Your reading this because you have a Wireless Bluetooth Mighty Mouse and the roller ball is not working, if you have a wired mouse this help guide is not for you because the layout and way you dismantle the mouse is completely different. If you require assistance with a wired mouse simply google “wired mighty mouse cleaning” and you will get the answer.

Firstly you might not have to resort to this method because you might simply need to turn the mouse upside down and rub the roller ball with a slight bit of pressure with an alcohol wipe or screen cleaning wet wipe. If this fails and you have tried that method several time it’s now time to consider the full open up and clean method as described below. Now hopefully you have a steady hand because you will require the following equipment.

Step 1.

Remove the battery compartment cover and remove the batteries.

Step 2.

With the mouse upside down so you are looking like the image below ( if you click on the image you will see a full size image ), use the scalpel to gently seperate the grey oval ring from the white mouse body. This is held on by small plastic pillars and should seperate quite easily, by working from the inside nearest the battery compartment you can ease the scalpel blade between the grey oval ring and the body. By doing this the grey oval ring will start to come apart. Don’t worry if you damage any of the small pillars because when rebuilding you will be glueing this back in place.

Step 3.

With the grey oval ring removed to now need to look at the outside edge of the mouse. You are going to seperate the white oval ring from the main body of the mouse. This is NOT easy, you need to use the scapel and easy it inbetween the body and the ring, see image 2 & 3. In the images below I have already carried this process out once yours should not have as large a gap between the body and the white ring but it should be clearly visible where the join line is running.

I found by starting next to the squeeze buttons I could get the seperation started more easily, it becomes harder towards the curved ends of the mouse where it would appear Apple has used the strongest glue know to mankind. You can with patience and a little bit of pressure get the two parts to seperate. I found that by swapping from one side to the other during this process helped the seperate rather than trying to work round in a uniform fashion. Please be clearful as this is where an accident could happen, you have been warned.

Step 4.

Once the white ring is removed you should have something that looks like this image below. It shows the forward Retaining Catches, this is what is holding the mouse together. At the rear there are hinges where the clicking ability of the mouse is carried out.

To separate the mouse base from the outer casing you need to use the scapel and put it inbetween the base and the forward retaining catch and apply a slight bit of pressure outwards which should cause the clip to pop out, I found that I only had to do this on one side because the other was easily removed by wiggling the mouse base to withdraw the other retaining clip.

Step 5.

Once you have released the front retaining catches then it’s time to move onto the rear hinges, again this is a case of prizing the hinge from the braket holder using the scalpel. The image below shows the base and the cover separated now be careful once you have sperated these two parts because there are 2 ribbon cables still connected and we don’t want to damage them.

Step 6.

The 2 ribbon cables need to be disconnected now because at this stage the base and the cover should now be apart and only joined by the ribbon cables.

The connectors need the black side clips(see above image) sliding forward to release the cables, when removing the cables they should slide out easily, if they dont fall out and you have to apply any pressure or pull on them you are not doing it right and haven’t released the cable locks. The locks might need wiggling from side to side to release them but general pulling them evenly with your finger nails will ease them out.

Step 7.

We are nearly there now, in the removed mouse top cover which should now be completely detached from the main base unit we can find the Roller Ball Unit. We need to remove the three retaining screws ( mine were extremely tight and took a watchmakers and a pair of needle nose pliers to turn the screw driver shaft to loosen them so watch out )

Once the three screw are removed turn the removed item over. Again using the scalpel gently ease the white cover that is covering the roller ball off this is done by working it from the bottom and do not try to get it from around the ball as you will damage the ball and that’s not good.

Step 8.

Once the white cover is removed you can take out the ball and the 4 roller units with black ends. Now I bet your roller unit looks something like the one below. This is what was causing your mouse not to work, it’s all the grease from your fingers especially if you eat at your Mac and use your mouse.

Now with all the bit removed use the Alcohol wipes or screen cleaning wipes to rub off and clean the ball and the 4 rollers until you are happy there is no more finger yuk on them. Start to replace the roller units back into the base unit. Watch out because the are slightly magnetised and can be a bit fiddley. You need to have them is the following orientation.

Step 9.

Refit the white Roller ball unit cover, this can be a bit tricky if you have accidently moved the tiny supoorting legs on the underneath, if you have gently move them back into position. The cover should easily fit and once fitted screw the unit back into the cover, make sure the roller ball is poking throught the mouse cover in the correct way.

Now it’s time to reconnect the ribbon cables x 2, again with the black side slide pulled fully forward gently push the ribbon cable into the slot and once it’s fully in push the black side slide into the plug base ( see below for correct fitment of ribbon cable )

The ribbon cables are the orange on fits at the back and the green one fits on the side. (see image above for orientation ). Now at this point you can put the batteries back in,cover on and as if your mouse is now working again. If you have tried this then removed the batteries again before carrying on.

Step 10.

It’s now time to refitted the hinges at the back of the mouse, put one side into the retaining bracket and you might have to use the wacthmaker screwdriver to gently push the outer shell out the way to allow you to fit the other side.

Step 11.

Once the hinges are both back in place the you can simply push the front of the mouse base back into the top cover and the retaining catches at the front will engage and hey presto you mouse is back together.

Step 12.

Now it’s time to glue the inner grey ovel back into place, it only fits one way so work that out before applying the glue. You only need a couple of spots of glue on the underneath of the ring to secure it back place. Once you are happy that it’s glued back into place correctly now do the same with the outer white ring you removed. Again you only need a couple of spots og glue to hold this back on.

Step 13.

Refit the batteries and the battery cover and hey presto one nearly new Wireless Bluetooth mouse cleaned and ready to use.

Thanks for reading and hope you mouse is working again and you haven’t damaged yourself in the process of following this guide.