Mouse Based USB Switch Interface

First off, I have to give credit where credit is due. This instructable is based heavily on base2john's great instructable entitled Holiday Toy Switch Adapting. In this instructable, I adapted those instructions to apply to a USB mouse.

Why a USB switch interface?

My wife is an itinerant teacher who works with kids with special needs and she had asked me to try to find a way to create one of these interfaces. I originally declined, as I had never done any soldering before, but after she was persistent, I decided to give it a try. Apparently it works great.

How much does it cost?

Excluding equipment costs (all set with my new soldering iron now), I put this together for between $10-15.

Step 1 Materials

Supplies
USB mouse (Picked up one from Walmart for $5. Brand was "Onn" or something like that)
3.5 mm audio jack (These come in a pack of 2)
Solder (Mine came with a kit I bought. It not sure the exact size but it was approximately 3/4 of a mm in diameter.)
6-10" of braided copper wire (Mine was salvaged from an old Dell power brick)

Equipment
Soldering Iron
Philips-head Screwdriver (Or a multi-bit)
1/4" drill bit (Use with screwdriver, or in a drill)

Comments

[klee27x]

If your mouse uses the same pinout on the chip and you can make a PCB, you can use this board I made. The mouse chip leads need to be clipped and soldered to the copper side, no holes. You can also dremel off the "cone" on the underside of the chip that extends out to provide the "iris"of the optical sensor, since we're not using that. The two component pads are for 10uF 6.3V (or greater) ceramic capacitors.

L stands for Left click. R stands for Right click. Solder the other wire of your connector to the ground plane.

:)

[natebman]

I guess i'm a little confused here but i think i got it right in thinking that this would be for adapting a mouse buttons to be used for someone with a disability or something else?

[RCS82]

The goal was to make a working interface for a jellybean switch. I'm told these switches are usually used, in conjunction with the left mouse click signal, by those with special needs to interact with various programs on their computer.