Hacking an optical mouse

Paralel · 02-08-2009, 02:38 PM

I've been toying with a rather ingenious idea lately - to convert a regular optical mouse into a quasy graphic tablet stylus.

Now, I've noticed two l shaped pieces of metal exiting the sensor (or camera, or whatever that little black box that sends/receives the red light is) and going into the circuit board. Can I solder a pair of twin wires to the l shaped pieces of metal, thereby allowing the sensor to be mounted on a pen?

Drakeo · 02-08-2009, 10:34 PM

you can do anything you want and the input device is still set up by the kernel and so it is up to to to tell the kernel with the kernels options to get it to communicate. with the xorg or gdm figure that out.any good luck theory

Paralel · 02-09-2009, 02:13 AM

I figured as such but what about power resistance? Will the sensor still be able to send signals even if I solder in the wires?

theYinYeti · 02-09-2009, 03:33 AM

I wouldn't worry too much about that. Any resistance in the circuit has a 5-to-10% error margin. A bit of wire will add almost no resistance to the whole circuitery.

Well, that's just a feeling, how I would feel if I did something equivalent (and I sometimes do). I'm neither a professional nor an expert in this area, not even an amateur…

Besides, you can always buy a dirt-cheap mouse to do some tests. I recently bought such a low-value keyboard for a similar purpose.

Yves.

jlinkels · 02-09-2009, 04:50 AM

Interesting experiment. I would certainly use screened wire for the connection, certainly for the sensor. The voltage drop seems negligable to me. The LED is just for illumination, there is a large error margin there, just like there is a large variation in reflection coefficient of the various materials.

jlinkels