If you have an Ikea desk and your LED optical mouse doesn't work right (something about the optics of the varnish) this should fix it:
It was really annoying to be tweaking a PCB layout and having the cursor wander around, or get stuck.
Probably the varnished wood has too little fine texture for correlation tracking to work.
What I have been using with success is a "3M Precise Mouse Pad Enhances the Precision of Optical Mice at Fast Speed, 9 in x 8 in (MP114-BSD1)" for $8 from Amazon:
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Joe Gwinn
There must be a Mouse Pad Museum somewhere.
A pad would be clumsy on my desk. I tried sanding the varnish a bit but that didn't help.
I have a pile somewhere. Does that count?
Not enough contrast at high spatial frequencies. Newer mouse probably has higher resolution optics, so it sees the wood grain better, and maybe the sandpaper frosting a little.
Does the old mouse work OK on a mouse pad? Or on a piece of white paper? If so, what could work would be a random pattern of little paint dots in or on the varnish. Like from an airbrush too far away.
Joe Gwinn
The old Logitech LED mouses are fine on anything but the Ikea desk.
My desk would look very Non-Presidential with freckles. The laser mouse works.
I think that's called "hunting". This might help explain what's happening:
"Optical vs Laser Mouse"
"...both methods use the irregularities of a surface to keep track of the peripherals position. But a laser can go deeper into the surface texture. This provides more information for the CMOS sensor and processor inside the mouse to juggle and hand over to the parent PC."
"This makes laser-based mice better for glass tables and highly-lacquered surfaces..."
"The problem with laser-based mice is that they can be too accurate, picking up useless information such as the unseen hills and valleys of a surface. This can be troublesome when moving at slower speeds, causing on-screen cursor "jitter," or whats better known as acceleration."
I've done a little tinkering with both types of mice. I used a drawing program to draw a 1 pixel wide line. The optical mouse drew a fairly "sharp" edged line. The laser mouse drew a tiny sawtooth waveform (jitter). It can be cleaned up with averaging and damping, but that increased response time, which was deemed highly undesirable by the gamers in attendance. It was also possible to see building, motor, and machinery mechanical vibrations along the line. That disappeared for both types of mice when I used a rubber backed mouse pad or installed rubber "carpet protectors" under the desk legs.
No advice. Just try a few different mice and use whatever works best.
I don't freehand draw lines as such, but I'm sure some people do. Schematic entry and PCB layout make straight lines that are quantized to a grid, or move parts and traces on the grid, and the LED mouse on the Ikea desk made it hard to do that.
I was talking yesterday to Mo about drawing, in a cafe with cool watercolors of city scenes on the walls. She can draw. She said "you draw too" and I noted that I only do it with straight lines on a rectangular grid. Well, rarely, a circle.
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