Apple Desktop Bus mouse II: Advanced mouse cleaning

[wexx]

This is an Apple Desktop Bus mouse II, as labeled on the bottom of the mouse.

Its the oval mechanical mouse. The one that the square mouse evolved into.

Sometimes a simple cleaning from outside the hole is not enough. My oval mouse has reached that point.

The square mouse had screws, and allowed you to get inside and give it a good (careful) cleaning.

Instead of screws accessible from the bottom, the oval mouse is locked together by plastic tabs on the inside, which are visible thru the hole.

It clearly appears that a specially made tool could fit inside the mouse through the hole and squeeze the tabs in the proper way so that the mouse could be cracked open without any damage, thus allowing me to remove what must be a massively long hair wrapped around something that I cant get to from the outside.

I can't find any reference to such a tool in google searches, ebay, etc...

Yet I find it hard to believe that every time a tech guy in the shop gets a mouse that can't be cleaned well enough thru the hole, it simply gets tossed and the user is told to buy a new mouse.

So: the real question is...
Whats it take to get my hands on this mysterious tool?


Or, can a repair shop tech guy absolutely, positively, say that such a tool does not exist, and old ovals are tossed rather than cleaned / repaired?

Wexx

 

[wexx]

Nevermind.

The answer turned up in my other mac discussion group.

Turns out there is no such tool, the tabs are part of the hinge assembly for the clicker, and should not be squeezed (to remove the clicker) until AFTER the mouse is cracked open.

To do the cracking open:
(this is not recomended unless you know how to work with fragile and sensitive components)

While looking at the bottom of the mouse, so that the label is right side up, and if you imagine that the round part of the sticker label is not there, that would leave you with a rectangle. There are 2 screws under the sticker. One screw is in the lower right hand corner of the rectangle, and the other screw is in the lower left hand corner.

If you push on the sticker, you can see the screw holes where the sticker pushed in. Just pierce the sticker or pull up the corners to get access to the screws. Small philips required.

Thanks to Grant in the other discussion group for the screw information, and for long ago sacrificing his mouse (to find the screws) so that mine may live.

Wexx