Awww, yeah! Finally!

[Oni]

I finally modded my Logitech Optical Wheel mouse from the red LED to a bright blue LED!

Last time I tried it, I ended up botching it. This time I did it right. It kicks ***, but I need to make it brighter. it's not very bright inside.

Does somebody have any knowledge about the resistors used in this mouse? If so, would you mind sharing? I'm pretty sure I have to change one or two to make it brighter, but I'm not sure which ones.

I'll post pics later

 

[Oni]

Ok, I found the resistor I need to replace, but I don't know what to replace it with. Should I replace it w/ a piece of insulated wire, or another lower resistance resistor? I'm not sure. And if it was to be another resistor, what restance factor would I need?

 

[BinarySuperman]

use some of those 1337 nigja skills to post some pics

 

[Mpegger]

Don's LED 101 Class


LED Calculators
http://www.bit-tech.net/article/68/
http://linear1.org/ckts/led.php


"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he'll sit on a boat drinking beer for the rest of the week."

Or something like that...



1337 LED biker ninja Mpegger strikes again.

Btw, get a cheap-o multimeter at RadiosHack to measure the value of the resistors if thier SMT types or others that dont have the standard 4 color bands to identify thier values. Besides, if you really get into LEDs, a good multimeter will be very useful.

 

[Oni]

I tried taking some pics last night, but they didn't come out too well. Pro'lly the low-light environment. I might try again later.

As for the LED guide and LED calculators and stuff, I have no idea as to where to even begin w/ any of that. All I know is that the LED I put in there was a 5v Radioshack Bright Blue LED, 5mm, and I want it brighter.

Unfortunately, I don't have a multimeter, so I can't test the restance factor of the resistor. It was on the 'to get' list, but I never got around to buying one (always had a cheep attack whenever I saw one).

 

[Mpegger]

I'd pick up a multimeter first. The package the LED came in sould have the values for it that you can punch into the LED calculator to get your resistor value.

HOWEVER....

Without knowing what voltage the circuit is suppling in the first place, you'll be wasting money on resistors.

The LED the mouse originally came with would have one end connected to the resistor and the other end to ground. You'll need to follow the end with the resistor backwards to see if theres any other resistors along the path, but I doubt there will be more then the 1 in series with the LED. You take the multimeter, set it to measure voltage, put the ground probe to the LED ground, and the positive probe to the component/connection BEFORE the voltage dropping resistor (read the 101 Class, ok ). That would tell you what kind of voltage is available to that circuit. If its 5V or more, then powering the LED from that will be easy.

If its less then 5V, you'll need to find the positive and ground wire for the PS2 (or USB, however your mouse connects) that connects to the circuit board and run some wires from there to get the full 5V.

Be aware though that a USB port only supplies 500mA, and those bright blue LEDs can sometimes take over 30, or even over 50mA for full intensity. You might run the chance of pulling more power then what the port can supply, and a number of problems may arise, two of which come to mind. 1, Irradic mouse response/behavior, and 2, a burnt out USB port. But I doubt the mouse even uses more then 300-400mA so you sould be fine. But I wont be responsible if you fry your mouse, your hand, or your USB.

Hmmm.... maybe I sould make a Newbies Guide to Mouse LED replacement. Anyone got a dead mouse that has a LED they care to donate?

 

[Oni]

Changing the LED was actually pretty easy. It's getting it to do what I want that's the hard part.

On a side note, the mouse no longer tracks well on my green mousepad. I think it's pro'lly cause blue is too close to green in the colour spectrum, or something. It tracks just fine on my white piece of paper, however. I think I'll need to procure a new, lighter colour mousepad (grey/white, pro'lly). I might just go back to the red LED that was originally in there, however. I was doing some reading, and found out why they use red LEDs. It's 'cause the red shows more definition in objects and stuff.

The blue LED in there might just be underpowered, or something. It's a 5v LED, and the LED that was in there ran at like, 3.7v or so (according to my tech docs).

 

[pik4chu]

Hmmm.... maybe I sould make a Newbies Guide to Mouse LED replacement. Anyone got a dead mouse that has a LED they care to donate? [/B]

its just an adaptation of this....about half way down it tells where to solder on an LED so it will work and such

http://www.metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/cryo/index_eng

 

[Oni]

Thanks for all your help guys, but I went ahead and went back to the red LED anyways. It just tracks better on a lot of various surfaces.

I'll have pics up shortly.

 

[Oni]

Sorry for the crummy quality, but my mom's digicam is teh suck. That at least proves I did it, and that I'm not just shining you all on (as if a ninja would do that )

 

[pik4chu]

heh, interesteing, it seems you replaced the 'tracking' LED with blue, personally Im going to leave that one alone and replace the rear LED with a blue..that way I dont lose the tracking quality and it still looks cool

 

[Oni]

Well, my mouse is only single LED, so if I wanted to add another LED, I'd have to play around a bit more

 

[Jeff Bolton]

i'm interested in doing this oni...i have the same mouse.

is there a tutorial that shows how to do it, or did you just jump in and figure it out on your own?

thanks..

jeff

 

[blackhabit]

cool you should add a window to the top of the mouse wait i will do that

 

[hacgumyu]

someday I will mod my monitor power button LED... l0l

 

[Captain Slug]

Well, my mouse is only single LED, so if I wanted to add another LED, I'd have to play around a bit more

Locate the mosfet and the ground connection to the USB or PS/2 connection. Figure out which lead on the mosfet peaks it's voltage when the mouse isn't idle.

Now you can connect another LED between the Mosfet terminal and the ground without having to replace the tracking LED.

I did that two two different mice. It allowed me to use whatever color I wanted without effecting performance and it still had the dimming feature.

 

[adamtekh]

i always thought my microsoft blue mouse should have a blue led
maybe ill try it some day

 

[Oni]

i'm interested in doing this oni...i have the same mouse.

is there a tutorial that shows how to do it, or did you just jump in and figure it out on your own?

thanks..

jeff

This is the guide I used:

http://www.taconuts.org/articles/2000/dec/3/page1.php

There's not a lot involved. You have to take the PCB out, de-solder the LED from the PCB, take the LED out of the plastic housing (there's a little clip at the back of the housing, close to the LED wires. Just pry that up a bit w/ a flat headed screwdriver, and the LED will slip right out). Cut the wires on the new LED to the correct size, and bend them correctly. Put the plastic housing back on. Slip the leads through the solder points (making sure they match the previous LEDs orientation of + and -), and re-solder it in.

Be warned, however, that the wavelenght of the blue LED is different from the red LED, and it probably won't track as well on various surfaces as the red will. Keep the red LED around, just in case

 

[Jeff Bolton]

i want to get a new mouse anyways, so if i screw this one up i won't be heartbroken

but if it DOES work great, then it'll be like a new mouse, and the blue mouse w/blue glow will match the glow from my computer which will confuse and amaze friends and pets alike.

edit: and where could i get a nice blue LED? radio shack?

 

[DarkHawk]

The part number for the Blue LED (2600 mcd is the bright one, 260 mcd is the dim one, make sure you get it right)
276-316


When you desolder make sure you don't pull the LED's until there is no solder connecting them to the board, I tried to pull the LED out of a M$ mouse by only heating the solder up to melt and pulling before it cooled, I ended up pulling most of the contact on the board up too. Mouse died, there was no LED, but that's ok, because it happened in November and now I have a Logitech MX700 and I will never touch a M$ mouse again, nothing can step to this mouse!! Best $80 I ever spent for my computer, although I think that the $200 of watercooling comes close

I wish I could find a scource online of LED's all colors including UV and for cheap, less than the 4 or 5 dollars that the blue and white ones cost at RadioShack......