Entroware Triton laptop: broken mouse button

I was quite upset a couple of days ago to find that my nice Entroware Triton had a broken right mouse button.

I've only had this laptop 14 months, and its been brilliant in every way ...until this happened.

So I certainly wasn't ready to give up on it and shell out for a new computer!

Its quite an easy laptop to open up, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

In order to lift the motherboard to get a clear view of the mouse buttons, I had to remove a few shiny motherboard screws and then release a loop of ribbon cable connecting the Synaptics mouse pad circuit board to the motherboard.

mouse ribbon cable loop held down with tape

There are also 2 ribbon cables that run under the hard drive which are stuck to the case which I had to partially release.

the 2 horizontal ribbons that had to be unstuck

The 2 mouse button actuators are just rectangles of plastic with 3 plastic loop "springs" to return the button back up after its been depressed. The real mouse buttons are mounted to the underside of the motherboard.

2 plastic springs attached to lower edge of each button + 1 side spring

The 'right-mouse button' (actually the left when viewed from the back as in these images) had a broken side spring.

I used a tooth pick to lift the spring up to meet the button...

...and then used rigid plastic adhesive to attach the spring. However, I also cut a small strip of plastic from a milk bottle top...

...glued it over the top of the spring arm & button to form a lap joint, and left it for 12 hours to cure.

applying pressure to the joint via match sticks & glasses case

Unfortunately it did not stick at one end, so I applied to small blob of hot-melt glue from my glue gun.

using a Stanley knife blade to stop the spring sticking to the laptop case

Job's a goodun!

So lets see how long it lasts. Its a real problem, when doing this type of repair, to find a suitable adhesive. I don't know if there are any glues which work on any type of plastic, and I struggle to identify the type of plastic in use. However, if this fails again within a few weeks, I'll get the chance to experiment with other materials.