Hello hello ladies and gentlemen, like many of you I like to consider myself a bit of a gamer. I often just like to sit back, relax, and turn on my computer to a nice game of minecraft. Many games require you to hold down either the left or right buttons often for long periods of time or press either of the buttons in rapid succession. Personally after four hours of this I find my self on a path of getting carpal tunnel. Mr.cheaty-cheat mouse a cheap and relatively easy method of solving this problem.

Step 1: The Materials

The materials you will need include:
-USB mouse (it's wise to pick a large-ish one to make sure you have enough room)
-5 slide switches
-10k potentiometer
-Lm555 timer chip
-Two 10k resistors
-10pf ceramic disk capacitor
-10uf electrolytic capacitor
-4.7uf electrolytic capacitor
-Any color of led
-A bit if perf board

Step 2: The Tools

The tools you will need include:
-Pliers
-Wire clippers
-Wire strippers
-Screw driver
-knife
-Soldering iron
-Hot glue gun
-Rotary tool

Step 3: Taking a Look

First open you stock mouse and locate the circuit. For my mouse this was easy I just had to remove one screw and was met with a single board with lots of room to place a circuit. find your two mouse buttons and determine whether they go to ground or vcc. In my case they went to vcc.

Step 4: Preparing the Board.

Find the points where the buttons return to the chip or the board as well as the positive and negative to the circuit. After finding these points solder thin wires to those contacts. Once you have added the leads replace your circuit in its housing.

Step 5: Placing the Switches and Stuff

The next step is to pick real estate for your switches, pot, and indicator led to go. This can be a tad challenging to get it all right and comfortable for you to use. This took quite a lot of time and frustration for me.

Step 6: Cutting the Case

After you have your places decided use your rotary tool, drill, or even a sharp knife to cut into the plastic leaving holds wide enough to all for your switches to slide. Then place your components into their spots and hot glue them down.

Step 7: The Circuit

Cut a small bit of perf board enogh to fit all the components. Begin building your circuit by following the schmatic and populating the board accordingly. Run routing wire and prepare leads from the board to connect to the switches. Solder all the necessary connections and trim excess leads.

Pin 1 connects to ground. Pin 2 connects to pin 6. Pin 3 connects to the center tap of both right and left rapid fire switches. pin 4 connects to vcc. Pin 5 connects to ground via the 10nf cap. Pin 6 connects to center tap of the over drive switch via the white wire. Which will choose the positve termanal of either the 10uf or the 4.7uf cap. Both of which are connected to ground. Pin 7 and 6 are bridged by the 10k resistor. Pin 7 is connected to the wiper of the 10k pot via the purple wire. Finaly pin 8 Is connected to vcc.

And if at all posible please post a comment on how I could post a better schmatic via Android.

Step 8: Wiring the Case

Now to begin wiring the case start with the bottom. Orient the slide switches to where the pins are facing you. Trim off the right most pins of all right slide switches do the opposite for the left. Connect the left most pin of right switches to each other and the lead connected to the origional switch do the same for the other side but on the right most pins. Connect the center of the left and right hold switches together and to a lead.

To begin the top of the case attach the negative lead of the LED to the remaining 10k resistor. Attach a lead to the end of the resistor as well the positive lead of the LED. Attach a lead to the right leg of the pot.

Step 9: Combining the Two

To unite the circuit with the mouse firstly join the 1st pin of the 555 to the ground of the original board and connect the 4th pin of the 555 to power from the board. Connect the center pin of the left and right rapid fire switches to pin 3 of the 555. Connect the lead from the hold switches to vcc.

For the upper half connect the white lead comming from pin 6 to the center pin of the over drive switch. Connect the 4.7uf cap to the left pin and the 10uf to the right. It's wise to place hot glue over these connections to keep them from shorting. Connect the lead from the left pin of the pot the the circuit at vcc and the lead from pin 7 of the chip to the wiper of the pot. Finaly connect the lead from the positve leg of the LED to pin 3 of the 555 and the lead from the resistor to the ground. Place a small strip of electrical tape on the bottom of the circuit to prevent it from shorting out.

Step 10: Case Closed

Close up the case, replace the screw (in my case literally replace the screw because I lost the origional), and test the device. If everything was done correctly then the led should be blinking. Sadly i cant show you it in opperation but it works like a charm. Admittedly not the most simplest mod out there but certainly useful if your into gaming and not getting arthritis. An easier model can be created by omitting the rapid fire function. hopefully iv inspired you to make your own or your own variation if there are any thoughts on how this could be improved feel free to post bellow. Thank you and have a nice day