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Silent Mice for Silent PCs?
UnrefinedLayman asks: "In the quest for a silent PC, one item that seems to be consistently overlooked is the mouse: it's one of the more noisy computer components if only by virtue of the fact that it is a staccato noise. I don't notice my fans or hard drives very often, given that they are constant background sounds whose levels don't noticeably change. My mouse, on the other hand, makes a very audible *click* each time I use it, and while providing a pleasant tactile feedback, it keeps my girlfriend awake during my late-night work sessions. So I turn to the Ask Slashdot community: have you found a silent mouse for your silent PC? Numerous Google searches have yielded
little. It's not as though it's impossible, as touch pads for laptops have been around for quite some time, and the iPod makes great use of the technology. ThinkGeek also sells a force-free keyboard with a "mouse replacement" built into it, but while the keyboard technology looks very promising, I prefer to stick with a mouse (not to mention something a bit cheaper). Mouse manufacturers have long touted optical mice as being superior to their trackball cousins for having no moving, mechanical parts, but it seems like they're overlooking the most obvious and still mechanical function: the buttons themselves! So what say you Slashdot? Are there force-free, truly non-mechanical and silent mice out there to be had?"
Try this, it works great for me: Go to bed when your SO goes to bed. No, really, it works great. And there are other benefits as well.
If you cannot pull yourself away from the computer, then you can either get a touchpad (like a laptop), or you can hack your mouse.
The clicking device in the mouse is a microswitch, which has a very distinct switchover feeling and sound. If you wrap the switch and some of the circuitboard in yarn, you can deaden the sound somewhat. You can also replace it with something else of your own invention - two wires on the circuitboard, and a piece of tin foil on the button for instance.
You'll have reliability issues unless it's well designed (spring steel instead of tin foil, for instance), but it'll be quiet.
Another option is to hack some optical gates inside there. It would require much more engineering, but a simple optical gate, resister, and an epoxied piece of plastic on the button to break the beam when pressed should do very nicely. It'll take up little more room than the microswitch.
Send me a mouse and $90 and I'll do it for you.
-Adam
There is a mouse out there that does not click when you press the button: http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/gaming/66 89/ ;-) Maybe a little expensive but a very precise and good mouse - except that maybe the zero-force approach makes you click more often then you intend =). I heard though that you get used to it.
At least the older model they sold like 2 years ago did not click because that would make the sniper move the mouse about 1nm and then he'd miss...
~Squisher