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’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.