Wiring a mouse to the controller

[Evan]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to these forums but I have been building my arcade cabinet for some time now. I am now at the part where I am wiring my controls to the pc, specifically the mouse. Here is a picture of the mouse I have taken apart and going to solder to the pushbuttons (http://twitpic.com/86vymq). The two black boxes are the left and right button clicks for the mouse and the middle button is underneath the axle for the mouse wheel. The left and right buttons have 3 legs on the other side of the pcb board and the middle button has 2. I need to use my multimeter to find the continuity between the legs so I'll know what legs to solder my wires too. So from my understanding one leg is basically ground or open and the other is closed until the button is pressed. But if I already have a ground wire connected to my desired arcade pushbutton would I only then be required to solder one wire (the closed) for that specific mouse button? Thank you for the help.

[Thenasty]

just try it and you get your answer (probably  you have already) 

[Spacedueler]

You have your terminology mixed up: "Ground" is Ground or "Common." The switch leg you need to wire to is normally "open" (NO) - when you push the button it then "closes" the switch/circuit to that leg. The 3 leg switches may have a normally "closed" leg (NC), which is always connected internally with the common/ground leg (the circuit is normally "closed", until button is pushed, then it opens). The NC leg usually is not used by the mouse but it is soldered to the pcb for strength? and if you follow the traces on the pcb you'll see it doesn't lead anywhere. (I have yet to see a mouse that uses NC for switches).

Personally I would pull 4 wires from the mouse: Ground and L M R mouse buttons. In theory you may have a ground already in your control panel, but I would stick with using the ground that comes off the mouse for these particular control buttons - always a safer bet... If someone knows otherwise please reply.

Find your ground or "common" leg: Use the multimeter first to see if the ground is common to all three mouse buttons - (I just hacked a mouse and each button had a diode separating it from the other buttons) Solder a wire to one of these common legs

Find your 3 switch legs:
The middle button should be easy, it's the one that's not the ground - test continuity across the 2 pins - it's open (no continuity) until you push the button.
For left and right, since you have 3 legs, most likely 2 legs will have continuity without pushing the button (ground and NC -normally closed) - not the ones you want. You want to find the leg that is normally "open" - solder your wire to that one.

Tip - if you can leave the switches on the mouse pcb do so (if you can position it somewhere they won't accidentally be pushed). Solder you wires to the pad along with the switch pins or "legs." Sometimes if you remove the switch you'll also destroy the soldering pad.

Hacking stuff is always done at a risk. I've done several mouse hacks and this method has worked for me.

[Evan]

Wow I got it to work thank you very much for your replies they were extremely helpful. Spacedueler you were right I was switching up my terminology thank you for correcting me. Not long after I made this thread I did try it and soldered on my wires but I switched up what wire went where and so it didn't work. Here is an image of the pcb board with the wires soldered on (I'm not very good at soldering ). The middle leg is pretty obvious now that is the ground.

[Spacedueler]

Here is an image of the pcb board with the wires soldered on (I'm not very good at soldering

Soldering just takes practice. I'd like to see less insulation stripped - all that bare wire could short on something. Bury it in hot glue maybe...

The middle leg is pretty obvious now that is the ground.

To me it looks (from your photo) like the top leg you soldered to is the ground (common). See how the "conductive trace material" (any corrective terminology welcome) surrounds and connects to the solder pad? It's the lighter color in the pcb - a field that the top leg of the middle switch is also soldered to. Use your multimeter and check - there's probably continuity across those to points. I think your center leg is the output of the switch.
Here's your photo labeled as I see it. This should be verified with a multimeter test:
Red arrows point the the "ground field"
Blue arrows point to examples of separation of solder pad from ground field - darker green = no conductor
Yellow arrows point to solder pads connection to ground field
Purple arrows point to the trace connecting switch output back to IC
Green dots are ground points
Black dots are your switch output points

I think your one ground should be good, you need a wire soldered to each of the other 2 black dots for your other 2 switches.