Trying very hard to hold back a torrent of rants about the state of tech. I’m clinging onto an older model of something at a time when they don’t make a good new alternative, you can figure out where the problem is.
So far I’ve changed the switches (the mechanical things inside the mouse that click), the outer shell, the scroll wheel, and the teflon pads at the bottom.
Am quite pleased with how it doesn’t feel like it’s falling apart anymore.
It’s sad that the switches and rubber shell especially feel like they were intentionally built to age very poorly. This was not a cheap mouse, and switches that don’t break in two years are like 2$ more than the ones they used. The rubber coating on the outside peeled and crumbled until I finally replaced the whole outer shell with a solid single piece. And the scroll wheel was beginning to rust.
Overall some of the replacement parts don’t feel quite as rigid. The older rubber part, while crumbling from the outside in, was glued to a sturdier-feeling plastic frame than the replacement, which is just a little creaky.
But hey. I love fixing my stuff and using what I want, marketers and their poor record of product discontinuation be damned. I probably wouldn’t have bought a new one. But I don’t like that I can’t if I needed to. I don’t like that everything is built to be disposable when things as simple as a scroll wheel that doesn’t rust, a shell not made of crumbly rubber, or switches that don’t break after two years have all been the default for 40 years before the current tech dark age.
I keep doing surgery to keep my small fleet of M570s going, but soon I’m going to have to buy a new mouse or two.
you made the mouse of Theseus
Nice!
I kept my ball mouse (remember those!!?) going until like 2003!
Some folks don’t know that when optical mice came out, they were fucking horrible for the first many years. I even got conned into buying some “green laz0r” opti and it was just trash… skpping all over the place.
Yeah, had to open up the ball mouse every week and clean the grime loops off the rollers, but it was a loooooong effing time before the new tech (opti) that replaced the old tech (ball) actually became comparatively equivalent/better.
It’s not a new problem and not just “tech”. One time I tore the entire dashboard out of an old Lincoln Aviator to replace this little plastic actuator arm that controlled one of the climate control dampers. It was clearly a bad design, especially for a vehicle that cost $74k brand new, which was very expensive at the time.
The kind of stupid stuff corporations will do to save a buck, even on supposedly “premium” products, is just ridiculous.
a vehicle that cost $74k brand new, which was very expensive at the time.
Criminy, what’s ‘very expensive’ now??
Would you mind sharing the model of mouse that you have been repairing?
I’ve detailed elsewhere in the thread, but this is about the G604. The G700s was a similar story before it, although it was easier to take apart (with the caveat that it was much more annoying the very first time - two boards are soldered to each other and the guides online instruct you to add a male and female header strip so you can assemble and disassemble it later with much less headache).
Honestly if the new shell had the same textured plastic as the G700s I’d consider my repaired mouse to be damn near perfect.
I had a feeling you were talking about Logitech. I’ve repaired a several over the years, but only the switches and teflon pads. I’m a big fan of the MX500 style mice which includes both the G604 and the G700. I am currently using a MX518 (re-release) and G500s. Next time you repair one of the mice, consider taking a look at using the tactile non-clickly omron switches that are compatible with these mice. It was really refreshing to not have the mouse making the clicking noise.
3d printing has been a miracle to me for fixing plastic things.
What mouse is it? I tend to just desolder the LEDs and switches out of my dead ones before I get a new one. It’s nice that the switches are generally universal - I’ve been able to extend the life of a couple mice through donor switches.
Donor switches? The ones that come with most mice aren’t very good, and if you’re extracting them they’re probably not new anyway.
You can buy some online that last much much longer.
I wholeheartedly believe that Logitech is intentionally using the older, rapidly-failing Omron D2FC-F-7N switches to make people buy more peripherals more frequently. Spending an extra 1-2$ on lasting switches should really not be too much trouble when they’re selling fancy computer mice that cost like 100$ now.
I looked up that part number, I don’t know it off the top of my head, just to be clear. This isn’t a niche special interest thing. You use your computer mouse more than you use your car and probably your phone.
My post is about my G604, but it mirrors my earlier adventures with the G700s. When the G604 was announced and then released, I felt like Logitech were actually trying to make a decent product again, and the tiniest bit of tech doomerism got lifted off my chest. Pity that it didn’t last.
Ay, that’s kick ass man, congrats!
That’s some commitment to a mouse. I have a logitec Bluetooth travel mouse from 2005. Our IT guy told me that paying $60 for a mouse was crazy and he could get me one for $7-10. But here I am 20 years later and it looks like it’s new still.
That’s great :)
We still have a perfectly working working Microsoft Intellimouse Optical (from 2001 or 2002, I believe it was a model with both USB/PS2). It’s used & yellowed but the thing refuses to die which is more than fine with us.
It’s a great skill to be able to fix stuff. I only learned it late, into my 40s… I taught myself soldering (to fix simple electronics, my first task was a pressing need to repair my beloved headphones whose jack was not working), and to sew (to mend our clothes, using a thread and needle or even a sewing machine: what an impressive device too!), and to scratch build as many of the stuff we need (to be honest, it is not that much as we try to buy as little stuff as we can and, well, I’m not that good at crafting them either :p).
It’s also real sad to see so much device not being designed to last and to be maintained. Note that even old tech needs regular maintenance. The huge difference being that they were designed to be maintained. And when parts have not been available for many years… Looking at my old 1960 typewriter… Here in France, typewriters spare parts (and repair shops) are not that common.
Them not being easy to fix/upgrade is one of the two reasons why I stopped purchasing/using Apple computers a few years ago, after being their customers since the early 80s, switching to device and brands I can easily maintain (and upgrade), using standards components and basic tools.
I’m like this with my logitech m570.
I am absolutely dreading the death of my Logitech G600. I love this mouse, I love all the stupid buttons on the side, I love the size of it, etc. But This is my 3rd one in like 12 years so I know it will die eventually and they stopped making it. The alternatives, from what I’ve read, don’t have great support in Linux, so I might have to frankenstein this one to keep it going once the switches start to go…
Switches are the easiest thing to fix, and the shell looks like it’s not made to disintegrate on the G600. So you’ll be fine. These older models are also much less tedious to take apart.
This post is about my G604. I consider this model (which they only made for a short period, mind you) to be the only attempt at a successor to my previous GOAT model, the G700s. That one had a rough grippy outer plastic shell and to this day I still think that’s the best possible material.
Replacing switches is dead easy once you become slightly comfortable with a soldering iron. You can buy a tiny Aliexpress tier macropad (“keyboard” with like 9-20 buttons), solder on and desolder the switches once, and you’re basically done with learning what you need to do to your beloved mouse. You can buy your mouse switches on there directly as well. They’re universal for the most part. I’d recommend the Huano White Dot switches. I used to recommend another type but those ended up with a manufacturing error that makes it impossible to guarantee that they’ll last. And you can get replacement teflon pads as well while you’re at it.
The alternatives, from what I’ve read, don’t have great support in Linux, so I might have to frankenstein this one to keep it going once the switches start to go…
I’ve tried a Razer Naga V2 for a while, and it seems like a direct response to the G600. I prefer the Logitech mechanical scroll instead of the (cool but ultimately not great) electronically-tensioned scroll wheel that it came with. But one of the interchangeable side plates was a ridiculous one with a ton of buttons and I used that to try to replicate my G604 setup.
Honestly, I’m fully sold on the G604 button layout, I don’t need any more than this. I like where they are spread out. Logitech just isn’t fucking trying anymore, and that’s the problem. The one good mouse that appealed to me after half a decade of no G700s ended up being made of self destroying plastic and using the same short life switches that were obsolete a decade ago.
I won’t buy Razer stuff again. I bought into the hype and got a full setup several years ago - mouse, keyboard, headset… Not a single one of them lasted even a year - mouse (original naga) stopped right clicking within 6 months, the mic on the headset stopped working after 32 days, the space bar on the keyboard died around 9 months, and finally the left side speaker on the headphones died just before the 12 month mark. The logitech stuff mice aren’t great, but in the past I’ve gotten more like 4-ish years out of them, and the software support has been better imo.
Thank you for all the details though - I will definitely look into this. I’ve already got a couple of old g600’s lying around that were retired for one reason or another that I could practice on.
Logitech has consistently gotten worse over time, so I’d be wary of their new stuff. Best of luck with the G600 collection. Logitech’s own software isn’t what it used to be. Mouse QMK can’t come fast enough.
I avoided Razer like the plague and was really turned off by their marketing up until I tried this last mouse, after getting recommendations and being told a few times that they’re not the same cringey gAmErZrIsEuP brand they used to be. My understanding is that they got their shit together and are not the same gimmick salesmen that they were when they exploded in popularity. The software wasn’t too bad IIRC, but I remember being frustrated when all I wanted was the G604’s simple premise: six side buttons (I just need four), two extra top buttons (I just need one), physically unlocking scroll wheel, and quick switching between computers (one button to switch from Bluetooth to wireless dongle and back). The big dealbreaker wasn’t the repeated recharge cycle or the need to double mouse it, it was the damn electro-magnetic scroll wheel. If you scroll too much in one direction, its clicks lose resistance. I’m someone who probably scrolls longer distances than I walk some days. The scroll tactility slowly becoming sludgy made me go back to my old mouse within a month.
Edit: I’ve just pulled it out of the drawer to see. Have wrapped my observations in a spoiler tag to keep things readable.
spoiler
It’s a Razer Naga V2 Pro, which was not cheap, especially here where I live, but again, I use my mouse more than my car.
The scroll is not quite as bad as I’m describing here. The Razer Central application does hound you for an account, but the Razer Synapse software is what controls your mouse, and you can use that without an account. These programs don’t launch on my system startup and this is the first time they’ve been opened in over a year.
The mouse shape and ergo feels great. The problem is more that the software doesn’t quite fire the same commands to the OS as the Logitech software does. I don’t have Forward and Back, I have my attempted workarounds of Alt+left and Alt+right. It doesn’t have a single crisp click for left and right scrolling like the Logitech software does, where it keeps repeating at a specific rate. Instead I have two options: Scroll Left and Scroll Right, or Keep Scrolling Left and Keep Scrolling Right (these are the default ones). The defaults fire way too quickly - so instead of going column by column in a spreadsheet, it is hard to get it to land where you want it. The other set go column by column, which is good, but if you hold them down nothing happens. Worse, the software warns you that you need to have Synapse open for these single column ones to work. Compare that to my Logitech which I’ve had the horizontal scroll work in Windows, Linux, and Mac. It’s like they gave me two options to choose from which are both worse than what I had. The timing of that one is just right, it speeds up the more you hold it down, so you could skip a precise number of columns or just zoom across when you need to, instead of choosing just one scenario.
Theoretically, this could all be fixed in software. In practice, I don’t expect that from Razer. But it is really one stubborn product manager’s week away from being close to perfect, even out of the box. Optical switches too, so theoretically unlimited lifespan.
The scroll is not as bad as I remember, but the physically locking and unlocking mechanism that Logitech uses is way way more intuitive. For this, I had to set a custom scrolling pattern to feel like proper scroll clicks the way I like them, and the smooth mode doesn’t have the momentum that a heavy, free-spinning scroll wheel does. The tech is very cool! It’s customizeable, you can simulate different scroll types and it’s genuinely very interesting to play with. But a metal bar that locks and unlocks into plastic detents is just so much better, especially given you can’t scroll indefinitely in one direction without the simulated scroll bumps becoming sludgy.
The replaceable panels are cool, but I got this explicitly for the six button panel. And yet I ended up using the 12 button one more. Why? Well the buttons feel crisp on the 6 button panel, but they are just soft enough that you can mash them when you pick the mouse up. So the 12 button one, which is firmer, is what I switched to, even though I’ve only programmed 5 of those buttons. Sadly, the 12 buttons themselves are not beautifully made: to keep things RGB-capable, they are using button caps that are made with white plastic with a thin black outer layer, into which the legends are lasered. Only problem is that your hand rests on them and they start to peel. The 6 legend is just a white blob where the number 6 used to be. But I have to admit, the shell otherwise feels excellent. Switching back and forth between it and my fixed G604, I find that I like the ring finger rest on the Razer and that would be a nice addition to the G604. Looks like that’s precisely the shape of the G600. I wouldn’t mind that plus the thumb pad rest thing of the G604 on the opposite side, but now I’m just being extremely nitpicky.
This one might just work for you, if you can stomach the frankly ridiculous price. Upon a quick search, it looks like the cheaper non-Pro might have been better for me, if I knew I wouldn’t like their six-button panel: AA battery like the G604, extra top left buttons like the G604, mechanical switches and scroll wheel… But to swap between dongle and Bluetooth it’s still a toggle switch on the bottom instead of a button on top, which is so good on the G604.
Hope this helps you. Or someone out there.
Trying very hard to hold back a torrent of rants about the state of tech.
You don’t have to hold back if you don’t want to.
I’d rather have some variety here on Lemmy, I feel like a lot of us are people who have a genuine fascination with technology who are disgusted with the state of it. My own posts are very skewed towards complaining about tech. I wanted this post to be more about sharing the banal but comforting idea of repairing something as seemingly unimportant but still used for hours per day as a computer mouse.
