Mighty mouse gutting and cleaning
If you have been using your favorite Apple mighty mouse for at least 2-3 months you must have experienced the cursor getting stuck when rolling the nipple. It drove me crazy, so I decided to take the mouse apart and clean it.
First I removed the outer grey rim. It seemed to me it was glued to the outer shell. This is the only glued part. Then, I removed the inside grey rim. Both pop off relatively easily if you use a plastic ruler to take them apart bit by bit.
Once this is done you can separate the bottom part of your mouse from the outer shell. Be careful, they are still attached together by some wires that rip easily.
Next, the little black box holding the roller ball should be opened by unscrewing 3 bolts carefully. I used a swiss knife because I had apply serious force to loosen them up.
Once you open the black box the ball will be exposed. It sits within a white plastic saddle. You will have to carefully remove the white plastic. It pops off very easily.
Under the plastic you will see 4 tiny rollers that fly off easily, so be extremely careful. Remember their position.
The black head of the rollers are small magnets so using a metallic screw driver can be very useful to remove them. However putting them back is best done by hand. It is a little tedious, so take your time. If you have big fingers, you may want to ask for help from somebody with more petite hands. Take each roller one by one and clean the dirt from the white middle part on them. You should also clean the inner shell of the mouse.
Now, carefully revert the whole process. The most difficult will be to put the white saddle back because all the magnetic rollers are moving around and you need to concentrate on all 4 at the same time. The last part is the outer rim, which I glued back with super glue carefully applying tiny dots of glue to the shell's edge.
The mouse works as new. Good luck cleaning your rodent!
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Stupid Mighty Mouse, this shouldn't be necessary.
Thanks though Ivan, i'll certainly be cleaning mine.
Does anyone use the side buttons? I find them totally unusable as they are activated randomly in normal mousing.
Yeah, about those side buttons...
When I first got mine, I was pretty ticked about the buttons, too. But when I figured out you could use them for Expose (F10), I couldn't resist. They take a lot of getting used to, but I think it's worth it - especially if you like to have lots of stuff going on at once, and want to be able to switch around quickly. I also have the nipple-click function set for my Dashboard (F12), and my Desktop Expose set for my bottom-right screen corner. This way I can view all of my windows, expose my desktop, and get in and out of my Dashboard without ever taking my hand of the mouse.
Despite the initial learning curve with the side buttons, I'm quite pleased with this mouse.
mine must be a year old at least...
and no problems. although I am a wacom geek, so the mouse doesn't get the full on daily bashing like you guy's mice'essses'
Same story in Italilan
Same story in Italian
Another method
I had the same problem with my Mighty Mouse - which has now survived 1 year of active duty. Considered gutting it, but didn't have the guts.
Another way of cleaning the little trackball which work really well is to hold the Mighty upside down, press down on the ball really hard (which surprisingly enough doesn't seem to damage it) and blow into the hole while rolling the ball. All the dust and grime that collects in there comes out nicely and the ball works fine again. (And the mouse is still intact.)
I've had to do this twice in the last year.
As for those side buttons - used it once, won't be using it again.
thanks!
I think those few milligrams of greasy sticky gue would not have come off with this method in my case. I don't know how this happens, because I only touch my Mac with clean hands.
I don't have a mighty mouse,
I don't have a mighty mouse, but sweat and body oil always gets on stuff you touch even if you wash your hands. I always clean my Wacom tablet, mouse, and pen with rubbing alcohol. It doesn't matter if some of it gets inside the mouse or pen because it evaporates anyway.
How I Clean My Mighty Mouse
I just use a lint-free cloth and rubbing alcohol. I gently rub the track ball back and forth until the obstruction is clear. The alcohol doesn't hurt the electronics, and evaporates pretty quickly.
Actually taking the mouse apart makes me squeamish.
I think this could work if
I think this could work if you put enough alcohol on the rubber ball that can transfer to the rollers and the dirt can transfer back to the ball.
Awsome tutorial.
Awsome tutorial. Now lets see how you can stop the mouse's side buttons from uncontrollably clicking. That pisses me off.
That's actually quite easy
That's actually quite easy to do. Go to the Mouse tab in your Keyboard & Mouse section of System Preferences. From there you'll be presented with a dialog to set actions for all the buttons of your Mighty Mouse. Select the side buttons drop down and choose "Off". From then on the side buttons will ignore any clicking.
Where is the quality?
Well, I decided to clean my new Apple supplied mouse for my G5. After having in for about a year, it refused to work, so I got out my screwdriver and proceeded to make sure this mouse would never work again. I got the bottom off, whereupon parts decided to drop everywhere. Of course my big fingers did not help. In the garbage it went; $50 bucks! Bought another one last month (another $50) and already it has inflicted my curser with insanity. The curser does what it wants, up, down, sideways, off the screen, and forget about those side buttons. So now, after one month, I have an order in for a Kensington. Where is the quality Apple? Can't you make something that will last, have value and work? You have a name to protect, why mess it up with a lousy, cheap mouse??
Nice tutorial!
though i still prefer to use my oyster knife :D
keep it up man!
That up and down movement
About the cleaning of these nipples.
I stumbled upon an easier way of cleaning me nipples. Well, err, not mine.
But anyway, rather than actually cleaning them, i have found that if you simply turn the mouse over and pressing down lightly run the nipple in an up and down fashion atop an unopened magazine.
Any one of those plastic cellophane magazine covers will do. The only downside, apart from not being able to scroll down with my battery installed Miaghty mouse is that it occurs quite often, and i need to have an unopened magazine cover laying around at hand.
Still, i have no idea why this should work at all. Maybe it just works with my mouse. I dunno?
We Brits do things differently, but we still get shot at!