iron and let it melt? and drip some onto where the pcb/LED meets? help plz!

-N- said:

erg... i just started on my little mouse LED mod.. took me THREE HOURS to unsolder the damn old LED's... i think i might have scratched the pcb also. ERgggggggg this is hard.

probably somethin i did wrong. Now can someone tell me how to solder? do i just wrap the solder wire around the soldering iron and let it melt? and drip some onto where the pcb/LED meets? help plz!

Click to expand...

Erm, no. You're supposed to heat the joint you want to solder together, then touch the solder to the joint. The solder should NOT touch the iron itself. Solder flows to where heat is so by heating the joint, you cause it to flow through it. Melting solder then dripping it on will create a crappy joint and probably isn't terribly accurate either.

method().man said:

Erm, no. You're supposed to heat the joint you want to solder together, then touch the solder to the joint.

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even though i already finished the mouse mod, I still need to know this..
so I heat the LED wire and the pcb, since that's joint where I want to solder together, then touch the solder the the LED wire?
this has the drippy thing instructions so that's how i thought i was supposed to do it.

i'm confused..



anyway, using my stupid dumb first time soldering skills... i managed to mod my logitech mouse with a blue LED light. Took me from 11:30am PST to 5:00pm, including a small lunch break. this includes from taking it off the comp to plugging it back on the comp. With this, I burned my thumb with a piece of 60%lead 40%tin solder. Now there's a white patch there. I hope it didn't get absorbed through the skin or anything before I washed it off with soap.

this was the hardest mod I've ever done.. then again.. i've barely done any lol

-N- said:

even though i already finished the mouse mod, I still need to know this..
so I heat the LED wire and the pcb, since that's joint where I want to solder together, then touch the solder the the LED wire?
this has the drippy thing instructions so that's how i thought i was supposed to do it.

i'm confused..



anyway, using my stupid dumb first time soldering skills... i managed to mod my logitech mouse with a blue LED light. Took me from 11:30am PST to 5:00pm, including a small lunch break. this includes from taking it off the comp to plugging it back on the comp. With this, I burned my thumb with a piece of 60%lead 40%tin solder. Now there's a white patch there. I hope it didn't get absorbed through the skin or anything before I washed it off with soap.

this was the hardest mod I've ever done.. then again.. i've barely done any lol

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wtf. That's the biggest piece of bullsh*t I've ever read. That guy should be coated with molten solder for putting up a 'guide' like that. I've NEVER heard any electrician tell me to melt solder directly with an iron then drip it onto a joint. Doing it like that creates a crappy a$$ joint. When you drip melted solder like that, what happens is that the solder doesn't correctly bond to the metals because the solder that touches the metal first will cool, then harden, and won't penetrate the microscopic crevices in the joint very well. Also, you'll have solder that hardens at different rates - depending on when it hits the joint - and will effectively screw up the molecular structure of the alloy that the solder is made of. Most of the time, you'd probably end up with a dull looking joint - a hallmark of a poorly done soldering job.

If what you're working on is sensitive to heat, you should do a couple things. One, work with a fine tip and a somewhat hotter than normal setting. I know this sound counterintuitive, but a hotter tip allows you to keep the iron on the joint for less time. This makes the actual joint heat up faster but the heat won't seep into adjacent areas as well - assuming you're quick. For an extra level of protection, use a heatsink. No, I don't mean go out and buy an SK-6 and slap it on the joint. You want to attach a metallic item, needlenose pliers or wire clamps, to the part right adjacent to what you are soldering. This will help wick heat towards the pliers rather than the part that may be damaged by heat.

ok, i have another question now. when i mod leds, does it matter what led i buy? arent leds different and stuff? would i have to buy an led with the same input?

Yeah i think it does matter. That was the questino I was lookin for earlier, but a guide said that it DID matter. You have to find the right voltage LED that your mouse will accept, or else it won't light up or somethin.

check this out..

I used multiple guides to try and change my LED.. but it still ended up taking me ~5-6 hours.. cause im a sad n00b.

so did it work out nicely? do you have the same mouse as in that guide, or does that particular type of led work for most infared mice?

yea mine worked out fine cause I have the logitech mouse. It said on there that

As a note, those of you who are thinking that this might work on your MS intelliMouse, it won't as I've already tried and it appears that the intelliMouse uses a different voltage Led.

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dang.. anyone know the voltage on the intellimouse led? well.. i guess i'll go lookin if no one posts ehhe

I thought about doing this about a year ago, but i couldn;t find any doccumentation on the mouse's eye except for the fact that it only tracks properly with 650 nm light, which is RED. Me not wanting to fuk up a 35 $ mouse also weighed in.

What you could do is, just put a white LED, and a 650nm filter over the "eye". That would provide the wavelegnth, and the awsome glow you want.

Speaking of glow, here is a link to drool over:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/keyboards/5c3f/

well if a mouse only tracks properly at 650nm, then damn... blue is way below that and it tracks just fine.. if not better.

For some reason I'm beginning to believe that colors at the lower end of the visible spectrum are better for tracking, beacuse they yield a higher frequency, therefore tracking mouse movements more precisely.
... but what the hell am i smoking eh? red is considered the laser color beacuse um... nevermind I didn't pay attention in physics.

OLMI said:

dang.. anyone know the voltage on the intellimouse led? well.. i guess i'll go lookin if no one posts ehhe

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It should be 5v. I'm pretty sure thats what all mice (at least usb, not sure about ps/2) becuase the USB runs off of the 5v rail...

Fold and Frag on
Brian

thank you sir. i'll try this mod later on when i get more LEDs and time.

if i wasnt so lazy i would open my intellimouse explorer and get out the trusty old multlimeter and tell you the exact voltage. and yes, the voltage of the LED matters alot. if you use a 1.5v LED and its getting 5v, it might look purdy for a little while, but unless you like replacing it alot its not gonna be very fun. http://www.luxeonstar.com/resistor-calculator.html actually is a very handy tool to get the right resistors for your LED projects, however it wouldnt be very easy to wire that up.

and also... if red *supposedly* tracks the best, and violet the worst, then possibly infrared will track better than red? i know having an optical mouse that gives off no light isnt that cool as far as looks go, but it would be interesting to see how it works.

My Results of reading the voltage w/ a meter:
movment LED:
Dim: .35 Volts
bright: 2.1 Volts

Back end LED:
const.: 1.8 Volts

Taken by putting the Fluke Meter's measureing leads on the terminals of each LED.
mouse: the mouse is one of microsoft's "IntelliMouse" with the forward and back buttons.

bubba gump said:

It should be 5v. I'm pretty sure thats what all mice (at least usb, not sure about ps/2) becuase the USB runs off of the 5v rail...

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the ps/2 mice run on 5 volts...
i think this is true cause i stupidly have a usb opti mouse (intel) plugged via ps\2 adapter and i dont think that little thing has room for somthing that changes voltages...if im wrong correct me
dont ask me why i dont plug it in through usb cause its the family pc and i really dont know why it came this way...

wow, way to open up an old thread.

BTW; I've done many LED swaps since these origonal posts, and they seem to be working fine. Generally the cheaper mice work better. Brighter is better.

Lol, yea I think i'll become known a "the thread reviver" I've revived a two year old thread.