# Rebuilding a copperhead..a Solaris17 story..



## Solaris17 (Apr 8, 2008)

Ok so my coperhead was giving me problems it was apparent their was a broken line the mouse kept shutting off etc. well that doesnt fly with me because im in love with the mouse and i dont have $$ to but another 60-$70 mouse...so i decided to rebuild...

Ok this isnt a guide or a mod guide just a user experiance and a fun story...maybe it will give ideas... So after lots of trial and error i had thought i found the most likely spot of the break..i did this by taking my hands and 1 incha at a time flexing the wire until i could tun the mouse on and cut power at will.

So first b4 we tackle this problem we need to set up shop i decided on my kitchen table that would be perfect.  Now i just needed the proper accessory's to do the job.







my kit this was a X-mas gift from the girl..and has an impressive arsenal of stuff it was made spacifically for computers it includes wire cutters needle nose tweasers. anti static strap tourque and allen wrenches mobo washers and screws a whole bunch of stuff

next we have cashews...because ever modder needs a snack






ho zah!

Next is solder because you kinda need it to repair wires..






now i need my soldering iron because doing it with a lighter would be crazy painfull






ok so we have our necessities now we need to start with the obvious clean our nast dirty gold tip...this is important because we need connectivity.






this took actually more than 10 min because it was ridiculously dirty and corroded..So now it was time to clean the out side of the mouse this was crazy nast because my hands get clamy so their was an abundance of seemed like dirt and grime in the buttons and stuff i solved this with a q-tip and some paper towels..

now it was time to take the mouse apart you can do this by removing the bottom mouse foot and accessing the screw underneath.






this is the top shell of the mouse with all the buttons on it...it seems the LED symbol is not connected to the board like i thought it would be instead you simply unplug it cool stuff.






the bottom of the shell is pretty simple this holds the board and obviously the bottom wires. nothing is screwed into the mouse on the inside after you remove the top shell the logic boards simply slip into a couple pins and can be lifted right up.






the entire mouse apart

And this is our sweet circuitry 2 boards actually sitting on top of each other..the bottom one holds all the chips and the driving for the mouse..the top one controls LED's and has the side botton inputs.






Here are the 2 boards layed out..they arent held together by much..just 2 4pin connectors on eaither end of the pcb..






and here are the connectors i was talking about..the wire for the mouse isnt ocnnected at all so i considered buying a replacement or another bad mouse off of ebay to replace it with a good wire but i have no $$ so decided against it. the little white one is the connector for the top LED the red one is for the usb wire...these were extremely hard to get off their clipped in rather well and a few times i thought i was going to need to buy a new mouse.






Now the first step to soldering and repairing this wire is to strip it for that i found an old razor knife i accedentaly stole from work a while back






this is what we will use to cut up my mouse....now to see what we got.

i started with the first place i thought they're may be a break i was greated with frustration as i found the inner 4 wires are tightely coiled in a plastic/aluminum wrap..that was incredably hard to cut off






now after i got that off i was greated with some unexpected things...3 diff wires a metal unsleeved wire and a pece of rope...i take it the rope was so the wire doesnt stretch and break good idea except for the epic fail....not because it was usb i took the other 3 sleeved wires and off a hunch decided they were data lines...which means out unsleeved aluminium wire was infact 3.3v power...







now after i checked the 2 places i thought their would be a break in the wire their wasnt.....this posed a problem as i wasnt going to cut down 7ft of cable to find a small splice...i invented a new crazy idea that could help or destroy my mouse..this idea would mean increased functonality or going without a mouse for a couple weeks...i picked the first one kk lets do it

what i decided to do was first make an incision on the wire right behind the usb port....what i was going to do is solder the actual solder wire to the 3.3v wire then make another incision were the wire goes into the mouse totally going over whatever break was their.







The first cut and solder






the second cut and solder

now that i had done that and ran the solder wire up the side of the actual wire..i needed to cover it and make sure hat it didnt break again...for this i had awesome wiring tape... so i decided to make a wire inside a wire sort o speak






athis process took the better part of a half an hour but i decided to show you guys what was happening it went well except as the weight of the wire increased it kept falling off the table..making me worry that the tension of the wire wouldnt really break my solder point but the crazy fragil wire it was soldered to.

but i eventually finished and started to rebuild the mouse.






after i had put it all back together and took a sec to observe how incredable ugly it was but i kinda didnt care so i moved on...the tape was done and i put the mouse back together after thoroughly cleaning it. Like a little boy i didnt clean up any of my things and ran to my computer to try it out...this was extremely nerve wracking for me as i had broke the wire on my second solder point..which means i had to solder the 3.3v line back to itself than solder the junction wire on..it was risky and scary..but low and behold i plg it in and SHA ZAM!! it fires right up..and no mroe disconnects!!! i WIN!!! i hope you liked reading this crazy thread as much as i liked making it....i consider myself a modder i cant leave anything i get alone as some of you may know and this random threads help other ppl understand that even if you have limited tools and even if you have the right ones...if you have some time and patience it doesnt really matter how much know how you have to make something wonderfull get pulled off


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## Silverel (Apr 8, 2008)

Modding ftw!

Good stuff. Functionality > Style. You !!


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## Polaris573 (Apr 8, 2008)

Nice work.


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## Solaris17 (Apr 8, 2008)

thanks :0 i appreciate it it was somewhat difficult well not really but if you tore the second wire segment like i did it can get difficult but soldering the first part was pretty easy


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## Cold Storm (Apr 8, 2008)

well, now I know where to go to when my stuff acts up! Nice work man, and another bookmark that has you as the front post!


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## Solaris17 (Apr 8, 2008)

lol thanks man  i find skill increase is dependent on how poor you are so when your stuff breaks your more inclined to repair rather than buy...i think thats a quote from Solaris17's law




> Skill increase is directly dependent on the amount of money you have to spend on new equipment as such if your a poor bastard their is a 70/40 chance you have more skill in repairing said damaged object than a person who has the money to buy a new one.


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## Cold Storm (Apr 8, 2008)

That is a true to the nature. RM brought back mine (now his) 3870. Took a transister out while he was looking for points for the trim pots.... I almost died, but I had faith in him. If you can't bring it back to life, then you can't think of yourself as knowing what you know. Thats the way I look at it. I'm glad you got it back man! now on to another part you can mod to hell and back!


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## Solaris17 (Apr 8, 2008)

ha time to play more with my 9600 i have some thermal paste now


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## Cold Storm (Apr 8, 2008)

Ooooh, TIM! Whenever I get a new part, the tim is the best thing I find to make me even happier! lol


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## Solaris17 (Apr 8, 2008)

lolo and all this b4 lunhc time to get something to eat 

i wake up grab my pj's take a shower heat up my soldering iron i sit their and drink coffee and eat cashews lol


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## Cold Storm (Apr 8, 2008)

Thats all ways a good day! Can't wait til this weekend and do the same thing! I love those days! Good job man, and can't wait for anymore mods! ygpm


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## intel igent (Apr 8, 2008)

nice job solaris! 

thnx for takin the time to post it up, could be usefull to those looking to repair their mouse 

its 10min to 4 O'clock and im still in my Pj's  but no cashews


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## Cold Storm (Apr 8, 2008)

Intel, is it plad like ours!? lol...


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## Gam'ster (Apr 8, 2008)

Yeah nice job solaris, it would have never crossed my mind to even try to fix it and thats a lot of $$££ to throw away the razers arnt cheap.
Interesting Read while im trying to get my 3yr old to bed proving very difficult atm .

Cheers
Gam


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## Solaris17 (Apr 8, 2008)

thnx guys within the next coule of days ill show u how i modded my mobo to sli


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## MadCow (Apr 8, 2008)

Don't you have any spare USB cables lying around? I would've just soldered another USB cable directly to the PCB of the mouse.

Also, just FYI, USB power is 5v.


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## Cold Storm (Apr 8, 2008)

I would love to see that! wanting to find a good board, and if I can make one sli... then I'd love to see it!


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## Solaris17 (Apr 8, 2008)

MadCow said:


> Don't you have any spare USB cables lying around? I would've just soldered another USB cable directly to the PCB of the mouse.
> 
> Also, just FYI, USB power is 5v.



thnx but no i dont and if i could find one my tip isnt fine enough to solder to those tiny little pins i have a fine tip but id need something like an ultra fine to do it


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## Solaris17 (Apr 8, 2008)

Cold Storm said:


> I would love to see that! wanting to find a good board, and if I can make one sli... then I'd love to see it!



you got it ill do it within the next couple of days


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## cdawall (Apr 8, 2008)

hey sol does your cam have a self portrait mode or close up mode cause that makes taking these kinda pics way easier!


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Apr 8, 2008)

I wanna say great job solaris!  I love when I find people like me who mod for functionality over form!  I like your use of tools as well...


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## Solaris17 (Apr 9, 2008)

cdawall said:


> hey sol does your cam have a self portrait mode or close up mode cause that makes taking these kinda pics way easier!



ya it does i used it or just about all those pics i think...but i dont know were the trypod is and my asthma meds make me shaky...even the like antishake cant help it


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## cdawall (Apr 9, 2008)

ahh i know how that is


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## BrooksyX (Apr 9, 2008)

Congrats on the fix. Ive had to resolder my xbox 1 contollers a few times. They seem to break a lot where the wire goes into the controller.


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## MadCow (Apr 9, 2008)

Solaris17 said:


> thnx but no i dont and if i could find one my tip isnt fine enough to solder to those tiny little pins i have a fine tip but id need something like an ultra fine to do it



I've soldered some really fine pitch stuff with a normal tip before, you just have to be very, very careful. I've soldered wires to the bottom connector of my old MP3 player, those pins are less than 0.5mm away from each other. Took a while but I eventually did it.


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## philbrown23 (Apr 9, 2008)

Plaid Pj's FTW!!!!!


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## erocker (Apr 9, 2008)

Awesome work Sol!  I own the same mouse, and this will come in quite handy some day.


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## Triprift (Apr 9, 2008)

Nice werk there Sol i would of never thought myself to try and fix a mouse if mine packs in will give it a try cheers


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## das müffin mann (Apr 9, 2008)

great job dude, i must say that is quite a micelaugh little mod you have there, nice pj's  

woot for functionality 

i may have to try this on one of my mice when i get the chance


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## Azazel (Apr 9, 2008)

nice work  and nice pj's  lol


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## TechnicalFreak (Apr 10, 2008)

Well done saving the copperhead, 10+!!

I have one question, when you "separate" the above pcb from the other part (the one with the opticals etc.etc.) did you need to de-solder anything? I have some unfinished modding that needs to be done to my Razer, and it seems that the pins somehow are soldered right on..


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## Solaris17 (Apr 10, 2008)

nope they are not but their kinda tight like a glove just pull and it will come right off


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## Random Murderer (Jul 29, 2008)

i have something you may want to add.
a while back my copperhead was giving me problems(been using it for 2 years of heavy gaming). it was double clicking when i pushed one of the buttons down and it couldn't keep the switch engaged, even if i pushed all the way down on the button. i opened up the mouse to find that a groove had been worn into the buttons where their respective switches made contact, due to the fact that the button actually slides forward slightly on the switch every time you depress the button.
what i did to fix it was cut a very small square(about 2 or 3mm) of electrical tape, placed it in the groove, and then covered it in super glue to keep it in place and add rigidity. i sanded it down slightly so the entire surface was even, closed it up, and now it works better than it did when i bought it; the buttons are more responsive.


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## Franklinwallbrown (Nov 26, 2008)

I think that my copperhead is dying. When I play the lights turn off and it stops working until I wiggle the wire. Is it worth fixing if I don't have any experience with this stuff? I might have a soldering iron. I don't have solder. I don't have electrical tape. I don't have a razor. I have a screwdriver and a table.


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## Random Murderer (Nov 26, 2008)

Franklinwallbrown said:


> I think that my copperhead is dying. When I play the lights turn off and it stops working until I wiggle the wire. Is it worth fixing if I don't have any experience with this stuff? I might have a soldering iron. I don't have solder. I don't have electrical tape. I don't have a razor. I have a screwdriver and a table.



if you don't have the proper tools then it's not even a feasible fix. you could get the right tools, throw it away, give it to one of us and we can fix it and have a spare, or send it to one of us to have us fix it for you.


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## Drizzt5 (Feb 13, 2009)

I have a g5 that is itching to have this done to it... It's something with the wire.


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## Solaris17 (Feb 13, 2009)

Drizzt5 said:


> I have a g5 that is itching to have this done to it... It's something with the wire.



do it!


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## Cold Storm (Feb 13, 2009)

Sol, is the Copperhead still kicking strong!?!? 

Midgar, ftmfw!!!


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## Solaris17 (Feb 13, 2009)

Cold Storm said:


> Sol, is the Copperhead still kicking strong!?!?
> 
> Midgar, ftmfw!!!



yessa it is!! midgar FTW


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## Steevo (Feb 13, 2009)

Next time sleeve your cable and use heatshrink.

Good jorb.


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