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Old July 7th 12, 08:34 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Jo-Anne[_4_]
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Posts: 1,101
Default optical mouse malfunction

"Paul" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne wrote:
"VanguardLH" wrote in message
...
snip

You were right, Paul--it's a broken wire. Unfortunately, the mouse may
be
TOO well made. There are five wires in a cord or sleeve (not sure what
to
call it); and at the mouse end, besides their being taped together and
to
the sleeve, each wire is crimped into a separate hole in a plastic
piece. I
suspect they'd all have to be carefully taken out of that piece, cut
far
enough back to get past the break in the one wire, wherever it is, and
then
recrimped (assuming the plastic piece survives). Moreover, there's a
plastic
"buffering" piece on the outside of the sleeve at the entryway to the
mouse,
and it doesn't come off. I'm very tempted to write to the company to
ask if
it can sell me another cord...

Jo-Anne
A picture posted online somewhere and given a link here would better
help for others to know what you're trying to describe.



I had a hard time getting close enough with my camera to do a clear shot,
but I tried. The result is he

http://tinypic.com/r/v418ph/6

Jo-Anne


http://oi45.tinypic.com/v418ph.jpg

Does the plastic grommet on the left, split into two pieces ?

Sometimes, items like that consist of two parts. They squash the wire
to prevent it from moving through the grommet.

As for the thing on the right, that's not going to be a lot of fun.
Four of the connections would be ordinary wires. The fifth is
"shield", and could be made from twisted braid off the shield.

I can't really tell what kind of connector that is on the end.

If the pins could be backed out of the shell, that would solve
one part of the puzzle. Some shells have a "tab per pin", and
releasing the tab with a hobby knife, allows the wire and pin
to be extracted. The pin will have a "spike" on the side of it,
which catches in the tab, to hold it secure. Things like that
are intended to be "one way" insert. If the thing the pin
lodges in, can be released, then the pin can be backed out.

Once the pin is out, the pin itself probably can't be recycled.
As you say, a "crimp" of the pin onto the wire, tends to bend the
crimp hooks all to bits. Opening the hooks and closing them
again, just isn't practical (they snap off). And then, finding
replacement crimp pins, is the challenge.

There are a ton of different crimp pins out there, so matching
what you've got, would not be trivial.

You can unsolder the mating connector from the Contour PCB.
Then solder the wire, right to the PCB. That may be the
most practical solution. It really depends, on what you envisage
as the assembly order, and whether the cable arrangement can
be set up, before the soldering begins.

But the first step remains, whether that grommet splits in two
or not. If it does, you pry it apart, move it up the wire
several inches, and it will "reclamp" itself when it's forced
through the hole in the casing. I think my electric kettle
may use something like that, to clamp the wire.

This picture is not the same as yours. It's intended to show
what a two part strain relief looks like. The two halves
close around the wire. The device "clamps" as it is forced
through a too-small hole in a chassis. The wire is forced to
go through a path which isn't straight, which prevents it
from moving. It applies enough force, that the wire underneath
probably cannot be "clamped" a second time, and fresh wire
should be pulled into position where it will "clamp".

http://www.atmgurus.com/estore/image...2617-00031.jpg

All in all, a challenging project. Working with strain
reliefs, does involve a bit of cursing and swearing.
Tools tend to slide off them.

You also have the option, of starting with a USB cable, chopping
an end off it, then solder the wires to the mouse PCB. And then
doing your best, to make your own strain relief solution. I've
never been 100% successful at making home strain reliefs. They've
all resulted in wire breakage later.

*******

A cheesy kind of repair, is to move the grommet/strain relief up
the cable a bit, and bring the broken wire *inside* the mouse
casing. Then, fiddle with the wire, such that the broken parts
touch, when the mouse is reassembled. As long as the strain
relief is *really good* at preventing tugging, the broken
wire bits may stay in close proximity to one another.
Obviously, this isn't a proper repair, but it's an intermediate
solution to dealing with the connector and wire dress problem.
This would be the kind of solution, someone adverse to soldering
might try. (Someone whose burnt finger is just about healed.)

Paul



Thank you for the detailed info, Paul! My husband is now trying to decide
how or whether to do this repair...

Jo-Anne


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