Thursday 26 July 2018

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.

Entroware Triton motherboard mouse button
mouse ribbon cable loop held down with tape

synaptics mouse ribbon cable Entroware Triton


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.

Entroware Triton mouse button spring
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...

Entroware broken mouse button spring Triton


...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.




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