Magic Mouse and Rechargable Batteries?

Scott Theobold1 wrote:
...... they +'just' fit+. They needed +a little spin to get them to sit in the +ve recess+, but once in they're fine....

Scott

From what you say it seems to me that you might, just might, also get the "mouse disconnects/switches off at random" problem reported elsewhere. I refer to the situation where the batteries are actually a bit loose and one finds that simply moving the mouse around, or dropping it on the desktop, is enough to make the mouse disconnect unexpectedly.

If you get this problem, I would advise that you simply place a tiny amount of 'Blue Tack' (or your local equivalent) on the battery compartment lid over the point where each battery will be closest to the lid to hold the batteries firmly.

This is my Magic Mouse modified this way -

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11373233/MacDiscussions/Magic%20Mouse%20folder/Mouse%20L id%20plus%20BlueTack%20Fix.jpg

I said tiny amount. To explain - in the early hours of owning my Magic Mouse I had problems keeping the device working with any batteries whatsoever (rechargable or otherwise). I did however have the hunch that the cells were loose (+..just fit+) and needed to be held in place. So my solution was to hold them in place with Blue Tack.

This solution has worked so well that I completely forgot that my Magic Mouse had the loose batteries problem in the first place so when I worked on the 'rechargable battery problem' the blue tack business was below my radar and therefore I had not taken this aspect into account. Luckily it didn't mattesr for the rechargable batteries problem but might affect you now with your 'just fit' batteries.

With experience that one needs to use the minimum amount of Blue Tack that holds the cells in place. Too much makes the battery compartment lid difficult to remove hen the time comes to replace the batteries as well as making the lid difficult to lock into place inthe first place.

In the above photograph the amount of Blue Tack you see used was arrived at by way of trial and error in about 20 minutes or so.

On 25-Feb-2011 El Deanio wrote:

.... When I wrote the above, it was 19 February - that's almost a week ago. This is just to report that my new rechargables are still at 58% charge and that's including a quite considerable amount of use. Not bad at all really. ....

Well that was less than a week after the first charge of these new Duracells. They had gone down in charge from around 94% the night before I posted the above and, as I said, they were at 58% charge. At the time I thought that was quite a drain.

It's now almost two weeks further on in time and I thought I would take another peek. Well, one doesn't want to be (too) obsessive about these things does one? Anyway, much to my surprise, Mouse Prefs Panel reports them to be still at 50% charge! I kid you not!

My iMac gets really good use every day. What with two daughters in Higher Education and my wife using it for hours each day, it's not as if my Mac is being under utilised or anything like that. Far from it.

This is really pleasing and I no longer hanker for the days when my mouse was chained to the keyboard.

Whoopie - do!!

Message was edited by: El Deanio

Well, would you credit it? It's 9.25 pm here in the UK and the first charge of my new Duracells has finally expired.

Quite unexpectedly actually. It doesn't seem a day since I last reported here and they were still at 50 percent charge. Well actually that was last Wednesday, still only fours days ago. Go figure.

Anyway to sum up, I charged them up on 18 February 2011 and they expired 10 minutes ago, at 9.25pm on 13 March 2011. That's a month, near as dammit.

Not bad at all.

El Deanio signing off.

El Deanio wrote:

Well I can now confirm that it does depend on the make of Rechargable battery you buy that makes a difference to whether they work in the Magic Mouse or not.

Last night I took a gamble and bought some Duracell Rechargables. I didn't have my glasses for close up work but I was able to compare them right there in the shop with the black alkaline batteries that I know work fine. The cap in the end looked ok though - about the same size. They weren't cheap so it was a bit of a gamble as I don't have many other uses for them right now.

First of all, they only took an hour or so to charge up. That was my first surprise. However when I put them in Magic Mouse - lo! - they work perfectly!

I took another photo that shows all three batteries together.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11373233/MacDiscussions/Magic%20Mouse%20folder/Result.jp g

The new Duracells (on the right) are clearly as large at the + end as the Alkline cell (in the middle). It is definitely larger than the previous set of rechargables (on the left).

Last night when I first used them they were at 94% charge. This afternoon (3pm) they are at 77% charge according to the Mouse Prefs Panel. I don't know if that is a lot of charge to lose in less than 24 hours but a great dealof use has beenmade in that time. Doesn't matter though - I can recharge them, right?

Anyway the ones I found that work in my Magic Mouse are Duracell 'Rechargable Accu' NiMH, 2000 mAh/1.2V. They also claim to retain 80% of their charge after one year. So it may well be worth charge up the next set in readiness.

So I'm pleased to be able to report a good result.

When looking at this photo it should be fairly obvious that the cell on the left has its shoulder a lot higher than the other two. Also, if one looks closer, it looks like the green plastic coating might be making up the difference - giving it hunched shoulders, for want of a better metaphor. The plastic is abutting the dark plastic wall of the Magic Mouse instead of what should be the battery's metal can.

I think I will dig these cells out again to see if I can trim away the green plastic cover at the top with a Stanley knife. My hunch is that the metal can underneath will be exactly the same size as the other two cells in the photo (the ones that work) and that after doing this the left hand cell will work after all.

Now, where did I put those cells!!!