Cleaning the mighty mouse ball

Hi,

Had the same problem with two of my mighty mice one USB the other Wireless.

Spoke to a chap at apple support and got a different suggestion for cleaning that worked to clear both mice without disassembling or using damaging cleaning agents.

1 Disconnect the mouse.
2 Place mouse upside down on a clean piece of paper
3 Scrub the mouse ball hard on the paper - debris will start to appear
4 Plug the mouse in and hopefully its fixed, if not just repeat.

(Make sure to keep using clean paper. It took a few attempts but eventually both mice are now working like new again.)

Message was edited by: Marshmansmithy

Thanks Marshmansmithy!

Your suggestion was the best and worked within less than a minute.

Thanks again!

Message was edited by: Maclover90211

I turned the mouse upside down then rubbed the scroll ball with my hand really fast and kept at it to get the ball warmed up from the friction, the idea being to burn and wear the dirt out with heat, speed and brute force

Crude, but it's working again

I put a drop (and only one drop) of 70% isopropyl alcohol on the ball and spun the ball with my index finger and then with a lint-free rag (an old linen handkerchief). Let dry for 10 minutes. Worked for me.

Before I abandoned my mighty mouse for a magic mouse this is how I cleaned the ball when it would stop working:

1. Wash your hands so that they have nothing on them to contaminate the mouse further.

2. Take a Q-tip (aka cotton swab), and dip it in some rubbing alcohol, roll the moistened tip on a towel to remove the excess.

3. Run the Q-tip over the ball in all directions, occasionally stopping the ball from rolling with a fingernail. Do this until you no longer see any evidence of dirt/lint coming from the ball. You might have to use the other end of the Q-tip, and redo step 2, to continue cleaning the ball if the first end becomes overly dirty.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that anything you have on your mouse hand is going to gum up the ball, so make sure that hand is clean. No eating chips, etc with that hand.

The only other thing i would add is to not use your hands at all. hands have oil on them no matter how much you clean your hands. Use a lint free cloth when touching it to clean it. If you periodically use a lint free cloth to clean it, you shouldnt have that many problems.

Cheers,
bryce

Cleaning seems to be only a temporary solution. Had two go at about the same time. Turning it over and running it on something absorbent worked sometimes. Complete breakdown and cleaning worked about the same. Dripping alcohol in while pressing down on the ball was only marginally successful. Finally, gave in and bought a Magic Mouse for the one 24" iMac and a replacement wireless Mighty Mouse for the other. Both are working fine so far. The Magic Mouse is by far the best mouse I've ever used, and highly recommend that over anything out there.

Marshmansmithy's suggestion worked for me. I unplugged Mr Mouse and gave him a serious upside down rolling around, pressing really hard, on a sheet of white paper.

At the first attempt there was no improvement.

At the second attempt I pressed REALLY hard and out came a lump of gunge, on to the white paper, which could only have been insde the mouse. It couldn't have come from anywhere else.

So now me and Mr Mouse are friends again.

Thanks Marshman

I was getting fed up with my Mighty Mouse.

It scrolled left, right, down but not up!

Tried all the usual methods to no avail and then spotted the white paper trick.

After 10 to 20 seconds a tiny lump of squashed crud appeared on the paper roughly the size of the bottom section of this letter "i" and the mouse now scrolls upwards as well as every other direction.

Also see here.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1537?viewlocale=en_US

http://www.brendanfenn.com/cleanmouse.html

or

http://code.maxmayo.com/2009/03/how-to-fight-mighty-mouse-scrolling.html

yes, but if nothing goes the 2nd is 100% helpfull ..

p.s. apple's solution is only good for "light" problems.

thanks brendan fenn the tape trick did the trick for me, mighty mouse would scroll only in one direction but now we are back in business

The second one totally worked for me! (I tried the tape but I could not even get it to feed through all the way; I wonder if we need shiny magic tape?) Thanks Sascha and MaxMayo!!