click-less mouse

Does anyone know anywhere to buy a mouse that does not make the clicking noise? My wife and I work at home side by side sometimes, and she does photoshop and Sketch-up, and she clicks 100 times pr minute sometimes drives me mad...

(please no silly comments, I know it excists, just can't find it...)

 

googling silent mouse and looking under 'shopping' category gave me a lot of options. I was personally looking for one so I dont wake anyone up during my game sessions in the night but there werent too many gaming centric silent ones. I ended up buying one that looked like it had the best shape for my left hand (large and ambidextrous).

Note: there are no quality branded silent mouses as far as I know, so be prepared to settle with a cheap Chinese Yum Cha one.

 

The only silent mice I know of are those that have a touch surface on them with no button. But not sure if they'd be too great for gaming.

 

Hmm, wasn't bothered by the clicky noise until you pointed this out ...

Want it silent now ... and found two simple options:

1. mod the current switch (pictures!)
2. solder in a silent switch

Will try #1 first, let's see how this'll do ...

 

Option #1 was easy enough, but didn't use fabric for stuffing; far easier to simply bend the top retainer cap:

Spoiler: micro switch

Perfectly silent now, and nice feature with shooters; faster response time. Since we're here, might as well silence the wheel and remove those silly logo-light-up leds:

Spoiler: scroll wheel

That wheel-down button is the other main type of mouse switch. Have a wireless mouse that features these, so ordered some silent switches for that one, figure it's easier soldering than modding a switch that's smaller by half than the rectangular types ("522C" in photo).

Was really more of a tryout, it's an ancient Razer Diamondback and was pretty much silent before. Damn nice shape that one ... shame they're no longer available in the current line-up.

 

Resisting urge to disassemble mouse........

 

Try first with something expendable; the copper spring (with curved part) is really, really, really, really tiny. It's not hooked up to anything and only kept in place by two 1/10th of a mm-ish indents (sense of scale; the green arrow is ~2mm). Had it pop off on both left and right button (should've known better after the first button and yet ...). Trick to get it back in place is to swing it back in sideways with tweezers, if that makes any sense ...

Also, not fully 100% silent after all, so aside from bending the clip also deploy some gaffer tape (instead of the coffee filter). And the square type switches don't appear to be fit for modding, so will get back to whether or not those "silent switches" really do as they promise.

 

The answer is always OP-200Q. ( Amazon link) Only left/right buttons are optical though, so mid clicks might still annoy you if your wife use that often.

Otherwise, try a touch mouse or mod as suggested above.

 

You may help her get things done faster and really surprise her with a tablet like a Wacom.
With a soft tip pen its not very loud. If I did PS a lot I would use one (used too) but now I just deal with the mouse as I do not use it very often.

Also you can get yourself some headphones

 

Got around to soldering these inside this puniest of mouses:

Spoiler: Razer Pro Click Mobile - silent switches

They did as promised; the "tick-tick" is gone. Were slightly bigger than the standard square type, but fit all the same. According to the seller these can also replace the rectangular switches, so that'd certainly be a far more error-proof method than tinkering with their springs:

Spoiler: Kaihua Silent Micro Switch replacement

Unfortunately that would not work for the side-buttons, modding the spring is still the way to go for that.

Shame you can't sail blind on " silent" under a mouse's specifications ... excepting the 'no-click' option posted earlier ... though wonder whether these work without 'ghost-clicking' when there's grease/dirt (as with touchpads).