OT: Rubber disintegration on Microsoft Bluetooth mouse

"Upgrade to Rat 1.0" was what I told a Veteran I knew who called to tell me that the mice he was catching in his garage were exploding when he plugged them in.

Sorry, the name is already taken:

Trivia: The frozen mice and rats sold a snake and reptiles at pet stores sometime become bloated when improperly thawed and will explode with an accompanying horrible stench when bitten.

How did we ever drift off topic this far?

Boredom, on my part. I'm not sure about you, though. ;-)

Boredom, on my part. I'm not sure about you, though. ;-)

You may lose with that oem version. Here's the warranty statement on the (probably retail) input devices:

I don't see your exact model listed, but they mention anything from 2 to 5 years for mice.

Worst case, you waste the time to send an email to them.

I came across a Tandberg tape library where most of the operator panel had almost liquified. It was gummy, and pressing buttons on it left fingerprints. It's completely disgusting, and clearly from a horrible batch of plastic. The stuff is in a clean datacenter, so it's not like somebody sprayed solvets or plasticizer on it.

I can't find my mouse on there either. But where did you find the email address to write to? The Microsoft web site only contains 1-800 numbers where you get the run-around.

Puzzling. There seem to be companies who understand this stuff very well, like Hewlett-Packard or Tektronix where I've never seen that happen (got a lot of 20+ year old gear from them). Then there are some companies who royally screw up with their plastics. So badly that it starts to fall apart after very few years.

Logitech and Microsoft made Mice and remotes with that disintegrating rubbe r on it. It gets old and sticky/nasty. Neither Microsoft nor Logitech stand behind their products as they hope you will just throw it out and buy new products to replace them. MY SOLUTION: Stop buying JUNK from them and vote with your money! Maybe they will stop selling junk! I shouldn't have to spend an hour removi ng a rubber coating with chemicals or spraying the device with Plasti-dip s pray to "fix" a piece of junk. James

It's a urethane rubber that is reverting to the goo from which it was made. Moisture speeds reversion. There is no fix, as the material itself is changing (de-polymerizing to be exact), and will all revert to goo.

The reason people use urethane rubber is that it is cheap, and easily injection molded.

Probably the most annoying thing one can do is to attempt to return the mouse to the maker, complaining of a latent design defect (the warrantee is long over, but this problem was always present, albeit undetected). This should be done noisily, in all manner of public fora.

It's unlikely that the maker will replace the messy mouse, but perhaps they will forbid use of urethane rubber (or at least cheap urethane rubber) in future designs.

Joe Gwinn

Also very handy for systems that mount on carts or other non-desk locations. Big advantage over dongle-based wireless mice, of course, is that the Bluetooth interface isn't a special matched unit. Get four or five wireless mice+dongles circulating around with prototypes, and you'll NEVER have the right pair.

Maybe the solution is to get silicone caulking. Take the wheel out and the n spread it over the top of the wheel whilst rotating it. Stick the wheel t o a drill somehow (haven't figured that out) and use sandpaper to bring it back to shape. Caulking should last a very long time and will have the sam e texture.

I had the same problem. I used 91% Rubbing alcohol from the drug store (not the weak 70% stuff) and a paper towel. It dissolves the rubber but takes s everal cycles of scrubbing with alcohol and drying to get it all off. A fin al wipedown with only a little alcohol on a clean paper towel takes the dis solved rubber stains off the rest of the mouse and polishes it up. Comes ou t nice and shiny with no more stickiness!