In LA

I bought this really awful mini cordless optical mouse a while back to use with my laptop. It looked like a nice little mouse and worked well at first, and has the features I was looking for. It looks nice, uses two AAA batteries, charges over USB, has 3 buttons and a scroll wheel, is about the right size and shape, etc. Unfortunately, it runs out of batteries within an hour of use and never seems to charge the batteries fully, so subsequent uses last about 20 minutes. I should have known something was wrong since the thing came with no manual and without the name of any manufacturer on it. When the battery runs down the mouse becomes all jittery and the pointer shakes its way towards the lower-right corner of the screen.

Because it seemed like a good idea to throw good money after bad, I went to the local store and bought a couple more NiMH rechargeable batteries and a charger. Now I could charge one set of batteries while using the other set in the mouse, then change them (every hour during periods of heavy use). It’s a pain, but works.

I was recently at a gig and away from my computer for a couple of days. When I returned, the batteries in the mouse were (of course) dead. So I pulled the fresh pair that had been charging for two days from the charger.

As soon as I put the batteries in the mouse I heard a reasonably loud popping sound. As any reasonable person would do with batteries that sound like they might be about to explode, I pulled them out of the mouse and held them to my ear. The popping sound was less noticeable, but there. The body of the mouse must have amplified the vibrations.

I guess my charger is not what they call a “smart charger”, and instead of stopping when the battery is full of juice it just keeps pumping the battery with voltage until its insides start to percolate away. I’m no battery scientist and don’t feel like doing the research necessary to figure out what’s actually going on at the molecular level, so if you’re curious please feel free to search google and enlighten me as to the details.

As for the bubbling batteries? I waited a few minutes, they stopped making noises, and I put ‘em in the mouse where they seem to be working just fine. I think from now on I’ll never leave the batteries in the charger for more than 12 hours at a time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 2:33 pm and is filed under China, Geeky. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.