Mighty Mouse still working anyone?

Has Anyone had any luck keeping their Apple Mighty Mouse working?

 

I got one in September for my iMac and by January the trackball (for document scrolling /

zooming) had packed up, and despite my very best cleaning efforts would not scroll down,

only up and not properly. When a fault occured with my iMac in Febuary I sent the mouse

back aswell and received a new Mighty Mouse, but now the same thing has happened!

 

It seems they have a lifespan of only a few months! This is a great shame as it is otherwise an

excelent product. Any tips of cleaning that tiny ball?? Apple's instructions wern't even worth

reading.

Andrew, I get the same problem that you have. About once every two weeks, the trackball will malfunction. When this happens, I simply press and hold down the trackball while vigorously rolling the ball back and forth and up and down. Doing this quickly about two or three times seems to dislodge whatever junk gets inside. I always get the mouse working again with this method, at least for another two weeks. Hope this helps.

If you can remove the ball, Scotch Magic Tape (or equivalent) is highly effective in removing gunk from the tracking rollers. Just pull the sticky side over the roller, turning it in the process. Optical track balls (e.g., by Logitech) are nearly trouble free.

Mine also lasts about two weeks between jams. A blast of compressed air usually clears

it. If not, wiping it with a damp cloth does the trick.

We have a number of macs in our company so I've become pretty adept at keeping the mighty mouse clean. The trick is to use a wet paper towel and give the ball a vigorous cleaning. This includes, pressing it in and rotating it about on all axis. (You didn't describe what you meant by "best cleaning efforts" and I was thinking that perhaps you had only used a dry cleaning cloth).

 

Once we figured this out, we've never had a problem.

 

This isn't a "fault" of the MM -- and sending it back for a replacement won't help. It's plain old life -- dirt and oil on the fingers will eventually gum up the rubber coating on the ball.

Yer I did think it might have been an early fault as I ordered when they were first announced

(about the time I bought my mac) that explains the last replacement - which was something

of a revenge on Apple for being so crappy with my iMac repair ;) - Have tried the wet paper

towel trick and seems to do the job for now.

 

It Is a optical mouse in response to the other poster, just uses a rather nifty ball for the scroll

wheel. That er, doesn't always work.

Wow, I have an old MS mouse that worked this way, and I parked it almost 5 years ago for the same reasons as I'm reading above.

"It Is a optical mouse in response to the other poster, just uses a rather nifty ball for the scroll wheel. That er, doesn't always work."

 

Ok, then if that "nifty" ball is mechanically coupled, try the tape think on the coupling wheels. I'm only a PC user. What would I know about mouse technology ;-)

All electro-mechanical mouse devices will pick up dust like this. I moved to an infrared,

wireless mouse two years ago to eliminate the cleaning rituals.

 

Godfrey

I remember reading something on Apple's site about keeping the scroll wheel clean. Their

advice was to turn the mouse upside down and quickly spin the ball in all direction to get any

foreign matter to fall out.

Personally I like the look of those experimental touch screen interfaces a la Minority Report. I've seen a video of an (experimental) real live working version of that sort of thing. I suppose if you're Italian and wave your hands a lot while talking it might be a disadvantage rather than an advantage, but it's got to be better than dirty, sticky mouse balls. I was using some today and just had to give them a wash before I headed back to the comforting and soothing reliabilty of my own optical mouse.

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