Figuring out how a mouse works?

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marblegravy
 
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Figuring out how a mouse works?

Post by marblegravy »

Hi,
I want to hack on a usb computer mouse to remove it's autonomy and just send movements I want it to. The end result I'm after is a mouse that I plug in and it just moves around in pre-set patterns. It serves no real purpose other than being a bit of fun and a chance to learn.

The learning step I'm not sure about though is how do I test it to figure out which parts do what? Getting it open is OK, and the click functions are easy enough, but the movement seems to be all between the sensors and the chip. How do I figure out the messages/signals the sensor is sending to the chip so I can send my own signals to it?

Can I do this with just a basic multimeter? Or am I out of my depth?

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: Figuring out how a mouse works?

Post by Franklin97355 »

Is this a ball mouse or an optical mouse?

marblegravy
 
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Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2014 8:14 pm

Re: Figuring out how a mouse works?

Post by marblegravy »

It's an optical one, though if I could find a USB ball mouse that would be a lot easier!

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Renate
 
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Re: Figuring out how a mouse works?

Post by Renate »

If you want to make a mouse scroll up a bunch and then scroll over to the right you are going to have to interface some kind of uP to a junked mouse anway.

If you really want to take a big bite off and learn something, try making a USB HID device from scratch.
Any of the Atmega32u4 powered boards can easily handle that with their hardware USB support.
The core code of a USB HID device is the same, the specific device (mouse, kbd, joy) is only a small bit of code.

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tseary
 
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Re: Figuring out how a mouse works?

Post by tseary »

Any of the Atmega32u4 powered boards can easily handle that with their hardware USB support.
Here's the Arduino reference page for mouse and keyboard: http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/MouseKeyboard

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