powermate mod?

So I love this powermate. But, is there a way to open it and change the color? I think it would look awesome if it went from red to blue.

did you see the Mouse mod in the guides section? i think you could do it!

Nooo. I have to go and look at that. Thank you!
I mean, I love the blue but sometimes I get bored of it.

http://www.macmod.com/content/category/6/48/2/

Thanks for posting the link. I can't imagine successfully doing that. But I'd never know until I try.

I was looking at doing this, too. The problem with the powermate is actually getting the thing open. I'm sure changing the color can't be that hard once you get the case open... anybody had any luck with this?

It looks like you should be able to carefully pry open the rubber from the bottom, since it seems to be held one soley by some adhesive.

once you pull that rubber off of the bottom, the led's are right there. That should do the trick for ya. But I don't know how you are going to go from red to blue. It uses the same leds for the lighting. You would have to alter the chip or soemthing on it.

I see, all I had to do was find a screw driver small enough to fit between without scratching the visible metal. The red to blue would be easy to do, but hard to fit it in such a small space... I would think it would be possible to find a small inverter chip and maybe fit that in there.

They are surface mounted LEDs... meaning they are VERY small and hard to soldier. Also, I don't even have any LEDs small enough to replace them at the moment. I can unscrew the rotational sensor and almost get it out, but the USB connection seems to be holding it in, and from what I can see can't be disconnected easilly. It looks like there might be space for a inverter on the other side... anybody else tried this?

Post edited by: Sigma, at: 2004/07/08 23:07

jacob: FYI, theh powermates START blue, and it hink the goal is to make them a different color
I doubt that it uses optical tracking to sense the rotation of the knob, too


And you wouldn't change a chip, you'd just swap the LED

I realize (and I think jacob does too) that to change the color all you have to do is swap the LEDs, but scot said it should go "from red to blue" which makes it sound like instead of a black to blue progression, a red to blue one. Wether or not that's what he meant, it's a pretty neat idea which could be accomplished with an inverter chip.

Sigma, you are on the right track. I realize that if you wanted to simply change out the blue leds to red ones, that would not be too difficult. However, to go from red to blue, as stated, that would require an inverter chip as sigma stated. This would be quite a bit more difficult. I have a powermate in my hand now , so I do know what colors they change from and to.