why does magic mouse not work with duracel batteries

I bought my iMac 2 years ago, it came with a Magic Mouse, within several months I started having the same battery issues. I looked here, and on the Internet to find out if the problem was already known about, but found only people guessing wrongly at what the problem is. I do hope Apple has fixed this, but unfortunately many of got stuck with a junk Magic Mouse. As an Engineer with 25+ years of experience in the design of electrical contacts & connectors which includes over 2 dozen patents ... believe me when I say the problem here is that the recessed positive contacts (at the on/off switch end) are too deeply recessed to make contact with the industry allowed variation in AA batteries. Those contacts are too deeply recessed because the plastic is too thick (in the hole that forms the recess) and the metal contacts are not tightly up against the backside of that plastic wall, in fact it looks like they are installed with a gap and/or can deform/bend away further opening that gap even larger. As mentioned above many industry AA battery standards define the positive button contact height as being 1.0mm or larger ... however that plastic wall is about 1mm thick, add the gap for the metal contacts and you have no electrical contact no matter how much contact spring force there is at the negative end. Unfortunately, there is no simple good fix for the average person to perform, the recessed contacts can't be accessed to bend them to remove that gap and the pastic is too thick anyway .. leaving us with a "duct tape" fix, like wadding some tin foil into that positive terminal recess and swearing when it falls out during battery changes. A nice elegent fix, would involve disassembling the mouse, machining plastic, backing up those terminals... absurd right?... would be easier if Apple sent us a new mouse that works.

This problem has nothing to do with overall battery length, battery diameter, or inadequate spring contact force from the negative mouse contacts. Also I doubt the brand or type of battery is the issue for anyone, the positive button heights vary among brands/types, but probably are 1.0mm or larger per the industry specs, Apple just didn't design this mouse to that industry spec, or they did not control their manufacturing quality to yield what they designed. This iMac was my FIRST Apple purchase after decades of avoiding and dismissing Apple, ironically they won me over with their progress and high quality products ... I'm rather disappointed.

Am I in a different world? The magic mouse that came with my Mac Mini has a built-in rechargeable battery and there seemingly is no way to replace it with ordinary replaceable batteries. I wish I could, as it is very inconvenient to have it suddenly die without warning and the only option is to plug it in and wait an hour or two for it to charge. I've switched back to my 5-year-old Logitech wired mouse; it is 100% reliable!

Hello Jenna,

Yes you are. Don't know if you have noticed but you are tagging onto a thread that is nearly 5 years old. It's always better to start a new thread as answers can get out of date. The mouse you have didn't exist then.

It appears you have a Magic Mouse 2 that is recharged via a charging cable. That being so a mere two or three minutes will give you enough charge for an average days work. The two hour plug in you mention should give you more than a months usage. It doesn't just die without warning unless it is damaged. You should get a notification when the power level gets to 10% or so.

If you are not getting this much power and it is dying without notification and it is less than 12 months old get it back to an Apple store for the genius bar to check it out.

I will chime in with the same problem. First ordered Amazon Basics replacements which didn't work (I also got a battery meter to confirm that they were fully charged. They were). When those failed, I ordered Duracell rechargeables, which also won't work. The mouse won't even power up with fully-charged, brand new batteries.

This *****.

This post goes back 5 years. Adding your comments after this time is not going to carry much weight or add to the strength of the condemnation.

Always best to start a new thread about the matter once the original is over twelve months old.

Duracel should work. I'm guessing you may have put one (or both) of the batts in upside down. Or forgot to turn on the mouse.

Hello:

Blond or not 😉 Duracells should work just like any other battery. I use rechargeables (both Duracell and Energiizer). I would guess that one or both of the batteries were bad. The device is definitely not vendor-specific.

Barry

I've just had this exact problem!

I measured the duracell against the ones the mouse was supplied with (energizer) and they have different measurements. So the replacement batteries weren't making contact properly.

See if you can measure the old ones against your replacements to see if they're the same - and see if that works. I haven't finished testing this theory yet as I'm waiting for my rechargeables to charge up (they measure the same).

I've posted in a similar thread with my thought process as to why I came up with this theory.

HTH

I haven't seen your other theory (yet), but does it have something to do with Apple doing this on purpose to force people to purchase the Apple Reharger kit? 😝

No but I was wondering whether they had an arrangement with certain battery manufacturers? Or perhaps they built the thing using only that kind to test?

China has counterfeit everything, from Rollexes to iPhones. I would not be surprised if we got a boatload of counterfeit Duracells too. China even makes counterfeit air-liner parts, despite this is highly ilegal.

As you may have guessed, these parts are never up to specs to the originals.

In fact, there was discussions over here as to Apple Retail stores that are opening up over-seas, which are entirely counterfeit and non-licensed.

I would try some regular, fresh alkaline Energizer AAs, as I'm not sure that all batteries really are the exact same size. I only say Energizer because I think more people have had success with that brand than Duracell (with that particular problem, I mean) Could be just a poor contact thing.

OK so I've just put my rechargeables in and it's fine. The rechargeables are bigger and make better contact.

I did some searching, and yes there is a standard for batteries, but it is variable:

Battery sizes are standardised using the IEC 60086-2 and IEC 60086-3 standards.

What most people call AA batteries are actually defined as xR6 batteries by IEC (where x represents a single letter code designating the chemical composition of the cell).

xR6 battery dimensions as per IEC 60086-2 are:

Diameter: 13.5mm – 14.5mm
Overall Height (including protruding +ve contact): 50.5mm (maximum)
+ve Contact Height: 1mm (minimum)
+ve Contact Diameter: 5.5mm (maximum)
etc, etc.

It seems that the higher the capacity of the AA battery, the slightly bigger they are. So rechargeables, or very high capacity AA batteries are bigger. The less capacity they are, they are slightly smaller. So if the mouse is designed really for rechargeables or high capacity cells, that's why those ones fit and the smaller ones don't.

I found people on the Net who've had the opposite problem - that is high capacity batteries getting stuck in appliances because they are too big!