You may laugh, but to me this is serious!

Does anyone here know how I might restore the quality of mouse balls?  For
years I've had and used Logitec's RF serial three button mice.  Lately both
mice have been sliding into inactivity and sticky footwork.  So I've been
carefully taking the plates off and 'cleaning' the balls and optical shaft
area with a soft cloth and so on.

Doesn't work!

Then out of the blue, I happened to find an old envelope in a forgotten
desk drawer with a brand new ball for these mice in it.  So .. of course, I
chunked in this new ball into one of the mice and VIOLA!  Perfectly working
mouse again.  All you gotta do is renew the balls, chuckle.

But .. years away now, I'm not sure I could even get replacement parts from
Logitec.  And with VERY careful observation under a microscope the puzzle
is now a lot clearer.  Either the old balls are coated with some sort of
much smoother something that buffing with a cloth or even alchohol won't
remove or ..  I've used them for so long that the rubberoid surface is now,
of all things polished smooth from rolling them around forever.

Does anyone here have any idea what you could use as a solvent to test for
contamination that way.  And, if that's not the reason they won't work,
what could I do to restore the surface roughness to the original more or
less factor fuzzy specs?

I know.  This is sorta like the old hearse that used to run around town
here at Texas A&M back in the 50's.  It had a slogan painted on the
back that said, "Father do not laugh!  Your daughter may be a
passenger in this conveyance!" But the driver found that old outdated
equipment mighty useful at times..  grin.  As he noted, "Sometimes you
get your best results when you are a little rough around the edges, Mike. 
And lotsa times you only get one chance at something very much to be
prized."

  ;)


--> Sleep well; OS/2's still awake! ;)

Mike {at} 1:117/3001

--- Maximus/2 3.01