I have a circuit board from an old optical mouse which was no longer usable because moving the mouse didn't always make the cursor move. It has two ICs on it (an S202A and an H2000), and of course an LED. I'm wondering what parts would be useful to salvage, and what I could use them for.

I came across an Instructable showing how to make an optical pen, but it seemed pretty difficult. If I had an Arduino, I suppose I could even make a little scanner out of it, but I don't. Any other ideas for how I could use these parts?

 

I am not sure if I've used those chips before, but the chip in charge is able (no news here) to sense motion. There are several projects where that capability is well exploited.

I became aware of all that when teaching my micro to understand / decode PS2 protocol in action. If you go ahead with that, whatever code you write must take into account the rollover because of the limit imposed by the finite counting (8-bit register). Not a big deal.

I vaguely recall an Avago chip with its ID ending in something like "08" but I could be wrong. In the esential, as far as I know all this, they do not differ much, if at all.

I am recovering from surgery thus far from my files. Sorry but cannot give good valid details.

 

You may dismiss this as a philosophical answer, but one thing you can do with it is chuck it in the trash and turn your attentions elsewhere. If you didn't already have it in your hands, would you go out of your way at all to acquire it? If the answer is no, just toss it.

This is from a lifelong packrat and parts salvager. But one thing those years of experience have taught me is that - if I'm really working on something I care about - the cost of the parts is usually trivial and the benefits of getting new parts (modern, supported with docs, known-working, etc.) outweigh the small satisfaction of re-purposing something from my junk pile.

Don't get me wrong, I love that satisfaction. It's just that you have to draw a line. People know my nature and offer me electronic "junk" all the time. I've evolved to saying "no" almost all the time now. I've learned from craigslist that just about any junk you want can be had freely on any given day. No reason to inventory my own pile of it.

 

I probably won't use the chips, but I was thinking of using the LED to make a laser pen light. Since the mouse had a 5V USB power supply, would 3V make the LED capable of shining across a room?

 

When I saw the thread title I had exactly the same thoughts as @wayneh

By all means have a play with the bits

would 3V make the LED capable of shining across a room

you will know when you try it, what have you got to loose?

BTW, as I understand it only certain types of the mouse "camera" chips are capable of being used as a scanner, no all of them have the capability to output the pixel data.

 

BTW, as I understand it only certain types of the mouse "camera" chips are capable of being used as a scanner, no all of them have the capability to output the pixel data.

Well, somebody inside the mouse must send data outside (to PC) for it to know that it is in motion.

 

Well, somebody inside the mouse must send data outside (to PC) for it to know that it is in motion.

Yes but the PC only needs to know X and Y displacement it does not want the individual pixel values. Some of the early mouse chips had a "debug" mode where they would dump the pixel data and this can then be used to make a very basic scanner.

 

I have a circuit board from an old optical mouse which was no longer usable because moving the mouse didn't always make the cursor move. It has two ICs on it (an S202A and an H2000), and of course an LED. I'm wondering what parts would be useful to salvage, and what I could use them for.

I came across an Instructable showing how to make an optical pen, but it seemed pretty difficult. If I had an Arduino, I suppose I could even make a little scanner out of it, but I don't. Any other ideas for how I could use these parts?

Almost every optical mouse I've owned wouldn't work reliably - if at all, on a regular mouse mat. Just for kicks I tried on an old newspaper and it worked fine, but the newsprint

started to smudge and drag around. Then I tried on a printed pattern on a sheet of paper, it worked - sort of, but worked much better on parts of the paper with nothing printed on.

Since then I always cut a bit of clean printer paper to fit the mouse mat and stick it on with double sided tape.

It also doesn't hurt to sometimes clean the lens. Just squirt some glass cleaner on a cotton bud to clean the lens then dry it with the other end.

Years ago I had a clearout of all the ball type mouse, most have a slotted wheel that interrupts an IRLED and sensor pair, so I salvage all those opto components. But I don't do that many opto projects, so they've sat in a tin ever since.

The tiny microswitches under the buttons can come in handy.

 

Thanks for all the replies. When I tried to remove the plastic cover from the LED to salvage it, I must have damaged it, because it no longer lit up when connected to a coin cell. The mouse was definitely no longer usable, since I had cut the USB cord off to use for my speaker project, so I just threw it in the trash.

 

, so I just threw it in the trash.

Oh no! I was about to post code to read PS2...!

 

Oh no! I was about to post code to read PS2...!

I'm not sure if you're joking or serious. Sorry, but I had already thrown the mouse in the trash on Wednesday night after damaging the LED, and didn't have time to check the forum at all between Thursday morning and Saturday night. By the time I made post #9 the trash had been collected, so now it's permanently gone.

 

I'm not sure if you're joking or serious. Sorry, but I had already thrown the mouse in the trash on Wednesday night after damaging the LED, and didn't have time to check the forum at all between Thursday morning and Saturday night. By the time I made post #9 the trash had been collected, so now it's permanently gone.

An optical mouse is a commonly abused article. Their discarding rate is high. You could get some easily. Eventually, post again.

 

Thanks for all the replies. When I tried to remove the plastic cover from the LED to salvage it, I must have damaged it, because it no longer lit up when connected to a coin cell. The mouse was definitely no longer usable, since I had cut the USB cord off to use for my speaker project, so I just threw it in the trash.

Most of them use I

An optical mouse is a commonly abused article. Their discarding rate is high. You could get some easily. Eventually, post again.

When I smoked, I had to clean the lens on mine frequently - and they don't like regular mouse-mats, a clean sheet of paper works as well as anything.

 

When I smoked, I had to clean the lens on mine frequently - and they don't like regular mouse-mats, a clean sheet of paper works as well as anything.

Polished furniture, bright surfaces and glass are also problematic. I always make sure to have common white A4 paper sheet handy.

 

http://www.edn.com/design/sensors/4...1&elqTrackId=9b4f22be05e34188837d46d320f4ffba

Ken

 

The next time your mouse dies, inter it until the next mouse dies -it might provide the necessary replacement parts. In my case, I have been re-using the microswitches for the buttons. Now that mice are optical, the microswitches seem to be the things that wear out most frequently, and (in my experience) the left microswitch wears out much faster than the right one.

 

The next time your mouse dies, inter it until the next mouse dies

"inter it" - I like that

@ian field @atferrari Interesting, I've always used regular mouse pads with optical mice and never had a problem. In the past, I've used some ball track mice that worked pretty poorly, and find that optical ones seem to perform much better.

The mouse that died was probably 15 years old, so I think it just wore out, but I probably could have saved some parts from it. Oh well...the mice I use currently work fine and I won't have much time to work on electronics projects in the next few weeks.

 

"inter it" - I like that

@ian field @atferrari Interesting, I've always used regular mouse pads with optical mice and never had a problem. In the past, I've used some ball track mice that worked pretty poorly, and find that optical ones seem to perform much better.

.

When I smoked, the evaporated tar condensed on everything and the ash got everywhere - it was pretty much impossible to use a ball mouse, the tar got on the rollers that touch the ball, that made it sticky which produced a sort of home brew Blue-Tak with the ash collected by the ball.

 

I'm surprised no one came up with the obvious thing to do with optical mouse components. Use them as treats for an optical cat!

 

I'm surprised no one came up with the obvious thing to do with optical mouse components. Use them as treats for an optical cat!

Like the ones in @wayneh's or @ian field's avatars?