How do I clean my old Rocketfish gaming mouse pad

Chevy-SS

Chevy-SS

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 5, 2007
Messages
265
I have an old Rocketfish oversized mouse pad, it's aluminum with a Teflon-like coating on it (both sides). Lately the mouse has been a little more reluctant to easily glide across the pad, so I've been cleaning the heck out of the pad surface and the mouse, but no lasting joy. Then I tried using furniture polish, that seemed to help for about a day.

Is there any way to rejuvenate this thing, or is it time to buy another? I've looked online for help, but all I see for cleaning advice is about cloth pads. Perhaps I should just get a new cloth pad? What say you???????? Thanks ;)
 
Well if the coating has worn off, and the coating is what gave it it's proper texture / smoothness, then your options are going to be limited. Don't forget that mouse feet also wear down and change how your mouse glides over time. A brand new mouse with brand new mouse-feet will usually only have a small area of the mouse feet making contact with the mousepad. On most mice, as the mouse feet wear down, a larger surface area will make contact with the pad, and it will glide slower. It's possible you can buy new mouse feet or even a new mouse if it's cheap enough.

If you're going to get a new pad, I'd take a look at the Logitech G440. I've been pleasantly surprised by mine for the most part. It's a hard pad with a good balanced texture IMO (not too rough, not too smooth). It's held up well and not worn down nearly as fast as I thought it would given that it's not an expensive pad. It sticks well to the desk. It's large. It's rectangular so you can rotate it to even out the wear even further. It's easily available, and cheap enough that it's not a big deal if you end up having to replace it every 1-3 years. Only downside really is that the pad has a fairly sharp edge, so if you like to rest your wrist right on the edge it might be an issue.

Cloth pads are disgusting IMO. I don't know how people tolerate them. I'm not surprised that you found so much advice about cleaning cloth pads, because they NEED it. They absorb dirt and oils and turn into the mousepad-equivilent of dirty socks after about a month. I hate working on people's computers when they have a cloth pad, there is always a dark brown stain where their hand/wrist rests caked with dirt and old sweat and whatever else and it's just nasty. Obviously the mouse doesn't glide very well over the "stain" either. Hard pads on the other hand... you can just use some glass-cleaner, rubbing alcohol, or just walk it over to the sink and use some dish soap, and it's like brand new again.
 
Also, keep in mind that hard mats wear out mouse feet much faster than a cloth mat. Definitely worth keeping some spares on hand; it gets to be a bit impractical to replace a mouse every time the feet wear down when using a hard pad.
 
kurdt said:
Also, keep in mind that hard mats wear out mouse feet much faster than a cloth mat. Definitely worth keeping some spares on hand; it gets to be a bit impractical to replace a mouse every time the feet wear down when using a hard pad.
Click to expand...
'Spare' what - mouse feet??? They are replaceable? :confused:
 
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