Cleaning Your Mice Wheels?

frink_exp asks: "Cleaning mouse balls (and the rollers they contact) has been the source of many a pun and the subject of countless junk e-mail messages. As more optical mice replace their mechanical kin, such hygiene is becoming unnecessary. However, the mouse wheel is nearly as common as the mouse itself and human hands are grubby, sweaty, oily appendages. Invariably, a nice coating of gunk envelops the wheel. Sometimes it's just unsightly, but at it's worst, it'll sap the rubber wheel of all its grip making it difficult to scroll. Cleaning the wheel can be awkward as it tends to spin and unlike mouse balls, it doesn't just pop out (rehashing of the balls joke intended). The best method I've found is scraping sideways, parallel to the wheel's axis of rotation, slowly working my way around the whole wheel. This is tedious and annoying. Is this a common affliction? What is a better, easier way to clean the mouse wheel? Solvents? A wheel brush? Fire?"

Comments

Just take it apart

[earthdark]

Flip the mouse over, locate the screw(s), unscrew them, and gently take the covering off.

There's a spring pushing the wheel up, so take a moment to figure out how the wheel is lodged onto the spring and plastic parts before taking the actual wheel out.

Scrape the dirt off the wheel or wash it or whatever you like and pop it back in. Put the cover back on, the screws, and voila, clean mouse wheel.

Of course, if you have an optical mouse, you might want to unplug it or turn off the computer before looking for the screws on the mouse bottom...