What is a Computer mouse made of?
What is a Computer mouse made of?
An ABS shell around a tiny camera taking thousands of pictures a second, plus two clicky microswitches and PTFE feet.
The optical mouse replaced the ball mouse in the late 1990s because it removed the only moving parts that touched the desk, and with them the ritual of scraping fluff off the rollers. What it introduced was surface dependence: an optical sensor needs texture to track, so glass and plain gloss surfaces defeat it unless the mouse uses a laser or a dedicated glass-tracking sensor. The double-click fault that afflicts so many mice is a switch problem rather than a software one — contact bounce grows as the leaf spring fatigues, and the fix is replacing an inexpensive switch, which is why it is such a common repair.
Component by component
| Part | Material | Why that material |
|---|---|---|
| sensor | a CMOS image sensor with an infrared or red LED, or a laser | It photographs the surface thousands of times a second and computes how the image shifted — a mouse is a very small camera. |
| buttons | mechanical microswitches with a metal leaf contact | The leaf gives the tactile click and the rating, and it is where the notorious double-click fault develops as the metal fatigues and oxidises. |
| scroll wheel | a slotted wheel over an optical or mechanical encoder, with a rubber tyre | The encoder converts rotation into pulses; a mechanical one wears and starts scrolling the wrong way intermittently. |
| feet | PTFE skates | PTFE has about the lowest friction of any solid, so the mouse glides on a few square millimetres of contact. |
| shell | ABS, sometimes with a rubberised coating | Rubberised coatings feel good new and go sticky as the polyurethane hydrolyses, which is why they have fallen out of favour. |
Other electronics objects
- Alkaline battery Zinc powder and manganese dioxide either side of a potassium hydroxide paste, in a steel can.
- Smartphone screen Chemically strengthened aluminosilicate glass over a touch layer and an OLED or LCD panel, with an oil-shedding coating on top.
- Solar panel Doped silicon wafers with silver contacts, sealed between low-iron glass and a plastic backsheet in an aluminium frame.
- LED bulb Blue LED chips under a yellow phosphor, plus a driver circuit and a heat sink — and it is the driver that dies.
- Touchscreen A grid of transparent electrodes measuring the tiny capacitance your finger adds — which is why gloves fail.
- Computer keyboard ABS or PBT keycaps over either a silicone rubber dome on printed film, or individual mechanical switches.
- Headphones A neodymium magnet, a coil of copper wire and a thin plastic diaphragm — a loudspeaker shrunk to fit an ear.
- Loudspeaker A paper or plastic cone hung on a rubber surround, driven by a coil in a magnet gap.
Common questions
- What is a Computer mouse made of?
- An ABS shell around a tiny camera taking thousands of pictures a second, plus two clicky microswitches and PTFE feet.
- What is the sensor of a Computer mouse made of?
- A CMOS image sensor with an infrared or red LED, or a laser. It photographs the surface thousands of times a second and computes how the image shifted — a mouse is a very small camera.
- What is the buttons of a Computer mouse made of?
- Mechanical microswitches with a metal leaf contact. The leaf gives the tactile click and the rating, and it is where the notorious double-click fault develops as the metal fatigues and oxidises.
Related pages
- Alkaline battery Zinc powder and manganese dioxide either side of a potassium hydroxide paste, in a steel can.
- Smartphone screen Chemically strengthened aluminosilicate glass over a touch layer and an OLED or LCD panel, with an oil-shedding coating on top.
- Solar panel Doped silicon wafers with silver contacts, sealed between low-iron glass and a plastic backsheet in an aluminium frame.
- LED bulb Blue LED chips under a yellow phosphor, plus a driver circuit and a heat sink — and it is the driver that dies.
- Touchscreen A grid of transparent electrodes measuring the tiny capacitance your finger adds — which is why gloves fail.
- Computer keyboard ABS or PBT keycaps over either a silicone rubber dome on printed film, or individual mechanical switches.
- Headphones A neodymium magnet, a coil of copper wire and a thin plastic diaphragm — a loudspeaker shrunk to fit an ear.
- Loudspeaker A paper or plastic cone hung on a rubber surround, driven by a coil in a magnet gap.
- Pencil Stationery and paper
- Tennis ball Sport and games
- Banknote Around the house
- Golf ball Sport and games
- Paper Stationery and paper
- Glass Building materials
Sources
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place