Hacking bike pedals to control (mouse) scrolling?

 Does anyone have any advice/Ibles/links to how I could rig up a pedal exerciser to control scrolling on my browser? I scroll a lot and the mouse's scroll wheel is doing terrible things to my wrists. I'd love to have a little pedal set up (forward to scroll down, reverse to scroll up) - that way I'd save my wrist and get a little workout too!

Would it be easier to hack an existing machine, or just build one from scratch?

Comments

[steveastrouk]

Have you got an existing machine to hack ? The picture looks perfect.

Have you tried a trackball instead of a mouse BTW - my wife had the same problem, and switching to the Logitecj#h Trackman Marble helped enormously.

Steve

[the_gella]

I don't have an existing machine, but I have been thinking about getting one, so why not get double duty out of it : ).

I grew up using a trackball - I love them, but I think its mostly that curling motion that is really causing the strain (I also do a lot of hand sewing, so it's just overload on my wrists/fingers).

[steveastrouk]

Well this 'ible
www.instructables.com/id/Desktop_Scroll_Wheel_and_Volume_Control/
has the electronic details - you need to break up an old PS/2 mouse for the insides.

The next trick is to connect the pedals to the inside of the mouse, and for that I think you could use the same idea  - a rubber wheel - pressing on that shaft between the two pedals - the picture shows there is a fair bit of length that you can work in.

Depending on how fit you want to get you could gear it from the pedals to the scroll wheel, 100 turns to one page ???
;-)

[the_gella]

Cool, thanks - I'll get out your 'ible. Do you know of any specific mice that I could find or is it just a scavenger hunt for one with the rotary encoder?

[steveastrouk]

Pretty well all scroll mices will have what you need I think.

It wasn't my 'ible by the way ! I was just using it for the details, I claim no credit for someone else's effort - except spotting that it'll do what you want.

When you do it, please post back YOUR 'ible !

Good luck with it.

Steve

[the_gella]

 Whoops, that's what I get for reading things too fast. Thanks for finding it for me though : ). If I figure out how to rig this up I will definitely document the project in an 'ible of my own.