Scimitar: Custom Mouse Mod

[Pointy_Stick]

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/header-1.jpg
Well, I've been hanging around these forums for a while now, so I thought it was about time I modded something! This will be my first worklog, so be nice!

Overview:

The inspiration for this mod came from the Verbatim Rapier V1 gaming mouse:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/IMG_2157.jpg
Photo by Atomic Magazine www.atomicmpc.com.au

What I really liked about this mouse was how the scroll wheel was positioned to the left of the index finger instead of between the two buttons. I was going to buy this mouse, but due to it being unavailable locally and my unwillingness to try an unknown supplier I decided to build my own mouse, incorporating the scroll wheel placement of the Rapier while also crafting a mouse body custom fitted to my hand shape. As I was basing this on the Rapier, I needed another cool sounding sword name for this mod and Scimitar leapt instantly to my mind.

:banana::banana:THE MODDING BEGINS!:banana::banana:

I went into town today and came back with one of these:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/mouse.jpg

one of these:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/foam.jpg

and one of these:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/board.jpg

The foam will be shaped and form the main body, the mouse will provide the hardware and the little prototype board will provide the mounting for the relocated buttons and scroll wheel. The mouse is nothing flash but this will only be used as a general work mouse and it will do fine for that purpose.

As you've probably noticed there is a distinct lack of of images depicting what this thing is going to look like. That's because I didn't know. All I knew was that it had to be comfortable in my hand. So I needed something which I could mold easily in my hand, could be added to and removed from quickly and above all was very cheap.

So I went to the beach (which is just up the road from where I live, which rocks btw) and came back with...
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/sand.jpg
SAND!

I used the sand to get a feel for the basic shape for the mouse and work out where things should go. Truth be told, I had the idea to build a mouse based on a hand sculpted sand model a long time ago while I was sitting on the beach and seeing the Rapier (and intense holiday boredom) was the incentive to finally do it.

Anyway, this is the finished sand model.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/mould1.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/mould2.jpg
If you look carefully, you can see two dots and a line representing the mouse buttons and the scroll wheel respectively.

With this done, I traced the outline of the sand onto the ice cream container lid (the yellow thing) and removed the sand (I tried to save the model but failed). I then traced the outline onto some paper and stuck it to the bottom of the foam.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/paper.jpg
From there I began to cut out the basic shape in the foam. I started off using a scalpel, but this was tedious and didn't produce good results. I gave up on the scalpel and used a hacksaw to remove the bulk of the unnecessary foam and a file to shape it a bit more finely.

The basic shape cut, ready to be crafted.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/basicshape.jpg
I didn't take any progress shots after that, and besides, sanding foam isn't the most thrilling thing to look at so lets go straight to the big finish, shall we?

Left hand side.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/left.jpg
Right hand side.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/right.jpg
Back.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/back.jpg
Front.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/front.jpg
Top.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/top.jpg
Size comparison between Scimitar and the current $10 no-name mouse I'm using now.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/comparisoin.jpg
Florist's foam, as it turns out, was an excellent material to make this out of as it is so soft I was able to shape it using only my hand. Very useful for making finger grooves. It didn't come out exactly like the sand model, but it still feels good. The only place there might be trouble is the scroll wheel as there may not be enough room for its mechanism. We shall see.

That's it for now. Next update: disassembling the mouse and seeing if it fits in the foam.

Thanks for reading!

[XcOM]

sweet dude,

never seen a mouse mod like this

[nevermind1534]

sweet dude,

never seen a mouse mod like this

Same here.

[jdbnsn]

wowza! that is a cool idea, keep it up!

[Luke122]

Very cool! +rep

[aintnothang]

different. + rep

[Pointy_Stick]

Thanks a lot guys.

Today I did a bit more on it. First I started by disassembling the mouse to desolder the buttons and scroll wheel from the mouse board for relocation.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/mouseopen.jpg
The mouse in all it's Chinese-made glory.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/desolder.jpg
Mouse buttons removed.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/apart.jpg
Finished.

From there it was time to start hollowing out the foam with a rotary tool to make sure everything would fit before I resoldered anything..
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/hollow1.jpg
Once I'd made a start, I marked out where I wanted the mouse buttons to be using toothpicks.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/toothpicks.jpg
Then some more dremeling.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/hollow2.jpg

For mouse buttons, I decided to use some keys from an old keyboard.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/keys.jpg
A bit more from the Dremel...
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/firstkey.jpg
...and the first key is in.

However, when it came to the second key...
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/damage.jpg
Bugger.

I cut it too close to the edge and broke through a bit. It wasn't as bad as this picture shows to begin with but it ended up that way. I tried to fix it but the piece of foam that got cut off didn't want to go back the way it came. I ended up scrapping this mouse body. It's not really a big deal, the foam was only $2 and it didn't take long to make, only about an hour. I'll go back into town tomorrow and get some more foam (i.e at least 3 blocks in case this happens again) and start again.

In a way, this is beneficial as I'll be able to take what I learned making the first body and use that to make the second one better.

Next Update: Scimitar II: Mouse Harder

[OvRiDe]

Loving this mod!! Can't wait to see how it comes out!

[Pointy_Stick]

I did some more work yesterday and today, despite a lovely New Years hangover. Let's take a look, shall we?

I started by creating a new mouse body from some more foam.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/new.jpg
Its isn't quite the same shape as the original but that's to be expected. I made sure to leave plenty of room for the scroll wheel, something I'm not sure I did with the first body.

After that I got started on making the hole for the scroll wheel. I marked where I wanted it to be and pushed a pencil through to get started. I then used a small square file to enlarge and shape the hole, stopping to test it for size occasionally.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/scrollhole.jpg
All done.

I then set about mounting the scroll wheel on some of the prototyping board so that I would know how large to make the hole in the underside of the mouse that would accommodate the scroll wheel.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/board1.jpg
I had to cut a hole for the wheel to pass through and enlarge two holes to make it fit.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/board2.jpg
The finished scroll wheel assembly.

Once I knew how much space it would take up I was ready to start on the mouse.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/markout.jpg
Marking it out.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/scrollhollow.jpg
I used a cone shaped sanding attachment for my Dremel knock-off to make the hollow.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/scrollwheel1.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/scrollwheel2.jpg
Fitted.

For the left and right mouse buttons I took the easy way out and bought some switches in town when I picked up some more foam. Much easier than trying to fit the original mouse buttons.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/switches.jpg
I followed much the same process for the left and right mouse button holes as I did for making the scroll wheel hole. Mark the position, stick a nail through to start and expand with a square file. I used a file on the back this time instead of the Dremel as I did not have as much foam to remove. It was also more precise and made a better looking hole than the Dremel.

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/buttonhollow.jpg
The finished underside.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/buttonholes1.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/finalshape.jpg
Completed button holes.

You can see in the last pic I removed the excess foam from around the scroll wheel and made it a more appealing shape overall. I also shaved a bit off the bottom by rubbing it on some concrete which created a lot of lovely dust.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/concrete.jpg

That's it for now. I still need to figure out a way to properly mount the buttons but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. The next step will be to strengthen the foam and make it harder and not so fragile.

See you next time!

Next Update: Insert crude joke about 'hardening' here.

[nevermind1534]

It looks nice; very different and interesting mouse mod. I can't say that I've ever seen anything like it before.

[FuzzyPlushroom]

Good documentation, great execution, excellent idea. I'm watching this one. +rep

[riplox]

Oh man. I go looking for ways to mod a trackball mouse into a regular mouse and I find this AWESOME gem of a thread. My hand has been killing me the past few weeks and I thought it was time to find a new mouse. I seriously cannot wait to see how this turns out so I can get along and make one myself. I'll be able to finally have the mouse my hand needs and wants rather than put up with the stuff other people make.

+Rep dude. Way to go.

[SXRguyinMA]

Awesome!!!

[Pointy_Stick]

Okay, time for an update.

I needed to find a way to harden up the foam to make it not so brittle and prone to damage. Of course the obvious thing to do would be to use body filler. Except my tube of filler had long since retreated into one of the many secret corners of the house, never to be seen again. As one of the goals of this mod was to do it cheaply this more or less ruled out buying more, at least until I had explored other options. So I got creative.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/test.jpg
Here we can see various substances being tested for effectiveness on pieces of offcut foam nailed to a board. From left to right we have spray adhesive, PVA glue, a sealant called Selley's All Clear, spray can clear coat, spray paint, spray can primer and paper mache glue, all of which failed spectacularly. In most cases the foam was too absorbent and just sucked the glue or paint right up. The All Clear sealant also had a tendency to remove bits of foam when being applied.

It seemed like I would be buying some filler after all until Dad came out to do some work on his car. He had to fill in some holes that were appearing near the roof. To do this he brought out...
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/tube.jpg
Yes, it was the long lost tube of body filler! Turns out it had been hiding in the laundry cupboard all along. With this startling revelation my problems were solved.

After trying it on some scrap to make sure it didn't dissolve the foam I practiced applying the filler on the old broken body.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/bondotest.jpg
Once I was comfortable working with it I moved onto the new body.
First coat.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/1stbondo.jpg
While sanding down the first coat i made a boo-boo. Can you see it?
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/sandbondo1.jpg
Hmm, maybe a file was a little overkill.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/sandbondo2.jpg
With the addition of a second coat however, all was well again.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/2ndbondo.jpg
Much sanding and many touch-ups with filler later we arrived here.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/finalbondo1.jpg
It's not perfect, there's still a number of slightly rough areas as you can see.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/finalbondo2.jpg
It's not as bad as this photo makes it look. I'm hoping that a few coats of primer and paint will help to even those out a bit.

The other thing I forgot to do earlier was create a space for the main mouse board and the cord. I busted out the trusty Dremel and square file and set to work. The extra deep bit is to accommodate the board's capacitors.
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm10/wild-beans/cordhollow.jpg
And so ends another update. Tune in next week for the creation of the bottom surface and mounting the buttons. See you next time!

Next Update: Where you are now you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like.

[Vital]

Maybe use a different material instead of foam as the base?

[PLaYa OnE]

wow, what great ideas!

I would so love to make a custom molded mouse.

one question, the crappy mouse you pulled the guts out of is an optical/laser right?

+rep:up:;)