Mouse Repair

Here's an example of getting stuff done and a justification for the heap of potentially useful stuff (lovingly referred to as "crap" by friends and family :P)
Today my boyfriend's 5 year old mouse developed a slight cough dodgy left click switch. While it was amusing listening to the increasing levels of frustration as single clicks turned into quadruple clicks and drag selection turned into time wasting, it needed fixing.

Here's the vintage rodent in question, a Logitech mx3200 series. From mouse

To the crap useful stuff heap!

And out comes an old rollerball mouse PCB:

From mouse

the innards of the ageing laser mouse.

From mouse

A quick measure showed that the switches share the same pin spacing.

With components like these I find it easier to de-solder them by adding a little solder to the joints and then gently levering the component up while quickly heating each leg. This usually results in slightly burnt fingers, but I find it easier than messing about with a solder sucker.

one slightly toasted thumb later:

From mouse

The same technique was used to remove the switch from the other mouse, followed by roughly the same technique in reverse to install the working switch. And voila!

From mouse

Then it was just a case of putting the little rodent back together and we have a happy boyfriend :)

From the initial "I can fix that" to job done was about half an hour (including finding my camera and a set of non-flat batteries) take THAT "beyond economic repair"!!!