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"Red is Dead" Optical Mice LED Change
A reader sent us the
HOWTO for changing that red LED on your fancy-pants new optical mouse to blue - or, I suppose any other color. I think I'm fine with what I've got - although, the glass tops on tables does make using optical mice a pain there.
Can you use a black light?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
However, upon pluggin my mouse into the computer, the logitech logo and mouse in general glowed blue!!! I was happy. Although the LED on the bottom was red, they had an *extra* LED that was blue for the logo and the *glowing* plastic. That made my day and it involved NO soldering.
although, the glass tops on tables does make using optical mice a pain there.
Rub some sandpaper over the part of the glass where the mouse will be. Problem solved!
I do have to say that a blue LED mouse looks about 10X cooler than a red one. But it looks like this type of project will only interest serious modders who have some cash to spend.
How about black light on a white mouse pad? That would be pretty nifty.
-hero.
Cool! I myself wanted to write a long FAQ about how to do an analogous thing for traditional mice. i.e. how to use a whiteboard marker to change the ball to match your decor.....but got bogged down by technical details...perhaps someone can help me...
The law of excluded middle : Either I'm foo or I'm foobar
Personally I would rather have blue to match the blue case on my computer but the mouse that I have isn't all that responsive as it is and if it gets any worse, it wouldn't be usable.
Maybe one of the mod sites could do a test to see which colors offer the best performance and which colors should be avoided.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
I think I'm fine with what I've got - although, the glass tops on tables does make using optical mice a pain there.
I thought I was fine with what I had too, until I got a glass tabletop... and started working without pants. Now I just cry every time I look down.
Best Windows Freeware
Aw, MAN! And I was just getting caught up on all of my ridiculous case modding and converting my Geo Storm into a Geo Storm "Type R"...
(Like Heston) Damn you. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
The problem is that this can seriously degrade performance.
What I want to know is: Would it be possible to come up with a mod design in which it switches between red and blue? (Red when it's moving, Blue when it's idle)
I noticed the light turns off when the mouse is Idle with my intellimouse, maybe this could be switched around a bit.
From the article: With the LED's now exposed, gently heat each side of the LED's carefully pulling on them until they are removed from the PCB. Take your time. This is actually the hardest part of the whole mod.
This shouldn't be the hardest part of the mod. Solder-removal braiding and suction solder removers are cheaply available and highly recommended. Once you remove the solder, removing the LEDs is much easier and safer. (No flying hot solder!)
Blue has a shorter wavelength than red.
The reason red LEDs are used is because they are the cheapest, as longer wavelength bandgap devices are easier to make.
The exception to this logic is infrared, since LEDs are typically used for visual indication. Infrared LEDs are useless for this purpose so manufacturers don't make nearly as many of them...
How many Slashdot'ers does it take to change an LED?
Answer: The ISP hosting the site is about to find out....
I did this on an older style Microsoft Intellimouse, using a light blue LED from Radio Shack. And they're not kidding about losing responsiveness. I couldn't play Counter-Strike anymore or any other games which required me to move the mouse quickly. The mouse would just lose tracking and the cursor would freeze on the screen. I swapped the original red LED back in, and what do you know, it works fine again.
I don't recall the URL, but about a year ago someone did a comparison of about 10 different LED colors they tried in an optical mouse, and found that red is the best. (Duhh)
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
A great scene is a great film (and I presume a great play, but I was too young to see it at the time).
The line is, of course, from The Wiz, which starred Diana Ross (Dorothy) Michael Jackson (Scarecrow) and Nipsey Russell (Tinman). My favorite song was "You Can't Win", which was sung by MJ. It's basically the three laws of thermodymamics, turned into a song about pessimism.
The "Red is Dead" line comes from a scene were they first get to the Emerald City. Everyone's dancing around this huge city square that's all lit green. Everyone's actually wearing white, but because of the lighting it looks green. Then there's an announcement that green is no longer in and the new color is red. Lights change, everyone is in red, and the dance continues. A few minutes later, the announcement proclaims, "Red is Dead" and I think the color moves on to gold.
This film was made at the hight of the disco craze, and Diana Ross was very much a part of it. I was kind of suprised to see her poking such fun at the whirling fashion trends that came and went in weeks in the late 70s.
The faint glow of a red light while looking at pr0n just seems natural.
Trolling is a art,
Yes, red LED's are cheaper, but there is another reason, too.. They also want to use the cheapest CCD available. That's going to be a monochrome CCD that's sensitive to larger wavelengths. A red LED is going to work better on that.
With that in mind, an Infrared LED would probably work great with optical mice and their cheap CCD's.. maybe even better than red. You might have to remove an IR filter from in front of the CCD, and be wary of using them in a room with flourescent lighting, but it'd be good to try. How cool is an optical mouse with apparently NO light?!?!
If you want the "cool" blue look for whatever twisted ass reason, just use a blue LED and an IR LED in paralell. You might have to play with different led's/led voltages to get the right balance between a responsive mouse and the cool blue glow your riceboy heart desires, but again, it should work.
~GoRK
... like there's no tomorrow.
I have two Logitech wireless mice: one at work, one at home. I spend comparable amounts of time logged in both places (*sigh*). The one at home is a mechanical mouse, the one at work is an optical mouse.
My optical mouse has been through five sets of AA batteries in the amount of time it took my mechanical mouse to finish off one set of AAAs.
And you can't use rechargables, because these bad boys need the full 1.7 volts from those Alkaline cells -- the 1.3 from NiCd just won't cut it.
That's just nasty.
That is a sooo very typical White Trash solution. Good god, howtacky can you be? Hope you were just kiddin, otherwise I pity you and the trailer park from where you hail.
Of course I was kidding, but you just gave me an idea. I can put the red LED's in the eyes of the pink flamingos out in my front yard...
Every time I see one of these articles, this one in particular, it reminds me of the blokes who spend thousands of pounds to put UV tubes under their cars
However, the main difference I can see between the two is that when the car modders have finished, they drive around town and OCCASIONALLY some girl stops, thinks its cool, and gets in with them, while mouse modders can only use their accomplishment to click on "sign me up" for yet another porn site
Here's a link for the same mod with a Logitech Mouse.
www.skybusiness.com/ntanner
I've done this, and it works fine. Note that there are two Radio shack LED's that are blue, one that outputs 2600 MCD's at 4.5 volts, the other 300 at 6 volts. I used the brighter one, and have no skipping problems at all.
Radio Shack
www.christopherlewis.com
Serously, why do you need to ask why? Present a geek with a gadget, and he will find some pointless way to modify it, just for the sake of modifying it.
Me? I think it'd be cool as hell to have a blue LED light under my mouse.
A blue LED doesn't help me get any work done. Sure, it may look cool and impress chicks, but even cooler would be an ALL KNOWING, ALL SEEING MOUSE, that wouldn't rely on me to push it around the mouse pad to get work done. It would do all the work for me because it would be that smart. And I would fall asleep during working hours.
It would be pretty damn good at playing quake as well, much better than me.
If I could find a mouse like that, well heck, then it could have a blue LED. Until then though, only red for it, until it gets smarter and starts doing some damn work for a change instead of just sitting there until I push it.
Easy guys, I put my pants on one leg at a time. The difference is after I put on my pants I make gold records!
The Laser pointer cat exerciser is patented - the owners have been notified and will contact you to arrange easy payment options.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Sith (evil programmers) use the red ones. Blue, green and now purple are used by the good guys :)
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Wouldn't an outside-of-the-visible-spectrum light work? The red gets annoying when playing at 4:am in the dark...
If they're going through all the trouble of changing the LED's to blue, why not change them into a superintelligent shade of blue!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I have a Logitech optical/wireless mouse which works on just about any surface, such as:
- My flat, smooth, featureless desktop;
- The crap that usually sits on that desktop: plain printed paper, smooth & shiny take out pizza menu's etc.
- My trousers, in case the desktop is too full to move a mouse over.
- My cats! One is extremely black and short-haired, the other a multicolor longhaired one. The mouse works reasonably well on either of them, when one of them lies down on the only clear spot on my desk.
- Wood grain of any description.
Get a decent brand optical mouse, it is worth the higher price.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I don't understand how this can just work, you may be able to swap for a yellow or green LED, but a blue LED has a much higher activation voltage, which would mean that either the red LED was being overdriven, or there's a chip in charge of changing the voltage somehow because it was designed to handle other color LEDs as well. The blue LED should be really dim if the voltage is for a red LED (GaAS).
Still, MSI color their mother boards, including ports, etc in a purple hue. I'm pretty sure they'd get the material in that boring green color easier, but it's all about standing out of the crowd. Same reason to why you'd make your LED blue.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Well, I've never bought LEDs from them, but I know they have a pretty good selection of VERY bright LEDs of practically any color.
http://hosfelt.com/en-us/dept_54.html
I am considering hanging myself by my cordless mouse.
Obviously this replacement worked for the story's author, but there is a technical point I haven't seen raised yet: Blue LED's have a much higher forward voltage drop than red LED's, and will often not turn on all the way in a circuit designed for red LED's.
The typical red LED circuit is a resistor connected to 5 volts (sometimes 3.3) in series with the LED. The resistor limits the current that can pass through the LED. The value of the resistor is based on some typical forward voltage across the LED. That is, the 5 volts will end up being partially across the resistor, and partially across the LED. The resistor is calculated so that the typical voltage drop will yield the desired current.
The voltage drop on a red LED is about 1 or 1.5 volts or something (I don't remember exactly) but blue LED's ca drop around 3 or 4 volts (IIRC). This throws off the calculations used in selecting a current-limiting resistor for the typical (red) LED circuit. A 3.3 volt circuit might not even turn a blue LED on at all.
The best way to turn on a blue LED is to put it in series with a simple current source (this can just be one matched pair of transistors with a current setting resistor on one of them) or, when possible, to use 12 volts with a current-limiting resistor in series.
Green and yellow are close enough to red that they don't pose a problem.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
I ran across this . Its a really cool mouse that has 24(!) user selectable LED colors. You change the color by hitting a switch on the mouse. Now that's cool. Next is to have a red, green and blue LED with variabe instensities...
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
In other words, this article is: Slashdot - How to Change a Lightbulb!
Photos of bits of the past hiding in the present: afiler.com
Matters not, whether you can see it.
Red, it is.
Feel it, you can.
Blue, it must become.
The force is not strong with you... Much to learn you have.
interesting story here.
I have just checked around some of the well known UK suppliers (Maplin Electronics and RS Electronics) to find these ultra bright LED's in blue, but I will be damned if I can find em.
The very brightest I saw was 2000MCD - and that was being sold as the highest brightness at nearly $7US for a single LED.
Suggestions on where to buy from please?
Thanks!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Perhaps because that study is bad science? It ignores the fact that people with the emotional/physical problems they describe are more likely to be internet addicts than the average person. They have proven no strong, general correlation, and it is akin to saying "Piloting a 747 makes you a very smart and focused person" when really, the people who are doing that usually already have those qualities.
It is not the first. I saw one site last month check the site referrer and if you came from Slashdot it gave a message to "Go Away!"
I do have to say that a blue LED mouse looks about 10X cooler than a red one.
Here's Why
After reading this article yesterday, I pondered changing the LED in my mouse. Has slashdot implmented some sort of psychic cookies or something?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
The obvious reason NOT to do this.
On submarines and ships, they used to have only red lights inside when it was dark (or the person who had to go outside would wear red goggles inside). This was to preserve the ability to see detail in the dark. The eye's light sensors are able to recover quickly from red light, less so from other wavelengths.
Remember this at your next dimly-lit LAN party, where you've modded your computer and mouse with blue LEDs. And don't blame me when you trip and fall on the way to the fridge for another Mountain Dew. Or get fragged by someone you never saw, because your dark sensitivity was diminished after staring lovingly at your glowing blue mouse during respawn.
...
This is a cool mod to do if you have a mouse with clear sides :D (The $12 Logitech model B12 comes to mind..)
On my Logitech B12 I desoldered the factory LED, and put in its place a cut in half CD-ROM passthrough cable plug. I then went and bought 1 of every color LED that http://www.superbrightleds.com sells. When I want to change colors I just pull the LED leads out of the plug and pop it out of its plastic holder/lens.
I've measured the voltage being delivered to every color LED when in the mouse: Aqua (max Vf 3.6), Blue (Vf 3.5), Green (Vf 3.5) and White (Vf 3.4) all get 3.35-3.5v Red (Vf 2.2), Yellow (Vf 2.4), and Orange all get 2.3v
All of these LEDs are rated 5000mcd and above.
Every color tracks just like the factory Red LED. And in some cases better! The White, Blue, Aqua and Green LEDs track much better on shinny surfaces. On the same surface Red, Yellow, and Orange LEDs just make the cursor jump around.
go down so fast? This site is shutdown temporarily due to the slashdot effect.
I suppose "extreme" could refer to minimum.
Um, IR is the best thing you can use.
All IR LEDs (except for maybe some outlandish ones, but none that I know of) are near-IR. Si isn't transparent to near-IR, it's transparent to far-IR (i.e. the type of IR given off by not-obscenely-hot objects). In fact, as others pointed out, most CCDs and CMOS sensors have their sensitivity peak in the near-IR area! (Note: This is the main principle that enables Sony NightShot mode. In most camcorders and digital cameras, there is an optical element that filters out near-IR light because it will utterly kill proper color rendition - In NightShot mode, this filter is moved out of the way, allowing more light in, which happens to be at the sensor's peak. Color rendition goes down the tubes, but recording something is better than recording nothing.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
it is not the wood grain but the sealant that is most likely causing the problem. If the laser reflects, things go awry. A piece of graph paper works wonders. The double LED mice also reduce the skipping noticeably.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Hah. That's nothing. I overclocked my mouse sensor to 10x. Of course, my palm is occasionally injured by the blades of the cooling fan, but I found the extra precision is useful for negotiating a bloody mousepad...
Or for repairing a broken duck.
Personally, I prefer using DUCT tape for most applications, including removing warts. Doesn't work all that well for taping ducts, though.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
Since the site is slashdotted, here's an alternative article on the topic. Note the date: Dec 2000!
I guess this isn't _that_ new of a hack.