Hi there,
I visited many Apple hardware forums / discussion boards, and this
question appeared many times, with the cable being the culprit. Mostly
the question went unanswered, or the advice was to just buy a new one.
This is a thread I found in the comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc newsgroup,
via Google Groups:
"Apple Pro mouse has had the cable wires ulled loose at the entry
point. How do you dismantle the mouse without damaging it?"
"With extreme difficulty. I managed to get a Pro Mouse open once
(requiring much diligence, persistence and a variety of tools) but I
could never get it to go back together properly."
"As noted by others, it cannot really be disassembled safely - it's
actually
epoxied together. I managed to do it and put it back together such
that
it still works, but it's seriously ugly. If your Mac is under
warrantee still,
get them to send you a new mouse. If it's not under warrantee, the
secret is
basically to carefully pry the gray ring on the bottom away from the
clear
shell that makes up the mouse body, breaking the points where it is
epoxied.
Don't use too much force or you'll stretch the surprisingly soft gray
plastic and it won't fit back together. The white teflon strip in the
bottom just pops out, so you might want to take that out first so you
can see better, but it has nothing to do with how it is held together.
If you manage to get it apart without deforming the gray ring too
much, you
can epoxy it back together once you've repaired the wiring. I wouldn't
expect
the operation to work twice, though.
It's annoying that Apple built the mouse this way. Although the
optical
sensor doesn't acrue gunk like a ball mouse, there's still big enough
gaps in the case that very fine material, like cat dander, can still
get inside. That's what happened in my case, making the mouse "button"
rocker mechanism malfunction. If they just used screws, anyone
reasonly
handy with a screwdriver could solve problems like this rather than
adding to the landfill."
That's the essence of the thread, but you can read all the posts here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&safe=off&threadm=3d552d28%240%241432%24ac966d11%40news.raex.com&rnum=5&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dfix%2B%2B%2522Apple%2BPro%2BMouse%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26newwindow%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26selm%3D3d552d28%25240%25241432%2524ac966d11%2540news.raex.com%26rnum%3D5
Google Groups search strategy:
fix "Apple Pro Mouse"
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=fix++%22Apple+Pro+Mouse%22&num=30&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&newwindow=1&safe=off
Good luck with fixing it!
robertskelton-ga |
Request for Answer Clarification by
lsommerer-ga
on
19 Oct 2002 06:06 PDT
(I'm posting this as a clarification because I don't know if I will be
able to after I rate the answer --Lloyd Sommerer)
Thanks for the answer. The key information I was missing was "there
isn't a good way to do it." Armed with that information, I've
disassembled and reassembled two of them, and thought I would post
those instructions here as well in case someone else might find them
useful. I'll get them on a website with pictures in the future...
1. Remove the white plastic "glide oval" from the bottom of the
mouse. It is held in by friction on 6 tiny plastic tabs and two more
substantial plastic tabs. I've had fairly good luck prying them out
with straight pins, but have always broken 3-4 of the slight tabs.
This doesn't seem to be a problem as you should be able to reattach it
with glue. The secret to removing it cleanly is to raise it out evenly
(which probably takes more time than it's worth)
2. Remove the tail of the mouse. From this point on it will just
get in the way. There's enough extra cord in the mouse to splice onto,
so cut it fairly close to the mouse.
3. Note: I think it may be possible to skip the next two steps, but
doing so makes the steps further along harder. These pieces come apart
cleanly and should superglue back together nicely.
4. Using a sharp knife, cut through the 8 places where the graphite
and clear plastic are connected. Apply even pressure, and try not to
pry. You can crack the plastic at this point, but only if you force
things. The connection points by the "wings" seem to be the best spot
to start. You only have to go a few millimeters between the plastic
with the blade of a knife. The connectino points will usually make an
audible snap when they separate. Do not go too quickly. Work on each
one before you try to pull the pieces apart.
5. Once all 8 joints are broken, work the flat of your blade around
the mouse prying gently. After a few trips around the mouse the pieces
should separate.
6. Ideally now we would do whatever needs to be done to remove the
wings, but I don't think there's a way to do that. They are separate
pieces, but don't seem to separate. Instead, we will make 2 cuts
through the graphite plastic. This will allow us to remove the
graphite plastic cover. With a little care you can make cuts that do
not detract from the look of the mouse. We do this by following the
curve of the wing as it moves into the graphite plastic.first score
where you want to cut with a knife. The easiest way to do this is to
put the clear plastic outer cover back in place and note where the gap
between the cover and the wing would (and soon will) extend.
7. I just use a small hacksaw to cut through the graphite plastic.
I imagine there are other tools that would work as well or better.
Perhaps a Dremel (or other rotary tool) would be good here. No matter
what you use, be careful or you can mare the plastic. I don't think
you can do more than cosmetic damage at this point. (Note that you are
only cutting through the thin section of graphite plastic that the
wing pokes through. Don't cut through the clear plastic underneath.)
8. Separating the graphite and clear plastic is the next step. When
you removed the white plastic oval you exposed two access point on
each side of the mouse. There are two plastic clips in each point. You
want to use the large ones that are located to the rear of the mouse
(the rear is not the end near the tail --go figure). Use a screwdriver
or something to pry each of them apart and then up (toward you). You
will not be able to separate the two larger pieces yet. But you can
lift the back ends apart.
9. Once you have the back ends apart, VERY CAREFULLY slide the two
pieces apart using the slots you cut from the graphite plastic. They
can take the stress of bending them apart enough to slide out the
wings. I don't have any idea how much more than that they can take.
Once you have the wings worked out just a bit, apply uniform pressure
and push them out. Note that you are also removing the remainder of
the USB wires from their sheath. If they are not pulling out easily,
it's probably best to cut them so that you don't pull them out of the
connector at the other end.
10. Remove the USB cable collar from the graphite plastic and remove
any extra USB cable from the collar. Clip the old end of the USB cable
(the part the goes to the computer back far enough to avoid your point
of failure. Then feed the USB cable through the collar (give yourself
enough extra to splice the cables together. You might want to be a
little proactive at this point and try to reduce the chance of this
happening again. A friend of mine suggested putting a small spring
(like from a pen) over the USB cable before putting the cable back
through the collar then attaching the spring to the collar. This would
serve to spread out the force on the USB cable and would --hopefully--
prolong the amount of time before another short-circuit.
11. The wires in the USB cable are marked: black-red, black-white,
black-green, black-black and the one larger wire. The one larger wire
looks like it attaches to the cable shielding and I assume it is also
ground, but I don't know anything about USB, so it's just a guess.
Splice the wires together however you normally go about that and your
ready to put it back together.
12. Give it a test and then put it back together.
13. Putting it back together: do everything in reverse. Just
kidding, but back together really is easy.
a. Carefully slide the innards into the graphite plastic.
b. Snap the innards in place with the clips near the rear of the
mouse.
c. Superglue the clear plastic top to the graphite plastic (give a
little bit
to the sections where you cut through the graphite plastic as well
d. Glue the white plastic oval back on (it seems to hold fairly well
without glue too)
|
,
0 Comments
)