Build Quality

Overall build quality is solid. There is no rattle when shaking the mouse. When applying lateral pressure, no creaking or flexing of the shell can be observed. Activating the side buttons by squeezing the sides requires medium force. Lastly, no accidental clicks occur when slamming down the mouse.

Print Quality

Within the limitations of FDM printing, the print quality of the Ploopy Mouse is pretty much as good as it gets. PLA is used for all 3D-printed parts, so the materials should hold up just fine over time.

Buttons

Main buttons on the Ploopy Mouse are very good. Both pre and post-travel are low, resulting in a firm and snappy button response. Button stiffness is medium. A pair of Omron D2LS-21 is used, which are surface-mounted, just like all the others.

Next to the main buttons are two additional buttons. The right one in particular suffers from a poor click feel, though the amount of travel is similar to the main buttons on both. By default, these are bound to "copy" and "paste," respectively. A set of E-Switch TS20100F070S switches is used.


Side buttons are good. Both pre and post-travel are virtually nonexistent due to the buttons pressing down directly onto the switches, resulting in a firm and satisfying button response. The pressure point is even across the entirety of these buttons. However, the back button is significantly more recessed than the forward button, sitting almost flush with the shell. This could be rectified quite easily by printing out an appropriately larger button piece, but in the absence of STL files, one has to make do with this. Furthermore, due to the construction both buttons can be actuated quite easily by pressing below the actual buttons. The recessed back button also makes it somewhat more difficult to actuate it by rolling one's thumb across. Another set of E-Switch TS20100F070S switches is used.

At the top of the mouse is a button which cycles through the default CPI steps. Another E-Switch TS20100F070S is used here. Cycling CPI did not work for me on the default firmware, I had to flash the VIA-enabled one for it to work.

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is lackluster. Compared to traditional wheels, the encoder lacks individual, haptic steps altogether, resulting in no tactility whatsoever. Even for non-gaming purposes, a scroll wheel without any feedback can be quite irritating. On the flip side, there is no accidental scrolling. An optical encoder is used. The middle (scroll wheel) click requires medium force for actuation. Curiously, I've found the middle click to sometimes not work at all, irrespective of which firmware I was using. Another E-Switch TS20100F070S is used here.

Button Sound Test

Disassembly

Disassembling the Ploopy Mouse is fairly easy. First of all, the main-button piece needs to be removed, which is done by unscrewing a single screw right on top of the mouse. Then, two hexagonal screws on the bottom need to be removed, which secure the top to the bottom shell. A 2 mm hex key did the trick for me, but your mileage may vary. With some nudging, top and bottom shell can be separated with ease.

The rather large PCB is exclusively fitted with surface-mounted switches. No traditional encoder is used for the scroll wheel, which instead sits in an assembly with movement being read optically. The connector next to it is a TRRS connector. The side buttons push directly onto the switches. No further screws outside of those used for securing the various plastic assemblies are used to affix the moderately thick PCB to the bottom shell. The MCU is an Atmel ATmega32U4, whose datasheet can be found here.


As for the soldering and general quality of the PCB, I'm unable to find any noteworthy flaws.