Birthday thread: Mouse

This relates to the video https://youtu.be/oITBRgSQBd8. This thread is for discussing custom mouse creation.

Hey Ross, I don't have anything yet of course, but in case I find myself with too much time on my hands, could you provide some basic measurements of your hands? Nothing too crazy, finger length and palm height/width, just to have some reference. Thanks and happy birthday.

Damn it Ross, now you've got me thinking about building myself a custom mouse. If it turns out alright I'll see if lightning strikes twice.

Definitely interested in helping out with this. I sent you an email with more information.

This relates to the video https://youtu.be/oITBRgSQBd8. This thread is for discussing custom mouse creation.

 

Hey Ross,

I currently own my own self built 3D printer and have a good amount of experience when it comes to CAD based design. I haven't made a custom mouse before, as I'm not particularly picky with what I do, but I'd certainly be willing to give it a shot. If you could link a couple base mice with the number of buttons you desire and give an adequate description of the size, shape, and placement of the buttons, number of buttons, it would be much easier to design something. I would need compensation for costs though. I've been a long time viewer so I'd love to give back however I can. If you prefer to correspond via email I will send a copy of this there as well.

Hey Ross, I can fabricate a custom mouse for you, given enough time of course. And by fabricate a custom mouse, I mean I would create a custom housing for already existing mouse circuitry, this circuitry being salvaged from a mouse of your choice, then I would create the housing and relocate buttons as needed or even add buttons (if you would like mirrors of buttons that already exist). So if this proposal interests you, we would need to discuss a few things, such as measurements (as Glyph mentioned) as well as your preference of material for the housing along with ideal button number/placement. And perhaps anything aesthetic you may want.

 

I do not own nor have access to a 3D printer, so the housing would be made using traditional hand sculpting/carving, perhaps out of wood.

 

And touching on money for a brief moment, you would only need to pay for shipping and the cost of the donor mouse. Only after you receive it of course.

 

And then for the timescale, "you'll get it when it's done", I'm sure you understand how that works out.

 

And that's all really. Uh. Bye.

Hi Ross, Have you tried using a vertical mouse? My wife injured her wrist and this it the type of mouse she needs to use now. It takes a little getting used to but it does have easy to use buttons for all of your fingers and as far as I am aware decent dpi settings. Here is a site that shows the brand her mouse is if you are interested. https://evoluent.com/

 

I didn't know they existed until she needed one.

YES ON THE EVOLUENT VERTICAL MOUSE!

 

I now own two VerticalMouse 4 Right VM4R Evoluent mice: one for work and one for home.

 

I was getting very bad tendinitis mousing all day and this fixed it. It has three full-sized buttons, and each of the three buttons is soft. This is extremely important for me because i use a lot of 3D software where the middle mouse button is used as frequently as the spacebar is in Adobe programs. I purchased a $40 vertical mouse and it helped but didn't do the trick. The buttons took too much force to click.

 

I'm not kidding, the Evoluent mouse is perfect. Takes a bit of getting used to. I wouldn't use it on CS:GO yet, but I'm now stupid fast with in most software, pretty good with it in Dota, and I'm still not sure if I'll be as good in CS:GO as I was before, but I don't care, I have my wrist back and it's not flaring up when i work.

 

Only drawback (crap, I just said perfect, didn't I) is that the pads on the bottom are really thin. I used a hard plastic mat for a while and the pads started to erode so I got plastic on hard mat. That was not good. I started using a cloth mat instead and it's good now. I think I needed the extra friction anyway with this mouse. I should add that using this mouse you should ere on the side of having less sensitivity, meaning more arm movement to move the mouse. You need to start mousing with your arm instead of your wrist, so you'll use the fine-tined control that wrist movement will give you. Using arm means you'll want the friction so your mouse doesn't feel slippery making those gestures.

 

Oh, the mouse is expensive. BUT. TOTALLY. WORTH. IT.

Hi Ross,

I always loved quirky pointing devices. From things like wowpen eco (only 2 buttons + scroll wheel) to all sorts of trackballs. Out of them, Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan required me to use all fingers but unfortunately, it broke and can only be bought on ebay for a fortune.

One more thing to maybe keep on yout radar is a KeyMouse.

Sure, It's on pre-orders for now so no idea how well it works until we get reviews. But the thing is, your request of buttons for all fingers is fulfilled here. On both hands even.

But it's expensive as hell so don't buy it until it's out and more is known about it. <-That goes for EVERYONE. as I'm sure Ross won't buy anything he's not sure of when it has this kind of price.

 

Oh and the Claw was great. While I was still playing Quake3Arena a lot. Last time i saw it, it was somewhere in my garage. And I'm sure it still works.

The mouse I use is a Steelseries Sensei. The DPI is rediculous and although it doesn't have buttons for all the fingers it does have a nice feel and buttons on both sides because it's ambidexterous. The DPI goes up to 11.000+ not even kidding.

Just registered to let you know:

 

Roccat has this new mouse, its ambidextrous and you can switch out the side panels, they ship with several different ones but the neat thing is, you get the 3d printing software shipped too and so you can pretty much design your own side panels , print them out and stick them on your mouse. They also provide a 3d library, where you can just copy designs from other users and print those out

 

http://www.roccat.org/de-DE/Products/Gaming-Mice/Nyth/

 

review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7XlIugMdlc

Okay so I know you're looking for a custom mouse, but I have to recommend the one I'm using. It's extremely cheap for a gaming mouse, and it comfortably fits every finger on a medium-large size hand.

 

It has a double click function, Glowing LED's ooooh, and 3 other programmable buttons on top of your regular left-click, right-click, & scroll wheel.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CDJRBKS?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00

 

Unfortunately it's Japanese, so some of the software for installation will probably be in Japanese.

Please check it out though, I wouldn't post if I didn't feel like it was worth a look.

 

It isn't ambidextrous, so that might be an issue.

I used to play Dungeons and Dragons Online (see my post in the MMO stories thread) and I found myself with so many different spells and abilities that I finally broke down and bought an MMO Gaming mouse so I would have some extra buttons to work with. I ended up picking the Logitech G600 and holy shit this thing is amazing.

 

Let's look at this magnificent beast.

 

 

So the first thing that you'll notice, after you finish drooling of course, is that it has an extra button on the right. That button is for your ring finger. There's no pinkie finger button, unfortunately, because the human pinkie is a wimpy little bitch and frankly who even needs it. By default, this extra button is assigned to a function called "G-SHIFT." What is that, you ask? Well, I don't know. It has something to do with changing DPI, I think, or it can also make it so that all your key assignments do some other thing while you hold it down.

 

The second thing you'll notice (after you finish cleaning the aforementioned drool off your shirt) is that it has your standard array of "MMO buttons" on the side, same as you'll see on any other MMO mouse. Except these are no ordinary buttons. Oh no. We need a better angle to appreciate these things.

 

 

Okay, it's hard to see from any angle. Basically the buttons aren't just flat rectangles, they're curved and angled to form two bowl shapes. The G13 and G16 buttons also have a little raised dohickey like you have on the F and J homerow keys on your keyboard, because this mouse cares for you and wants to make sure you don't get lost along the way. What other mouse does this?

 

You'll also notice that the mouse has blue numbers on its buttons. "Do they light up, like those Razer mice I've seen?" You bet your sweet ass they do. But wait, there's more. Not only do they light up, but you can also customize how they light up. Do you want them to be a certain color? Go for it - the software lets you assign any color using 0 through 255 values for red, green, and blue. And you can set brightness from 0 to 100. And you can make the lights cycle between colors, or flash on and off, both at variable speeds. This entire feature is utterly pointless. You can turn it off if you like.

 

If I haven't already blown your mind, we're getting to the best part. Every button on the mouse can be customized to a frankly ridiculous extent. Every button can be assigned to a keystroke, or a combination of keystrokes, or a series of keys in a specific order with user-definable delays, or be set to "turbo" for a mouse click or keystroke. You can also assign any of the buttons to toggle the whole mouse between three different key bindings, or to toggle between different DPI sensitivities, or do that G-SHIFT thing to give you more stuff if this somehow isn't already enough. I normally have G18 assigned to shift+ctrl+tab and G20 assigned to shift+tab, so I can scroll through all my opened tabs, and I have G19 assigned to ctrl+W to close a tab. I also have the third mouse button assigned to turbo left click so I can cheat at flash games.

 

Here's the best part. The mouse has a small amount of internal memory to store the mouse's profile, so later if you plug the mouse in to some other computer, it'll remember what all its buttons are supposed to do. You don't need to install any software to set it up on the new machine. The mouse already knows what's up. It's got you covered. You're good to go. Enjoy yourself. You've earned it.

 

Basically, this is the most customizable mouse you can get without the necessity to physically disassemble the thing like some bizarre LEGO project. I've seen mice that look like a bunch of random plastic armor plates glued together with a cord coming out of it. This mouse points at those mice and laughs. This mouse beats up Razer mice and takes their lunch money. This mouse was already a year old back when Razer was laughably referring to the original Naga as "revolutionary." I used this mouse heavily when I was playing MMO's and I still use it for several hours daily for normal computing. I've logged at least a thousand hours of various first person shooters with this mouse and I swear every single button on it is still just as crisp as the day it came out of the factory.

 

This is the mouse for you. It doesn't have a pinkie button, but we already agreed that pinkies are for wimps. Pinkies are the kind of fingers a sissy girl would use. Pinkies are for Razer users. Fuck pinkies.

 

By the way in case this look like some kind of promo for Logitech, let me just say fuck Logitech headsets. I have a $150 Logitech gaming headset with audio quality roughly on par with a $15 pair of skullcandy headphones, and it's not especially comfortable either. Step up your game, guys. Make a headset on par with the G600 and you can have all my money.

+1 for the Evoluent vertical mouse.

 

I first bought an Evoluent mouse in 2007 (at the time their newest mouse was version 3). I used that mouse exclusively until 2014 when I decided to upgrade to their newer version 4 mouse. In those first seven years I played 600 hours Modern Warfare 2, 300 hours of Team Fortress 2, and hundreds more in other games and typical desktop activities.

 

I had no issues using the mouse for desktop purposes but I did experience a learning curve adapting to FPSs. The pixel-perfect precision required by shooters can be difficult to achieve when your hand isn't flat on the desk. Games with a mouse cursor interface like RTS or adventure games are equally as easy to adapt to as regular desktop-ing. I recently replayed Delta Force and, for the first time in eight years, opted to use a regular mouse just because aiming in low resolution was becoming a hassle.

 

There are buttons for each finger provided you rest your middle finger over the wheel and ring finger over the right-click button. There are also two buttons for your thumb. The fourth edition unfortunately remaps some of the buttons to my distaste. This is something I've rectified using software (X-Mouse) and hope future versions of the mouse do not continue.

 

I hope to get another seven years out of this mouse before considering a new one.

Now there's another reason for me to learn 3d modeling, and get a 3d printer... I do have a design, similar to the claw, but a lot more durable than a 2 week breaking point.

Hey, remember me? It's the

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr_lLR_f0q4.

 

Here's how I'd tackle this. Start with a lump of clay, as big as a mouse. Warm that stuff up in your hands and slap it down. Mold the clay with your actual hand. After all, if you're going to go custom, go really custom. Once you have the shape the way you want it you have 2 options. Scan the clay and 3D print it, or bake it and mold a sheet of thermoform plastic around it with a heat gun or even vacuform it. Then use an existing mouse and make it happen. 3D printing is cool 'n all, but it doesn't have to be the only solution. Vacuforming is also very cool.

Parallel option: repair "The Claw"

Background: I do electronics repair. Do you still have your claw?

 

 

Here's how I'd tackle this. Start with a lump of clay, as big as a mouse. Warm that stuff up in your hands and slap it down. Mold the clay with your actual hand. After all, if you're going to go custom, go really custom. Once you have the shape the way you want it you have 2 options. Scan the clay and 3D print it, or bake it and mold a sheet of thermoform plastic around it with a heat gun or even vacuform it. Then use an existing mouse and make it happen. 3D printing is cool 'n all, but it doesn't have to be the only solution. Vacuforming is also very cool.

Hand mouldable products exist that slowly set in air (or can be baked, like some forms of plasticine). This would cut out the 3d scanning and printing steps. Example: sugru.

I know this thread is about custom mouse creation... but you did ask about a better mouse... so ...

 

I use this.

 

because

 

 

That's not my hand. It's just a visual reference.

My middle finger tends to use the scroll wheel, the two finger adjacent to my middle fingers use the the top two buttons and the the bottom two is delegated to my thumb and pinky.

 

It comes with this rest thing but I threw it away because I find it useless on my desk.

 

as for DPI, the following chart list some stats on the best different models of trackballs.

https://i.imgur.com/0308O.png

came from this post on reddit

this is one interesting thread concerning the subject.

 

I have been using this mouse for the last ten years.

I have played a variety of games (FPS, RPGs, etc) over the years so it works quite well for my taste.

I think the only reason the manufacturers don't release the DPI or the polling rate for trackballs is because that's not that important to them. The important bit is the accuracy of the sensors.

Here's how I'd tackle this. Start with a lump of clay, as big as a mouse. Warm that stuff up in your hands and slap it down. Mold the clay with your actual hand. After all, if you're going to go custom, go really custom. Once you have the shape the way you want it you have 2 options. Scan the clay and 3D print it, or bake it and mold a sheet of thermoform plastic around it with a heat gun or even vacuform it. Then use an existing mouse and make it happen. 3D printing is cool 'n all, but it doesn't have to be the only solution. Vacuforming is also very cool.

I was considering that myself, but I was looking for specific tutorials on how to do it in a way that wouldn't require any specialized tools or experience first. (needless to say, I can't really find anything really good for a tutorial for the more rigid thermoplastics)

 

This would be my suggestion for material if you like a bit of texture for your mouse... (and for something like a 'Claw' style design, you might want to include a few very small [1/32"] vent holes in the palm and finger areas to prevent over sweating)

 

BUVhAKXm254

Hey Ross, I don't have anything yet of course, but in case I find myself with too much time on my hands, could you provide some basic measurements of your hands? Nothing too crazy, finger length and palm height/width, just to have some reference.

A few people asked for that, I'll try and get them when I can. My hands aren't especially freakish, just a little on the large side. I feel like with the right design, my measurements wouldn't matter so much as long as the shell was kind of large.

 

If you could link a couple base mice with the number of buttons you desire and give an adequate description of the size, shape, and placement of the buttons, number of buttons, it would be much easier to design something.

I'm not an expert, but if I were to pick one, I might go for the Steelseries Raw. I haven't used that one specifically, but I've used the Xai and Kana and in both cases the software and sensors worked well for me. There might be better choices in terms of durability out there though. The scroll wheel snapped on the Xai and the left mouse button went "mushy" on the Kana. Alternately, I tried the Madcatz RAT 7, which gave me some sensor issues, but I love the thumb scroll wheel that thing had.

 

Hey Ross, I can fabricate a custom mouse for you, given enough time of course.

Since we're getting a few offers, it sounds like someone should maybe put some designs out there. I can't always tell what's comfortable from looking at them, but I can spot some things that aren't. In general, I like a mouse that basically fits your hand in a relaxed or slightly spread position, mostly low hump, gradual slope in the back, I'll try and get some more details later.

 

Hi Ross, Have you tried using a vertical mouse?

No, although I'm not sure that would fit my style super well, it seems like to have a button for every finger, you would have to have the middle finger resting on the scroll wheel with the remaining two spread out.

 

Just registered to let you know:

 

Roccat has this new mouse, its ambidextrous and you can switch out the side panels, they ship with several different ones but the neat thing is, you get the 3d printing software shipped too and so you can pretty much design your own side panels , print them out and stick them on your mouse. They also provide a 3d library, where you can just copy designs from other users and print those out

I think that still has the same problem where there are no buttons for the pinky and ring finger are there?

 

There's no pinkie finger button, unfortunately, because the human pinkie is a wimpy little bitch and frankly who even needs it.

 

Here's how I'd tackle this. Start with a lump of clay, as big as a mouse. Warm that stuff up in your hands and slap it down. Mold the clay with your actual hand. After all, if you're going to go custom, go really custom. Once you have the shape the way you want it you have 2 options. Scan the clay and 3D print it, or bake it and mold a sheet of thermoform plastic around it with a heat gun or even vacuform it. Then use an existing mouse and make it happen. 3D printing is cool 'n all, but it doesn't have to be the only solution. Vacuforming is also very cool.

I'm open to anything people want to try. It does sound like the next step is to get dimensions of my hand and show an ideal usage position. In the meantime, you probably won't go wrong mimicking The Claw.