Mouse upgrade - adding wheel tilts, replacing electronics

There were a lot of mice in my hands, but the most convenient cases for me are only two - “Oklick Hunter” and “DeathAdder”.
"DeathAdder" appeared with me, back in 2006. He served me faithfully for several years, then there were different mice, in recent years he used the Hunter, or rather the W-mouse in the Hunter’s case, and DeathAdder was gathering dust in a box.
For me, the main drawback of DeathAdder is the small number of additional buttons and the lack of wheel tilt. On the tilt of the wheel, when working in windows, I have assigned Copy / paste. It is very comfortable. In the game, tilt the wheel to the right, I use it as target detection, i.e. index finger constantly "tremolit" wheel to the right. I’m very used to it and I don’t think for myself a mouse without tilting the wheel.
Therefore, the idea of ​​remaking the wheel in DeathAdder haunted me. I disassembled it several times, estimated it and collected it back since the idea seemed unreal ...
But as they say, they are afraid of their eyes, and they do their hands about half a year ago, began to think over the options more actively and nevertheless decided to rework ...
Caution, traffic! many photos

The action plan, given the big doubts about the successful alteration of the wheel, was drawn as follows:
1. Alteration of the wheel.
2. Adding additional buttons.
3. Replacing electronics - creating a W-mouse.
4. Ennoblement of the body.

In most mice with wheel inclinations, a design with a wheel suspension in the “crib” is used - in this case, the tilt buttons are pressed with levers on the crib, and the “wheel press” button, like the third mouse button (3KM), will be pressed by one of the axes of the crib.
For a “crib”, I went through various options for quite some time - either to make it from separate “panels”, or to find something ready, suitable in size.
As a result, the case of some kind of capacitor came up well. The interiors were removed, the body was cut in half. Holes were made for the axles of the wheel, and fluoroplastic axles of the bearings were placed at the ends. At the wheel itself, the axis on which the encoder hangs was shortened.





The whole process of remaking was accompanied by numerous fittings. / smile /
First fitting:



The encoder (wheel rotation sensor) should hang on the wheel axis, but in order for its body to not rotate, it had to be fixed - for this, I used a small bracket curved from thin metal.



For the suspension of the “crib”, supports were made from an aluminum corner.
In general, the place in the front of the case is very limited, so everything was done with minimal gaps. The case itself, in places, had to be thoroughly undermined.
The crib also had to be cut in front - these bevels are visible in the pictures.
Front support and wheel with bracket with encoder lock: the



next fitting before manufacturing and installing the rear support, as you can see there is almost no space for the support:



The rear support is installed. The axis is intentionally left long. It will be used to press 3KM. Therefore, the hole in the support is made so that the axis can move up / down a little:





As you can see in the picture, to put a button under the rear axis of the crib, you need to make an additional fee.
The first fitting, in the housing after installing the wheel with the crib:



Installed "expansion" board. 0.5 mm thick fiberglass was used.
As you can see, the fluoroplastic had to be cut from the axis and a longer screw used: The



buttons had to be used with membrane buttons. Manufacturers indicate a resource of several million clicks. The main problem is finding the buttons with the easiest click.
In the bins I found pieces of 20 different buttons, I tested the effort by simply pressing one button with the other. The most “lightweight” buttons were omron.
Installation of the “back” button that will be pressed by the aka 3KM wheel:



installation of the front buttons for tilting the wheel: The





levers for pressing the side buttons were made of steel strips (pulled out of old automobile “wipers”):





Trying in the mouse case:



Thus, the first point of the plan can be considered accomplished - the wheel has tilted.
I must say right away that the clicks turned out to be "tight." This was especially noticeable in comparison with the Hunter wheel, in which the side wheel presses are very light and I’m not afraid to say that, it’s nice. Therefore, the task arose to find more “soft” buttons. Fortunately, this type of button is cheap - on aliexpress and eBay I ordered several options, including such buttons as are on the Hunter - i.ebayimg.com/images/g/BvsAAOSwLVZVpeQ7/s-l1600.jpg The
second point of the plan is installation of additional buttons.
The "Hunter" on the "back" has two buttons to which I have assigned "Home" and "End" - this is very convenient, in the browser, to go to the beginning or end of the page, but it is also actively used in games to select additional requisites.
Putting a couple of buttons on the back turned out to be easier than I thought / smile /
Pressing these buttons, I’m used to doing with the index finger - the one closest to the body, the cushion of the index finger, the far button, with the tip of a bent finger, it’s convenient for me and it works without any strain.





In order for the mouse to be easily disassembled, a connector is used.
Fitting board assembly with buttons:





Fitting into the fully assembled “back” of the case. By the way, you can see what a shabby and squalid state of the case is:



Since the first two points of the plan have been successfully completed, you can move on to the third point - creating a W-mouse based on DeathAdder.
W-mouse is a gaming mouse project with, I’m not afraid to say, unique features.
To assess the capabilities, you can show a screenshot of the W-mouse settings program window.
In the picture there is a screen of the setup program for the described mouse and a picture of how it sees the surface of the glass mat:



A link to the W-mouse project will be at the end of this material.
In short - a microcontroller is used (in this case ATMEGA32U4) - which replaces the standard one. This allows you to implement additional features and improved characteristics of the mouse. For example, when setting up a w-mouse on a specific mat, you can read a photo of the surface of the mat from the sensor.
The firmware, as well as the entire W-mouse project, is the result of the efforts of a person known as Walkie - he lives in the south-west of Russia.
Alteration was reduced to the following steps:
- the "old" controller and all unnecessary elements are deleted.
- unnecessary sensor connections are removed and new ones added.
- wiring is added to connect to the board with the "new" controller, as well as a multi-color RGB LED, to indicate the active profile.
- a board with a controller is installed.
- the firmware is poured.

Now a little more detailed, mainly due to photos / smile /

Trying to install a board for a microcontroller:



A microcontroller is installed on the board. On the main board, wiring is prepared for communication with the microcontroller board. A variable resistor is installed to adjust the backlight current of the sensor. The “profile” LED is installed.





W-mouse can use one of six profiles.
Switching profiles can be done either as a separate button or automatically by a special program that monitors the active window and includes the corresponding profile.
In the front part of the mouse body, which is always visible, I made an insert from frosted plexiglass (pulled it out of the old sdrom).





After that, the microcontroller board was connected and the W-mouse firmware was uploaded.
The most exciting moment is the first inclusion:



Joy turned out to be short-lived. Having worked the mouse for five minutes, when it was turned off and then turned back on, it ceased to show signs of life. / melancholy sadness /
After a short break (nervous break and thoughts / smile /), the mouse turned on and worked for about half a minute ...
Then there were 2-3 hours of picking with tinkers, replacing containers and trying to find out the reason for such dastardly behavior - sometimes it turned on and worked for half a minute ...
It was decided to replace the quartz, and at this stage I soldered the wire from the quartz body to the ground.
I must say that on the previous W-mouse, the connection of the quartz case to the ground is used. After soldering this wire, the mouse turned on and began to work flawlessly. / cheers /

Checking the operation of the board with buttons and the wheel:



Next, the mouse was assembled into the case, in full working condition and tested in the browser, as well as in the game BF4.
The check showed that the side presses of the wheel are very "heavy", this was further aggravated by the fact that the DeathAdder wheel has rounded side edges.
Also hard pressed 3KM i.e. the wheel itself.
It was decided to put in a derban spare "Hunter" who bought once a cheaper one.
I pulled out of it two buttons that stood on the slopes of the wheel.
I didn’t want to do this right away, since these buttons were spare for the Hunter already in use, but “since such a booze - cut the last cucumber” / haha ​​/
For 3KM, a “delicate” membrane button was found in one of the torn corpses of an A4 mouse.
Installing new side buttons required reworking the leverage.
As one, which is mounted on only one screw, it was a wonderful fit, the same aluminum corner from which the crib supports were made, but the lever that is fastened with two screws had to be completely turned out of a piece of duralumin with a thickness of 3 mm.



As a result, lateral wheel pressures have become light and enjoyable.
The back was painted with alkyd paint, characterized by some roughness ("rust-oleum multicolor textured"), this is important because if the surface is smooth then the hand sticks unpleasantly.

The final look of the mouse: I





am very pleased with the result.

links:
W-mouse project on overclockers website - forums.overclockers.ru/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=330808
Previous W-mouse assembly in the Huntor building - geektimes.ru/post/258184

special thanks to Walkie as the author of W- mouse