Mod a BT mighty mouse into a wired mouse

[klonsky]

Good day =)
This is my first post in this forum, but not my first read, MacRumors has been helping me find answers since... well long enough.

I'll try to keep my post short somewhat: I've acquired what appeared to be my most useless piece of equipment: the bluetooth mighty mouse. I am not against wireless stuff per se, I love the keyboard. But the mouse has these annoying problems:

1. Batteries wear out way too fast.
2. Trackball clogs way too easily.

Now I can do without scrolling down, and might clean the thing one day from the insides, but what annoys me is the battery life. And having to buy batteries every other week.

A simple workaround would be to buy a cheap wired mouse. But for the sake of thinking about a project, has anyone with some background in electronics tried, or tried to think of the possibility, of modding a mighty mouse and enable it to get some juice through USB?

On the theoretical approach, it seems feasible: the mouse is powered by 1.2V batteries in parallel. I suppose that's 1.2V. USB give more juice, so a component could limit the input to 1.2V.

A mini-usb port could stick out of the front of the mouse, allowing a connection with the computer. Now surely, there should be no batteries in the mouse at this point, which would make it light as a feather.

This would be ideal, for using the mouse in between battery charges for instance (on an external charger obviously).

EDIT: I suppose the whole architecture of that mouse is to transfer the info via bluetooth. So the usb idea here would just stick to get power to the mouse, not transfer the data, as I expect it would be a whole other machine design to enable that.

I hope I have not annoyed you with this weird idea (I expect answers such as "go get a 10$ wired mouse and use it while charging your batteries); so this is intended to the tech-curious types

I browsed a bit, and found mice such as some razer models that are dual powered (usb / batteries), they also charge the batteries while connected, and they cost a test***e. I have already invested more than deserved on the mighty one, and would like to mod it and make it worth the investment!

Thanks for replies, flames and trolling Although I'd be more than happy if this post grows into a brainstorming thread and gets somewhere.

(I'll try to clarify anything I wrote awkwardly, english is kind of my 3rd language).

 

[alust2013]

Here is perhaps a more practical solution. You could spend a bit of extra money and buy batteries such as the energizer ultimate lithium. Yes, they are more expensive, however, the set I had that my BT mighty mouse came with lasted for 8 months. Or, you could get some rechargeable batteries and use those. Or you could buy a wired apple mouse.

But to answer your question, I don't think there is any easy, inexpensive, reasonable, or at all practical way to do what you want to. If you really want a wired mouse like that, go for the apple mouse. You'd likely spend almost the same money making a wired mouse out of your BT model

 

[klonsky]

Hi thanks for that fast reply!

I actually just edited my post, to precise the idea would be to only power the mouse via a USB connection, and not really diving into making the USB transfer the mouse data as well. But I don't know if this alone is that complicated as well.

I have a set of rechargeable batteries, I'd have to buy another set of 2 to make a cycle usage / charging.

I was also lurking at the Razer Orochi.

But I see this as a proof of concept, which, if it turns out easily feasible, would be a nice and practical mod (I mean if it's only a matter of soldering a wire at the exit point of the battery compartment, with a kind of resistor that would limit the voltage to what's needed). You'd have 1 mouse, a set of batteries, and a micro USB cable in your bag for extreme cases. You'd likely be still using BT to transfer data, and USB to juice the thing.

 

[alust2013]

I have little doubt that it's possible, just not easy, especially if you want to still be able to use batteries too. It would probably be the hardest part to figure out where to put the usb port and where the wires would go.