Modding the Apple Pro Mouse MOD apart

Modding the Apple Pro Mouse

Tools Used:

Heavy Duty Utility "box cutter."

Medium and Fine Exacto Cutters.

Precision "glasses" flat screwdriver.

Dremel Tool.

Compressed Air and a Plastic Cleaner for a real good job.

(Novus cleaners from Tap Plastics, or Meguiar from your favorite car parts)

I took guidance from www.sewardweb.com/applepromouse for this task. I still don't know if the Pro Mouse is meant to be disassembled, there are no screws. To open this mouse, one needs to pop a few lightly, but nevertheless, glued on places. If I had a broken mouse to work on, I would find out, but.....

This mod on the Pro mouse requires a couple of cuts to release the components, and if done carefully, they will be hardly noticed. But note I take NO RESPONSIBILITY on the success of this procedure.

Important: Load your cutters with fresh blades and lets go......

Step#1 - Pop off the Clear Top Shell

Look at the figure on Step#3 below and run the box cutter all around the skirt, go in a little bit at a time, and after a couple of rounds you should be able to pop the clear shell off. Set it aside so you won't scratch it.

Clear Top Removed and hole drilled

Step#2 - Find out Whether the "skirt" can be completely pry loose

Warning: I don't know if this can be done, do it on a mouse you can spare, else skip to step#3.

NOW, attempt to pry off the rest of the skirt from the inner opaque shell starting from one of the wings. I was able to observe the cross section of these two pieces and they are mated through a channel. If they didn't glue them, you should be able to pry them off. And I said *if*.

If you are successful doing this, many steps can be skipped below, since now the inner body can be just lift off cleanly.

Step#3 - Popping Out the Glider

The Glider is held in place by 8 plastic rivets. Fortunately, these rivets are easy to pop. Use your precision "glasses" screwdriver. Pop all rivets before you lift the Glider up.

Step#4 - Cutting Through the "skirt" and Slide out the Innards from the Inner Shell

You are doing this because you were unsuccessful separating the rest of the skirt from the inner shell from step#2, or you didn't want to chance it.

Using the box cutter, slit the skirt right behind each of the "wings." You know you are done when you can use the screwdriver to lift off the flaps from the wings.

Step#5 - Lift!

click pix for a side view

OK this is tricky so be patience. Follow the picture above.

Use the screwdriver and push an eyelet inwards, and lift that side of the mouse inner body a little, put a finger or something there to hold it, then do the same to the other side. Now the whole mouse inner body fees like it is ready to be lift up. Do it, and the slit you cut should now rise to allow the "wings" to slide out to the left, except you can't slide it all the way out because the USB cable is pulling.

While holding the the whole thing with one hand, use the screwdriver to push the cable retainer from the outside, in. The retainer is a rubber part so don't don't worry about breaking anything. If for some reason you are unable to do this, just cut the USB cable on the inside and splice later.

Once the mouse body has cleared from its shell, turn it around and unplug the USB connector from the circuit board.

Now the fun starts.

Step#6 - Modding

Initially, I wanted to use white LEDs to illuminate the Apple Logo, but they proved to be unsatisfactory, and I just don't have the proper sized LED and diffuser to use. So I am using the mouse's built-in RED LED instead for up-illumination.

There is no room whatsoever between the LED's well and the top of the inner shell, so I removed the oval bracket and replaced it with a diffuser. My diffuser is just a piece of clear plastic with a piece of white tape underneath. I drilled holes on both sides of the circuit board and used thin wire wrapping wires to hold it in place. Don't worry, once the inner shell is snapped in place, this piece will stay on. The cardboard strip that was on top of the LED was also removed to allow the light to shine up.

Once I started to cut through the inner "turtle" shell I realized it was too thick and there is no way, by using household tools, to precisely carve out the small Apple logo on the shell, so I drilled a round hole instead, then use masking on both sides of the inner shell to make up the Apple logo.

This job maybe easier with a black mice, but it may not. Basically, if the shell is not totally opaque, then you need to add black masking tapes to block out unwanted shine-troughs.

click on this pix for high-res details

Can you power it up at this point to check the lighting effect? If so, do it, so you can make any adjustments you like before things are put back together.

Step#7 - Sliding the Innards back into the Shell

Do whatever you did before to put the USB cable back into place. I spliced my cable and slit the rubber retainer, but you may have done it differently and are successful at it. If you splice the cable, the color wires are better discerned under daylight.

Once the inner shell is cut and masked, you are ready to slide the innards back exactly in reverse, except you have to make certain the plastic "spring" lip stay on top of the cable's tunnel, otherwise it won't click. Use the screwdriver or the small Exacto here. See picture below.

click on pix for high-res detail

Pop the thing back into their eyelets and the mouse should now click, else re-read the instructions and see what you did wrong.

Step#8 - Putting the Rest of it Together

Plug in the mouse and make sure everything works. Then you can put the rest back on.

Run a Exacto to smooth off the Glider's "stumps." DON'T cut the spikes!!! just smooth out the tops so they are "poles" instead of "trees." The glider will pop in and stay on without further assistance.

Once you are sure everything works and you have no need to go in again, you are now ready to glue the clear shell back on and mate it to the skirt. Clean the upper surface of the inner shell and the inner surface of the outer shell with a plastic cleaner such as the Novus#1, blast them with a few squeeze of your compressed air bottle. Mate the two pieces together under a strong table lamp to make sure there are no more lint trapped underneath (made very obvious in a white mice). All you need now is a few tinny drops of crazy glue around the skirt, hold it for a couple of minutes. You may also want to crazy glue back the skirt you slit, just be careful to not drop glues on the wrong places.

Wasn't that fun!