Dead mouse, before autopsy, repair and cleaning

This afternoon I drowned my mouse with a cup of tea and?killed it. The mouse was a Microsoft Wireless 4000 Notebook Optical Mouse which I’ve had for over 2 years and liked a lot… Electronics + tea don’t mix 🙁

As previously promised on Google Buzz, I’m going to “autopsy” the mouse and see if I can revive it, below are the photos (gadget lovers may want to look away).

I’ve killed or nearly killed a few peripherals with tea… the trick to keeping things alive is to disconnect power ASAP after the spill, hopefully before things short out and the magic smoke gets let out.

Open Mouse

First thing to do is get the screwdrivers out and strip the mouse, as usual some of the screws are hidden under the little “slick” pads that the mouse glides on.

Tea in the bottom of the mouse.

Once you’ve got the mouse apart you can check for damage, I was lucky that the electronics was mostly dry and most of the tea was confined to the plastic areas, some tea had got between the lenses and the little “camera chip” on the board.

Plastic Mouse parts drying.

All the plastic was stripped off and carefully taken apart and put in some hot water with dish washing liquid and brushed clean then left to dried and finally finished off the last bit of drying with a dish cloth.?The electronics were dried off with a tissue, but?surprisingly?enough weren’t that wet.

Re-soldering the battery contact.

During re-assembly I found that the battery contact was broken, this explains some of the?intermittent?problems I’ve had with the mouse. After some careful?positioning?with the helping hands I re-soldered the battery contact.

Finally I finished screwing everything together, put a battery in and the mouse lit up, always a good sign when the thing you’re fixing lights up correct when its assembled again. Tested it on a computer and after a few seconds of windows trying to initialise it I could move the mouse pointer and click… Success!!!

Coffee Table Workbench

Special thanks to my wife who allowed me to turn the coffee table into a make shift workbench for these repairs, I can’t wait till we’re in our own place and I have a garage I can setup a proper workbench in.