​​How does the Mechanical Mouse work?

​​How does the Mechanical Mouse work?

A mechanical mouse consists of a heavy rubber ball whose movement makes the cursor move on the screen. Commonly known as the ‘rolling rubber ball’ mouse, it is considerably heavy, thanks to the rubber ball, a few wheels, and a number of other mechanical parts present inside it.

When you move the mouse, the ball rolls beneath it, pushing the two plastic wheels/rollers linked to it in the process. One of those wheels detects side-to-side movement (x-axis wheel) and the other (y-axis wheel) detects movement in the up-and-down direction. Both of these wheels consist of spokes that ‘break’ a thin light beam inside the mouse. The number of times the beam breaks helps to calculate how far the mouse has moved. For instance, when you move the mouse straight up, the y-axis wheel turns. The farther up you go, the more the ball pushes the wheel and the more it breaks the light beam. This helps to determine how far the mouse has moved straight up. 

Similarly, the mouse uses the x-axis wheel to calculate side-to-side movement. When the mouse is moved at an angle, the calculations obtained from the movement of both of these wheels are used. Mechanical mice were quite popular in the past decade, but due to their clunkier design and relatively lessened durability, they were quickly replaced by optical mice.