If you are a gamer, and especially loving first person shooters, you know how computer games require much of rapid clicking of the mouse. But, there is a certain limit of how fast and how much you can click before your fingers start to hurt. Well, there’s an option for fixing this. You can modify your mouse and add rapid fire button, it will enable you to activate fast clicking just by holding one mouse button. So you’re asking now, how can you do this?
The process of making rapid fire mouse button
Basically what you are doing is connecting 555 circuit timers to terminal on left side mouse where the button is. When you press that button circuits are gonna send pulses that will stimulate button as being clicked by the user. This method allows you 800 clicks per one minute. This could also be done and used with controllers for video games. You will need various tools to build one yourself and we will go through entire process. The materials you will need are : mouse of course, 555 timer, 10uF capacitor, diodes, jumper wires, pc board, small momentary switch and 4.7 kohm resistor.
Tools that you will use to make this are wire strippers, knife, soldering iron, rotary cutting tool and multimeter. In this project, circuit that is used is based entirely around 555 timers. Circuit gets its power through computer energy which also powers the mouse. The circuits outputs are actually pulses that have variations between high and low volts. This is what is activating or deactivating clicking on mouse. This entire circuit is being connected to your mouse. What you’re going to do first is test a prototype of circuit on a breadboard. After test is complete you can then connect it to your PC mouse. You can power prototype through USB.
What you’re going to do next is identify negative and positive terminals on your mouse. This is done before you are connecting circuit to mouse. Most easiest way how to locate is by following USB connections as there are terminals connecting to each other.
Now, when you are finished with terminals it’s time to wire your breadboard circuit to PC mouse, connect negative and positive terminals of each other. Make sure that you connect only those terminals that you are intending to connect with, and output wire of circuit to terminal on left button in mouse. When you successfully connected everything you can test it. Plug in your mouse in computer and try pressing rapid fire button, if you’ve connected everything right, PC should recognize clicks coming from mouse. If everything is working properly, then you got to solder all together on circuit board. Make board as small as possible as there is very little space in mouse. Use smallest components you can find available and lay them flat on circuit board. Button switch is the only part that’s not mounted inside the board but outside on mouse and connected to circuit board.
When you soldered your board completely it’s time to connect it to mouse. The most easiest way is soldering wires from that board to same mouse terminals that you already connected. Open your mouse and look for the part where your mouse has most space. If it still doesn’t fit you can cut some plastic internal parts. Best would be choosing location on left side of mouse where your thumb is resting. You will also need to drill hole in mouse so wires can go through.
Now, the only thing left is to turn on your computer and connect mouse to it, and test it. It’s time to kill some zombies or aliens. 🙂 You can use this page to check how fast your rapid fire mouse button is.
