In brief: After years of faithful service, most computer mice end up in the recycling bin, or worse, the garbage bin. But one Redditor wanted a better second act for his retired pointer, and once inspiration struck, it was only a matter of time before his vision came to life.
Dycus recently shared the mouse-turned-camera project on Reddit. He used the optical sensor (model ADNS-3090) from an old pointer, which is capable of capturing 30 x 30 pixel images in 64 shades of gray. The sensor and supporting hardware is encapsulated in a 3D printed enclosure complete with a small display for framing and image review. Dycus used Adafruit libraries for OLED initialization, but mostly writes to the OLED directly due to speed.
The DIY enthusiast said the camera features multiple shooting modes (single, double, and quad shot, as well as panorama and cowboy), exposure control, and the ability to store up to 48 photos using 32kB of FRAM. The shooter is good for a few hours of battery life. The panorama mode is his favorite, we're told.
I made a camera from an optical mouse. 30x30 pixels in 64 glorious shades of gray!
byu/Dycus in3Dprinting
At 30 x 30 pixels, resolution isn't anything to write home about. Still, Dycus likens it to the Game Boy Camera and says it is easy to recognize what you have taken pictures of. In total, the project took about 65 hours to complete from start to finish.
As is, the build mostly consists of parts cobbled together to get the job done. If he were to ever make more, however, Dycus said he would create a custom board – a move that'd no doubt shrink the device's overall size. For now, he said it's simply fun to hand-make stuff like this.
When asked on Reddit about a guide, Dycus said he did not create a step-by-step tutorial on how to build the camera but points to similar projects like this one on Sprites Mods.
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