Comment by skyfaller | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skyfaller | Hacker News Reader

For anyone interested in open hardware mice, I have to recommend Ploopy: https://ploopy.co/

Plug-and-play, flash your own firmware if you like. Current models ship with QMK (open firmware), although I believe my older trackball didn't, I'd have to flash it.

I have both a left-handed trackball (rare!) and a right-handed mouse from them, I like to alternate.

Two obvious complaints:

- They're really expensive

- They're 3D-printed, which means manufacturing isn't polished. My trackball had a sticky mousewheel, which I ultimately had to buy a replacement for and swap out. My mouse has some rough edges I haven't filed down yet, and the 3D-printed texture may not be for everyone.

The good news is that it's easy to make replacement parts and repairs yourself!

Still, I wish they would make mass-produced versions with more conventional and precise manufacturing techniques, just with the option to 3D-print your own parts if you feel like it / need to. Maybe that would bring the price down while also improving build quality.

You can't have "really expensive" and "crap quality" without going out of business.

It's a pity they don't sell the electronic bits (preloaded with the firmware). I can probably fashion quite a nice trackball enclosure from a block of wood; probably much nicer than 3D printed cheap-feeling plastic.

It's all open hardware, so you can run off your own if your so inclined and design wood enclosures.

The draw of these is that they are fully (properly) programmable and can run QMK.

I get the appeal of that for keyboards, but what's the appeal of it for a mouse? Is it only for g*mers?

I don't game much anymore, but using a gaming mouse in my day-to-day workflow is huge. Besides the normal browser history-back/fwd, I have buttons for scrolling through tabs, closing/reopening tabs, alt-tabbing between windows, changing volume, etc. I don't make much use of macros or anything, but if I worked in CAD or Photoshop I'm sure I would. I think any kind of workflow that's hotkey or shortcut heavy could benefit.

Hardware drag scrolling, combos and snippets, more configuration then you can swing a stick at, layers and all of that. Half of the reason I use QMK boards is due to on-host configuration being so so terrible. At least if I bring my own hardware I _know_ it's going to work how I expect when I plug it in. That's a huge sell if you are jumping between computers all the time and have hardware that fits in your purse.

Also, the form factor and things like the Ploopy Nano are super cool. And because it's open source if you don't like the hardware/software you can easily change it. We use interface devices all day, everyday. Not having an ergonomic interface will catch up with you.

I never use the side buttons for forward/back, it would be useful to me to reassign them to something like next tab or page down.

I use a "gaming" mouse (Logitech G502) for day-to-day work. In additional to the usual left/right/middle click and up/down/left/right scroll, I have forward/back, copy/paste, next/previous tab, close/reopen tab, jump-to-first-tab, refresh, zoom reset, and microphone mute. It's useful enough that I find I really miss it when using a less-capable mouse.

How do you tolerate side movements when clicking side buttons and accidental side clicks when “rebasing” a mouse? How do you grip?

Every mouse I tried (suggested by reviews) does oops clicks sometimes, so I always turn off side buttons and live with the fact that they are just there discomforting my thumb.

With the G502 your thumb rests below the side buttons on a small rest - to click you move your thumb up a little and then squeeze. The force required to click is still small enough that very light pressure from the other side of your hand is enough not to move the mouse.

I don't know other people, but I personally have never in the 10+ years I used "gaming" mice accidentally mispressed a button because I wanted to move the thing. Maybe logitech makes weird mice where this doesn't happen?

Here's how I grip: https://i.imgur.com/QQcMrSR.jpeg

I don't touch the side buttons when gripping or rebasing the mouse. That's not a G502 but every mouse I've tried so far (except for the G600) has been grippable without touching any buttons.

Why did you censor "gamers"?

It's a meme, referencing the "gamers are the most oppressed minority" idea. The idea that "gamer" is a slur with a "hard R".

It's almost always used ironically, but there are probably a few edgy GamerGate types who take it to heart.

Tesla is still in business.

I'd be very curious to hear more about how you would go about making a wood enclosure, because I thought the same thing, but I do not have any woodworking skills. I have gotten used to the 3D-printed texture but I wouldn't mind having a nice wooden enclosure instead.

I have been very impressed by Keyboardio's use of wood, for example: https://shop.keyboard.io/ I got an Atreus with a wooden palmrest for my partner, who loves it and uses it daily. I just haven't found an open hardware mouse with similar build quality yet.

> I'd be very curious to hear more about how you would go about making a wood enclosure, because I thought the same thing

Mill two halves, then screw them together with the electronics inside?

File/Sand/Plane down a block for the top, hollow out the interior and close off the hollow with a thin balsa sheet?

The way I made propellers - with a craft knife, cut the wafer thin sheets sold by model airplane stores with successive concentric overlapping ovals for each 1mm height of the enclosure. Glue them all together and sand it down smooth.

Why do nerds always give instructions as questions haha

> Why do nerds always give instructions as questions haha

Why don't you look it up and tell us?

:-)

Closest I got was: not being introduced to (or not inspired by) xkcd's ten thousand https://xkcd.com/1053/

Ever since I read that one I've loved being able to introduce people to things rather than doing the question mark "you should know this" sort of reply

It was a wild search tangent admittedly

Assuming this question is in good faith:

I think* it has to do with not wanting to say something as 100% truth without knowing it's 100% true. Which can be interpreted as weakness/insecurity among more business/marketing minded folks.

*see my own usage of "I think"

It was in good faith but I can see how it comes across as snarky, that's bad wording on my part

I can see how that fits, nice one

> It was in good faith but I can see how it comes across as snarky, that's bad wording on my part

I didn't take it as snarky[1], so I wouldn't worry about that if I were you.

[1] I even replied in kind, with a question :-)

Last thing I want to hold a crappy 3d print textured mouse under my hands for 10 hours. I will take my chances with Logitech and stick to mx master. $130 for a mouse? Are you serious.

I'm making one with an outer shell of TPU after having this issue. It's just a bit soft and it feels like the 'textured grip' parts on my old Logitech, but sized for my considerable meat hooks.

Amazing that it's not only 200 and not high quality, but it's called "ploopy"

They have parts like PMW3360 in a mouse clearly intended for office use, judging by its shape; no wonder it's expensive. This is a sensor designed for extremely fast movements in games (faster than punches in most martial arts). It's not the latest and hottest model, but you won't be able to tell the difference from a cheap sensor during normal use.

Wow, those mice look truly horrible to use, and cost $200 to boot.

I think it's time for Chinese manufacturers to step up to the task. I've recently bought a (filament) 3D printer, and reading up on the domain, it was interesting to see how it developed:

The open source community figured out how to write software that can turn CAD drawings into CNC instructions and wrote firmware that could drive the printers. Meanwhile, multiple Chinese manufacturers built hardware, competing with each other to build better stuff and increasingly cheaper prices. The end result is that you can buy really decent 3D printers at around $250 with open firmware.

Can't reach their website here.

I wish they made alternative PCBs for existing mice. So you’d get the nice finish of molded parts, with an open firmware.

a) Cheap

b) Well made

c) Open source/hardware

Choose any two.

I can't connect to your link

Wordpress DB is down. Did we kill it?

I first clicked the link only 2-4 minutes after it was posted and it was down so I doubt

Welp, LAMP stack doesn't scale. Time to hire some microservices teams and set up a k8s cluster.

>Welp, LAMP stack doesn't scale

Tell that wikipedia ;)

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