Not so mighty mouse...

[Bruce Carter]

Various people have reported some luck with:

1)  Rolling the heck out of it on the sticky part of Post-It notes
2)  Rolling the heck out of it on an alcohol doused pad
3)  Just rolling the heck out of it

It is possible to take them apart and clean them thoroughly (which is  
how I know what the mechanism looks like), but since they are glued  
together, it takes an Exacto knife (possibly a Dremel tool would  
work), a steady hand, and some amount of luck.  And, as it turns out,  
it is usually the roller/sensor mechanism that is hosed.

The mechanism is an odd little box that the ball rests in.  Instead of  
the usual two control rollers and one tension roller, this thing has 4  
rollers each connected to a sensor, one for each direction.  When you  
roll in a particular direction (or angle) it engages the particular  
roller (or rollers, since it takes two to go at an angle) for that  
direction (or angle) and disengages the others.  This is how they can  
malf in such a way that you can scroll up, but not down, and so  
forth.  It looks neat, but it was not thought out well when it came to  
durability.  The rollers are tiny and can easily get gunked up or even  
pop out of their guide.  I have actually disassembled three of these,  
and reassembled two of them successfully (I got impatient with the  
third one and cracked the retaining ring).  It's not easy, and it is  
probably not cost effective either, but I wanted to try it.  There are  
instructions around the web, but once you get the glue cut and get the  
thing apart into two pieces, it's pretty clear how it works.

On Dec 19, 2007, at 9:28 AM, Stefano Delli Ponti wrote:
> I haven't. But I do have that problem.
> Any hint about how I can solve the issue? Is there an effective way  
> to clean the ball?

> Bruce Carter wrote:
>> Have you seen the mechanism inside that the rubber ball drives?  If  
>> you have, you'll understand why that thing is prone to failure in a  
>> particular direction.

-- 
Bruce Carter, Senior Systems Engineer              http://www.nd.edu/~bcarter/
Center for Creative Computing, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame,  
IN  46556