How to clean/repair ADB mice?

#1 Sun, 8 Feb 2015 - 19:04 68kMLA

I have two ADB mice and neither of them track very well. The clicking is fine, it's just the ball in it that's giving problems. I don't really know what's wrong with them. Is there any standard procedure for cleaning/repairing these to get them in tip top tracking shape?

#2 Sun, 8 Feb 2015 - 21:14 68kMLA

Take ball out and clean the rollers - welcome to old school before optical mice

#3 Sun, 8 Feb 2015 - 23:18 68kMLA

Yeah, take out the ball and look at the rollers. See if there's a line of junk on them, in the middle of the roller. Scrape it off. Clean up the rest with some Iso on a Q-tip. Pull out any other junk with some tweezers.

#4 Mon, 9 Feb 2015 - 14:30 68kMLA

I have an ADB Mouse II. It looks like the bottom side has a twist thing to get the ball out but it's not budging. Am I supposed to access it by using a screwdriver in the hole under that sticky label instead?

#5 Mon, 9 Feb 2015 - 14:42 68kMLA

Never mind, I had to REALLY twist on it to get it off.

#6 Mon, 9 Feb 2015 - 14:50 68kMLA

Yeah, they're really hard to get open. I think they had schoolchildren in mind when they designed it.

#7 Mon, 9 Feb 2015 - 17:18 68kMLA

Get yourself a pair of tweezers.

#8 Tue, 10 Feb 2015 - 12:08 68kMLA

TWF» I think they had schoolchildren in mind when they designed it.

This is the Steve Jobs' mindset in Apple we are talking about. You're not supposed to open them up.

They are designed to their job very well

Poor Steve must have been biting his inner lip when he demo'd the Blue & White G3.

#9 Tue, 10 Feb 2015 - 17:17 68kMLA

At least it wasn't glued shut. I've found quite a few mice like that.

#10 Wed, 11 Feb 2015 - 02:19 68kMLA

Those ADB mouse balls can really leave a mark when hurled across a lab by unruly ten year olds! Also, it can be quite maddening to think the computer is frozen, reset it, losing your work, then discover the cursor wasn't stuck... Somebody's swiped all the mouse balls when you weren't looking. Thankfully there was glue, then optical mice saved the day... Other than kids trying to blind each other.

#11 Wed, 11 Feb 2015 - 03:58 68kMLA

I remember back in the day in school, Getting onto computers just to find out I cant use the mouse because someone else stole the mouse ball. So i would grab another mouse, or get on another computer...

Those were the days.

#12 Wed, 11 Feb 2015 - 06:14 68kMLA

When I was in elementary school the library had a table of iMac G3s, with the original hockey puck mice. The "popular" thing to do was to hold the mice by the cord and whack each other with the mouse end when the teacher wasn't looking. LOL Good times.

#13 Wed, 11 Feb 2015 - 06:40 68kMLA

With this thread in mind, I decided to properly clean a spare, very yellowed ADB Extended keyboard.

Once the phillips screw at the back is taken out, it comes apart quite easily.

I suspect that this keyboard has never been cleaned and it is surely 25 years old.

I took the keys off carefully with a penknife and put them in a cloth bag into the washing machine.

The upper and lower case went into the dishwasher.

The logic board and black rubber underlay to the keys I cleaned initially with a hoover and then with many cotton swabs dipped in disinfectant alcohol.

I'll see how tonight if it was a success.