Most mice I've used already have low friction feet and work just fine on any sufficiently smooth surface that isn't glass (excepting in the case of old school ball roller mice which would work on glass). I haven't used a mouse pad in decades since my desk is smooth enough.
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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My main concern is reducing the rubbing noise from the mouse on the desk surface and regaining even a remotely close feel to a mousepad. I've got half a mind to glue some felt to the bottom of a cheap mouse I have to see if that gets close to the desired result at this point.
I'm assuming you must have an optical mouse, not a ball mouse. If it's a ball mouse, you can't really add because it would reduce contact between the ball and the surface.
With an optical mouse, I don't think you're going to quite duplicate the feel of using a plastic mouse on a neoprene pad. You might come close if the surface you're using is close to being as smooth as plastic, and you put the same kind of fabric on the bottom of the mouse as is typically on a mouse pad.
Broadly, it sounds like you want to feel the same amount of resistance between mouse and surface as you're used to, but I think you're saying that the surface you have now is a little less smooth than the mouse pad you're used to, so to get a similar experience with it, you'd need the bottom of your mouse to be smoother than it is now.
Yeah, if the resistance can be close to mousepad feel and the noise dampened then I'd be happy. It's not so much the smoothness of the mousepad that I'm after, rather the resistance. My desk without the pad has much less resistance than the pad does.
I think your best bet is going to be too take a piece of the new desk cover to a fabric store and rub it on different fabrics to find one that has the right resistance, then buy a piece and glue it to the bottom of the mouse.
Or you could try a trackball and avoid the whole issue completely. I've used one of these for years very happily.
Seems you found a solution already. But my recommendation was going to be those little felt stickers they put on cabinets to keep them from banging shut. You can easily add or remove stickers to adjust resistance.
Ooooh, damn that's a good idea. I'm gonna look into that. Thanks for the suggestion!
For sure. They're super cheap at any hardware store, and you'll likely get way more than you need so you'll have extra to replace them as they wear out or just use them as intended around the house.
The table in my front room is slightly off balanced, I removed the short leg and put some of those pads in between the leg and the table and it's perfect now.
Here's a pair of pics that show the desk with and without the pad. Obviously it's not the worst thing ever to have the pad, but I'm just at the point where I'd rather not have it if I can figure out how to make the mouse quiet on the desk surface and achieve a remotely similar resistance to the pad. (Mac peripherals are for work; not a factor in this particular situation thanks to the trackpad.)
So, very rudimentary and preliminary test result here; I grabbed that thin mousepad that I have, simply flipped it upside down so the grip side was up, placed my mouse on it and glided it around on the desktop... It's literally perfect; quiet and smooth with the exact same feel as the mouse on the pad normally. I'm gonna cut some strips off it today and glue them to the bottom of the mouse and see if that bit of extra height off the table top interferes with the laser's accuracy.
[EDIT] The mouse works 100% fine with the cut mousepad underneath. I cut a hole for the laser to shine through and then trimmed the sides to conform to the general footprint of the mouse and its working great. Once I trim the excess pad from the edges and from the underside of the mouse (the current default skates protrude a bit from the bottom of the mouse), the pad will only be in contact with the desk surface where the skates are, further reducing friction and inertia. At the moment with all the excess pad material, I'd say it's off from my ideal resistance and weight by maybe 20%. I think once all that is cleaned up, it's gonna be pretty ideal.
Buy this. Cut it to go on the bottom of your mouse, minus the laser area and where the current skates are. If the skates are still contacting the table afterwards, peel off the skates.