Dear All,
From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand mouse click recognized. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Paul
On Tue, Jul 27, 2021 at 8:38 PM Paul Smith phhs80@gmail.com wrote:
From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand mouse click recognized. Any ideas?
Let me add that my mouse is a wired USB one.
Paul
On Tue, 27 Jul 2021 16:02:21 -0400 Tom Horsley horsley1953@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jul 2021 20:38:04 +0100 Paul Smith wrote:
From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand mouse click recognized. Any ideas?
Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely.
To add to what Tom said, the switch that sends the signal often wears to the point that pressing the mouse button barely trips the switch. If you are handy, and already have some epoxy, you can take the mouse apart and apply some epoxy to bring it back to new level, let it set, put the mouse together again, and it will probably work for a few more years. If you don't already have epoxy, it is probably cheaper to just buy a new mouse.
Paul Smith,
From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand mouse click recognized. Any ideas?
Tom Horsley:
Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely.
I've come across many a mouse where the soldering of the switch to the printed circuit board has mechanically failed, either through just the normal use of the mouse, or when mice get dropped and land on a button.
That's easily fixed by resoldering it. But if you don't have the tools, and the particular mouse isn't worth the effort of trying to fix it, it's usually far easier just to get a new one.
On Wed, Jul 28, 2021 at 5:53 AM Tim via users users@lists.fedoraproject.org wrote:
Paul Smith,
From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand mouse click recognized. Any ideas?
Tom Horsley:
Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely.
I've come across many a mouse where the soldering of the switch to the printed circuit board has mechanically failed, either through just the normal use of the mouse, or when mice get dropped and land on a button.
That's easily fixed by resoldering it. But if you don't have the tools, and the particular mouse isn't worth the effort of trying to fix it, it's usually far easier just to get a new one.
Thanks to all who have answered!
My surprise is that I bought my mouse not so long ago (less than one year).
Paul
On Wed, 2021-07-28 at 12:49 +0100, Paul Smith wrote:
My surprise is that I bought my mouse not so long ago (less than one year).
Unfortunately, with today's build quality, that's no big surprise.
Mice buttons get a lot of clicking. There used to be an app (I forget on which OS) that told you how many miles your mouse had moved, and counted the clicks.
I also wouldn't be surprised about mice dying from static electricity shocks. With a plastic mouse being dragged across plastic coated desktops, etc, it'd be easy to zap the things to death.
The mice with proper microswitches tend to last the best, the switches are designed for a lot of use with a light press, so the body of the mouse can be designed to not stress the switch and circuit board. The switch will click over before it's hard pressed against the mechanical stops (inside, it's sprung in a bit of a fancy manner), and it can be mounted so the mouse's plastic button never presses the switch's button hard up against the body of the switch (though I've yet to see a mouse actually designed that way).
The ones with membrane/tactile switches require more effort to press, so that weakens the solder quicker. And the mechanical design of them is generally poor.
A microswitch (just imagine it without the metal lever on top): https://www.jaycar.com.au/spdt-125v-3a-sub-miniature-micro-switch-with-lever...
A membrane/tactile switch: https://www.jaycar.com.au/0-7mm-spst-micro-tactile-switch/p/SP0600
Some mice will falsely claim to use microswitches when they've really used the other type. Microswitches click over with a ticky click sound, the others tend to make more of a thud.
When switches and soldering goes bad, it's common to find that you get one click being mistaken for several, and/or having to press extra hard to get the button to work. Mice are supposed to have debouncing circuitry inside them (it's handled in the hardware of the mouse, itself), but that's really only meant to deal with a few milliseconds of switch contact bouncing that a normal switch has. A bad switch could exceed it's abilities, and broken soldering almost definitely would.
The double-click timeout mouse preferences in your computer aren't really designed to manage switch mechanical debouncing, that's more to do with dealing with how users press the buttons.
On Wed, 28 Jul 2021 at 01:53, Tim via users users@lists.fedoraproject.org wrote:
Paul Smith,
From time to time, I have to click several times to get a left-hand mouse click recognized. Any ideas?
Tom Horsley:
Busted moving parts in mouse would be my guess as most likely.
I've come across many a mouse where the soldering of the switch to the printed circuit board has mechanically failed, either through just the normal use of the mouse, or when mice get dropped and land on a button.
50 years ago in college I had a weekend job in the repair shop of a music and electronics store. The majority of the repairs were for bad solder joints or breaks in circuit board traces, mostly cheap portable TV's. Some failure modes remain too expensive to eliminate in manufacturing that targets low end prices.
-
George N. White III -
Patrick O'Callaghan -
Paul Smith -
stan -
Tim -
Tom Horsley