2 screwdrivers a Mighty mouse and some superglue

November 10, 2009 by Chris | 1 Comment

Finally snapped tonight and cracked open the mighty mouse. The ratchet effect on the scroll wheel which would only allow me to scroll back up to the top of a page failed to respond to the baby wipe and paintbrush technique that has worked up to now.

I did my research (google) and then set off with a screwdriver to prise the ring off the bottom of the mouse. Step 2 of the following site http://shirster.multiply.com/journal/item/194 had led me to believe that there would be some form of click shut assembly, unfortunately not, the ring on the mouse I have was glued in about 10 spots around the perimeter.

Should you decide to take the mouse apart you will need the following;

Prising tool/letter opener
Small Philips head screwdriver
Something to remove fluff e.g paintbrush
Glue (to put it all back together again)
small fingers and patience

Perform these steps at your own risk, opening the mouse will very likely breach its warranty!

The ring was glued to the body of the mouse, not clipped.

There were 10 dabs of glue that had to be prised apart.

Once opened, unclip the ribbons (pull the black sleeve up to release the ribbon). Note which way these were inserted.

Bit of denting on the tops of the side switches from trying to prise apart, next time I would just attack the spots around the ring.

The scroll wheel at the center of all this effort.

The scroll wheel unit from below, unscrew the 3 screws to remove complete assembly.

The scroll wheel unit prior to disassembly.

Locate the 2 tabs in the side of the black plastic unit and press to release the central part of the assembly.

The white casing is clipped on, it only fits in one direction (fairly easy to work out which way).

Remove ball, then rollers. Clean fluff out, replace rollers, replace ball and clip white casing back on (try and avoid using a magnetic screwdriver as the black wheels in the photo are metal, very frustrating).