Heated Mouse?

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I'm tired of cold hands...anyone ever try putting a heating element inside their mice?

I bet a few inches of nichrome (say, from a dead soldering tool) wound up inside the case, wrapped with some nice hi-temp insulation of some sort, and connected to the computer's 5V supply would work out nice.
I'd hazard a guess that 2W would be enough heat, and at 5V that's 12.5 ohms. Perhaps 10 ohms worth of wire? (Accounting for the thermal coefficient.)

Anyone forsee any possible worries from the DC magnetic field? Depending on how many courses around the mouse it takes, it wouldn't be more than a few ampere-turns.

Tim
 
Amen!

Ditto!

In the winter, my mouse hand turns to ice when I'm mousing at home in my 68F office.

How 'bout a mouse mit? It could basically be a fuzzy hand sock with a cutout on the bottom for the mouse. Seal the edges with velcro.

Think it could be a money-maker?!
 
I get the feeling a 200-300°F resistor would melt a spot on the plastic. Plastic is a good insulator, and so is air. Convection would only carry the majority of the heat a few times the height away from center, I'd think. Plus, if you put it dead center, it could fry the chip inside there.
And, most importantly, it would feel better to have an evenly-heated mouse (or if anywhere, most at the buttons), than a hot-spot under the palm.

OTOH, a string of 1/2W resistors might work, sealed up inside some heat shink tubing. Anyone got 12 .5 ohm resistors? :)
Maybe for testing I could try a 10 ohm 3W under the buttons, run some wires back to 5V.

Tim
 
Personally I want my mouse cold.. :p lol, but seeing as we are heating here, what about making a small compartment on the inside of the mouse top cover that is insulated from the rest of the mouse, filling it with oil, and putting a coil of wire in it... that way you can heat a large area without melting a hole in your mouse.. :p Or, what about water cooling your CPU, and passing the warm water from the CPU into your mouse, then back to the cpu.. :) lol
 
you could channel a circluar pattern into a mouse pad using an old soldering iron and use nichrome wire to heat up the mouse pad to around 45c.

the neoprene the pad is made from however will start to melt at around 85c... so be careful :)
perhaps a thermal sensor+opamp to control the power supplied
 
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