And what point would that be? Carbon fiber is very light when compared to steel, but not compared to plastic. There is no practical use for CF in a mouse beyond the fact that it looks cool. Ordinary plastic weighs less than carbon fiber and is more than strong enough for the purposes of a mouse.
I'm finding this to be the case. I was under the impression that carbon fiber was lighter than plastic (abs?) while providing the same, if not better strength.
Still I feel like there has to be a better material out there.
Why can't they just make a mouse with known, prefect sensors, no or as little of prediction, angle snapping etc, two side buttons and normal price tag? Who needs weight system, just put the weight inside mouse, and every respectable Quaker will open the mouse, unscrew the weight and throw it away bringing the mouse to <90g. Who needs silver cables, does the 5% more conductivity mean anything for the user? Why does every mouse have too look like it's designed for retards? Zowie, SS don't need that.
A4tech did just that with Avago 3060/3080 sensors for like $15, but they switched to shitty PixArt and if you don't want to have "look ma, I'm gay" looking mouse on your desk you need to go to the top-level mice which have their own problems (eg. built in acceleration in some).
And the only hope, the prophet of the Great Church got away. And his name was 'B', 'S' and 'T'.
What I mean, that there's always something that annoys you at least, eg. the screws being under the feet. Like, why couldn't they place them anywhere else? Or CM Storm Alcor - all seems good except of very high LOD (and the screws too). Or they are overpriced (70+$ for me is overpriced).
Tape trick is damn stupid. My Deathadder (got it for free so STFU!) had something like 5 CDs of LOD. It's unreasonable that Razer is so stupid they let that slip, or did it on purpose. Why the hell?
IIRC, depending on the colour of surface the mice track differently and have different LODs, IIRC these sensors have more bearable LODs on red surfaces but lose perfect control speed for it, heck my zowie mice have a built in tape trick(plastic covering the sensor hole) and they can't track on my icemat because of it.
same reason BST couldn't do it. big companies pay a lot to keep the mice industry alive and the competition for better and more flashy mice these days. what would be a point of mice-tech industries still existing if there was a one perfect mouse
That's crap. By the time his mouse was finally going to be released there were like 5 others or more than were as good or better, with the same concept of being really simple. Examples are from big and small companies as well, namely logitech and zowie.
Idea is to blame bst himself for his own faults, not something vague like conspiracies are. All three examples show there's no conspiracy but just him personally failing to deliver after 3 years.
This is purely cosmetic. Carbon fiber is usually used because it's strength to weight ratio is very high, making it ideal for making light weight products that require high tensile strength.
ABS plastic is still a better choice however because although it's strength to weight ratio is lower, this ratio is easily satisfactory while it's density is also lower. ABS being strong enough a mouse material already, there would be no practical application for carbon fiber in a mouse that I can see.
Hmm that's a consideration that I hadn't thought of. I wonder though, if much less was used for the same strength as an ABS mouse, would it still be the same weight? If so, what would be the practical value for using a composite material such as carbon fiber?
Are there any other benefits to it that you are aware of other than weight?
I'd like to create a mouse with the following qualities:
Two-button, kinzu-ish shape. Braided cord.
Teflon feet.
Sensor: Not sure, maybe ADNS-3090 or PMW3310H?
Of course 1000 Hz out of box.
Also I'd like to see if the button latency can be reduced as much as possible. Not sure how much impact this really has, but if you've seen the graphs by that Japanese outfit, I'd want my mouse to the be at the very lowest end for latency.
Omron switches as they seem to be beloved. (Omron D2FC-F-7N)
Not much actuation pressure, which I suppose has to do with how the shell is constructed too.
I don't need or want high dpi values. Anything above say 1800 is unnecessary. I could live with only 400 and 800. In a more ambitious scenario I'd prefer that the sensor either be native at these numbers, or somehow tailored to them to avoid scaling (if this can be done) and introducing other anomalies.
More ambitious still I'd like to explore the relationship between the sensor resolution and its fps. It always seemed suspicious to me that the wmo sensor ran at 9000 fps, while so many mice coming out later ran at ~3000. They often had a higher dpi though. Not sure what's going on here, but I suspect that sensor fps is important to mouse feel and not just a case of dealing with the malfunction speed.
I don't think any special coating is necessary on the shell. I always get along fine with the abs plastic. I don't like gloss as they are more slippery, and show more dirt. The "non-slip" treatment on the kinzu v2 and the xai don't feel good to me at all. They make my hand feel "dry".
The sensor position should be in the center, directly under the palm in a palm grip, erring on the side of frontwards towards the fingers. It should be in the center of the mouse and not moved horizontally.
Lastly and most importantly, I'd like the weight to be as low as possible. I'd be overjoyed if I could reach 50 grams, or below. I'd consider any lengths for this. Sawing off the corners of the PCB, cutting into the plastic containers of the switches, using electronic parts that keep the goal in mind. Special wiring. Titanium screws. Carbon fiber shell. Whatever.
With more ambition, I'd like to examine the weight distribution carefully and compare this to other mice. It could very well be the case that a heavier mouse with a more homogeneous weight distribution is superior to a lighter mouse with a more heterogeneous distribution.
I noticed that in the wmo for example, the enormously tough, fat cord that it has is actually wrapped around the electronics inside the mouse, like it doesn't just emanate from the front of the pcb somewhere, it goes all the way around the back and forwards again. This actually influences the weight distribution quite a bit.
Mainly though I'd like to go as lightweight as possible without sacrificing the shape or the durability.
That sounds great, I'm pretty much on the same wavelength as you on mouse design. I wouldn't be much interested in making a product with huge commercial viability, but instead a niche product, with minimal corners cut in attempting consensus perfection, be that time, expense or otherwise.
I'm obviously a bit out of my depth here, but I look forward to investigating the science with you and running tests, and I'm sure I can get up to speed in that environment within a fairly short space of time. Any resources you could provide in terms of research would be much appreciated.
I've got some exams really soon, so at the moment I don't have time for this, but come mid June this year I shall contact you with the ultimate goal of creating a great mouse together, I should be able to commit one hour a day which is quite considerable when time is managed properly.
I was operating under the dichotomy of wmo-like cord vs. braided cord ala xai/kinzu v2.
In that case, braided is superior. If there is a superior cord type to this still, I'd go with that.
I suppose it doesn't have to be braided. I just don't want a cord like the wmo has where it's tough as nails and has little malleability.
Cord would ideally be again, as lightweight as possible, thin, durable, and as malleable as possible with no imprint bends. If it could come in a package where it was "spooled" in a circle to prevent any kinks that would be great. I don't know how realistic something like this is for usb though.
The goal would have to be minimal interference on mouse movement, as close to the free movement of a wireless mouse that we can get without the mouse actually being wireless.
I'm not too sure about braided cables myself, as I had one on an old crappy mouse called the cm storm inferno that I used to use. The cord was thick and heavy and the braiding was rough, it would scrape on things as I moved my mouse about. The only benefits I got from it were that it wouldn't tangle with other wires and that it stayed relatively kink and coil proof.
I liked the cord on my old zowie ec2 evo the most. The weight, and skates on the bottom also were lovely.
Anyway I am sure there are tests we can run and ideas we can come up with to come to some consensus on it. I can imagine it's possible to make a very light and low friction braiding.
I think you would like the cord on Zowie eVo EC1 CL. I don't know if all Zowie mice have the same type of cord, but on my EC1 it's thin, light and easy to bend.
About the weight, the lighter it gets the more the weight distribution matters especially when taking into account the cable.
I've used a g100 with the weight pulled out and it was too front heavy to control properly though it felt very "free", and I've used an abyssus with the back sawed off also front heavy but more bearable, though it was so light that I had to use low sensitivity otherwise my hands natural vibrations were visible.
they should have given this a "compare-to." I personally think it looks like one of those cheap mad-catz mice.
http://imgur.com/ETIOTB1 << sensor comparison, from the datasheets. consider that the CPI (vertical axis) needs to be multiplied by 2.2. at a glance though, the evga sensor seems to be more consistent on a bunch of surfaces.
Avogo has datasheets for their sensors. Obviously some of it will depend on configuration, but these are good figures assuming you trust your manufacturer to have nice plastics machined. Both the charts are from Avago datasheets