A "Legend" Reborn: Logitech Brings Back the MX518 Gaming Mouse

It's a shame the Ratpadz are no longer on the market

 

Tomorrow for mine as well.


Unless Tom Cruise gets involved

 

It felt immediately familiar holding it for the first time. My only disappointment is it seems it's using the same mousewheel from 15 years ago. It's also around 10g lighter than the original MX518. I thought it wouldn't be noticeable, but it is. Don't know how I feel about that, yet. Still, the shape is more than enough for me to ditch the G502. I'll have to play with the mouse settings and see if I can get practical use out of the full 16K DPI.

 

Hmm. That's disappointing. I like HEAVY mice, but the trend over the last 10 years has been to make them lighter and lighter.

Maybe you can crack open the case and hotglue a lead fishing sinker in there

I might actually try this if I am unhappy with the weight. With that big bulbous plastic body, there has to be some empty space in there.

 

The way this thing is put together I'd be afraid of breaking it trying to crack it open. I don't even see a practical space to squeeze my tool in.

 

It may be using the same mouse wheel, but not the mechanism. It feels different, does some weird metallic clicking. The mouse itself seems noticeably ligher and cheaper. It has different feet, so it also glides differently on the mouse pad.

 

That's uh, not what you're supposed to do with it...

 

I passed my MX518 onto someone else about a year or so ago, it is still working strong to this day.

 

The G9x is my favorite mouse and I hope they bring it back like what they are doing to MX518 now. I however, ordered one just because I also love this mouse. I'm using the G602 hero now.

 

Huh. That's a shame. Don't they usually hide screw holes under the adhesive feet?

 

Probably, but those things are on there pretty good. They're more like "pads" than "feet:" There is one large half-moon pad on the front and back and then one small foot to the right of the sensor when looking at it from the bottom.

 

I vaguely remember having to pry those pads off of my G500 when I opened it up to clean the left mouse button switch, which had started intermittently working.

I'll have to take a look at this when I open mine. It's sitting on my front porch at home waiting for me as we speak

 

Yeah, I have been doing some googling, and I am almost certainly going to have to modify the mouse to add some weight.

The new generation MX518 weighs 101g according to Logitechs specs on their webpage.

I currently use a G502 Proteus core and I find it too light with all the optional weights installed compared to my old G500.

My old G500 I also ran with all the weights installed, and loved it. It was perfect for me. The G500 weighed 164g with the empty weight tray inserted. There were 6 weight slots, and the heavy weights weighed 4.5g each, so that made the total weight 164+6x4.5 = 191g. I haven't held it in a while, but I remember that feeling perfect to me.

So I need to find a way to add ~90g of weight to the MX518, almost doubling its weight. A 3 Oz lead fishing sinker should do the job.

 

Well, being the wild and crazy guy that I am, I decided to try something new and do an unboxing video. I've ridiculed them in the past, and I probably will in the future, but why not have a little fun with it. If anyone cares (why would you? ), here it is:

 

unboxing video? totes wild matthew.

 

A little side by side action:



Maybe that mouse reflection should be my new profile pic Damned shiny thing

 

I remember really liking an MX300, and/or MX310. I did also use for awhile an MX510, but after that went to a nice laser mouse with a better shape and never looked back. Ikari by steelseries is my favorite mouse of all time. Hard to find now though, and the ones on Ebay are usually refurbs I'm using a newer steelseries that has a different shape but is adequate. I still have both the mx310 and mx510's.. the 510 is my lanparty spare, but I don't like it anymore after using the laser mice, and always bring the steelseries to lan's. Those rubberized surfaces only last a few years, then get grossly sticky... had that with one of the Ikari's... so, pass for me.

And yeah, once you find a mouse you really really love, buy like 5 more! I wish I had more Ikari's...

 

Next step for you is fornite streaming

 

Lol. Do you knock it 'til you've tried it I guess

My stepson does that shit. It's not for me though.

More seriously though, I plan on opening my MX518 to add some weight.

Maybe I'll record myself doing that for good measure.

Instructional videos. That's what YouTube is for!

 

I'm sorry, did you say something about an Ikari?

 

I would be interesting in what is inside that so let me know when you do. I am sure there is plenty of wasted space inside there.

 

So, another thing I noticed about this mouse compared to my G502 is that it is much more sensitive to uneven surfaces.

As soon as I put it on my old Ratpad and started using it, it was dragging on the surface really badly.

Looking at the Ratpad it was evident that the warping had set in.

So, I bent it back and now the motion is smooth, bit the odd thing is I never noticed it with my G502

Maybe it rides higher on its feet. Or maybe I just worse the G502 a rounded bottom through extebded use on the thing?

 

Yeah. But I thought Ikari was the model/style, Steelseries the brand. This is the one I love: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SteelSerie...:sc:USPSFirstClass!73110!US!-1&frcectupt=true

Looking around my search results, there are some brand new ones! Ugly color scheme "Iron Lady" but hey, at least its the mouse I love. Going to order 2 of the new ones!

 

D'oh, my brain had a BSOD.

You're correct, Steelseries Ikari was the brand+model of the mouse, but the one I posted a pic of was the Steelseries Xai. I did own an Ikari at one point many years ago...great mouse. It had a comfortable shape for righties while the Xai is ambidextrous.

 

I have an original IntelliMouse Explorer, it's my emergency backup. It's all faded and worn out but it works great. My son picked it out the drawer the other day. He's like what's this? I laughed and said that mouse is older than you and it still works. He turns 18 in May.

 

So I have been using the MX518 for a number of weeks now. This is my first "gaming" mouse so I am new to some features others would consider standard. I like the form, it feels slightly larger than what I am used to and the rear part of the mouse contours to my palm much better. Clicks were all good .... except the scroll wheel. It felt very cheap when I first got it. It did loosen up over time and it feels much better now. It tracks very nice and tight ... like a tiger. The ability to switch the DPI on the fly with the buttons above and bellow the scroll wheel is a nice, and useful feature. I like the weight, slightly heavier than I am used to.

Jinx on the world map mouse pad Zarathustra

 

g7 plz

 

The funny part is that I don't use it as a mouse pad. I tried it, and came to the conclusion that I gave up soft mouse pads when the Ratpad was launched in 2000 for a reason. I didn't like the soft mouse pad experience at all.

I kept it as a desk protector, but put my Ratpad on it and kept using that.

 

Now if only they would rerelease the MX1000. Mine still works fine but is showing it's age.

 

I only have one 5 button left and the wheel lock has broken. Wheel still works but free spins making precise stops difficult. Used everyday at work, more yellow than white even after alcohol wipe washes and still going strong a decade+ later. I'd buy 5 mice instantly if I could find them and built the same way. I have had multiple Razer, Corsair and Logi mice and none of them feel as good or last as long as this one has.

 

I have had a busy weekend helping a friend move, so I havent gotten around to starting this project yet, but I did make an interesting discovery on the weight front.

For kids who participate in derby car contests and want to fine tune the weight of their cars they sell some sort of tungsten putty, which is very dense, moldeable and somewhat tacky. it seems almost perfect for this application.

I have ordered three ounces of it and will likely use it to weigh down the mouse a little when I get it.

 

Alright, so I took a few minutes to crack the mouse open today.

You do have to remove the two large pads, but this is super simple. Just use a flathead screwdriver, the thinner and wider the head the better, to avoid tearing the pad. Once you get the pads started you can just pull them off with your fingers. The adhesive on them is tacky, so they should be able to be pulled off and replaced countless times, as long as you don't do something stupid like get dirt on the sticky side. I stuck mine on the thermoformed plastic tray the mouse came in, in the package, to protect them.

It was really quite simple, only three screws, one under the pad on the bottom and two under the pad on the top.








Unlike the original MX518, there was no screw under the little pad on the side.



Once the screws are removed. the seam between the bottom and the top of the mouse is very tight and pretty concealed. I couldn't really get my fingernails in there to separate the two. A little jiggling was - however - enough to get them apart. No prying necessary. The mouse cable is attached to the bottom half, so you can try carefully lifting by it.

Be careful when opening it, as there is a small ribbon cable going to the top half of the mouse, you don't want to damage. When I finally got mine opened, a little spring decided to go catapulting out of it. I am going to need to find where it came from so I can return it to its proper place.




Here it is all open. As you can see LOTS of space to add weights should you want to, especially if you use a very dense and formable material like tungsten putty. I'm guessing the parts that make the mouse work just take a lot less space than they used to. See a comparison to the original MX518 innards at the bottom of this post.





It's a mouse, not a race car, so weight distribution probably isn't SUPER critical, but when I add mine, I am going to try to balance it around the center as much as possible, so it winds up not having a weight distribution to either side. One possible place to put it looks to be along the plastic wall on the side. (the one inside the seam to the top half clamshell. I could roll the tungsten putty into one long strand and stick it along that wall. I'll have to see when my tungsten putty gets here.


Also, I did some troubleshooting to try to figure out where that spring came from. I placed the top half back on and tested every button and function. They all seem to work without it. In the end I think it added extra springy support for the scroll wheel. It looks to fit quite nicely here, so I am hoping this is the right place for it:





And here for comparison is a picture of the original MX518 innards. (I stole this one from the internet) Look at how old and large all those parts look! It's only been - what - 15 years? And they were using large chips with through hole board mounts? Nuts.

 

nice Zarathustra[H]. Damn that is an old mouse, but dammit they worked well!

 

I received mine and it feels like the left and right buttons are too stiff compare to G703 or G502 Hero. Not sure if I could get used to that again. However, the shape still perfect fit for my hand. Still contemplating if I should keep the mouse.

EDIT: also the back/forward button sometimes does not register. Anyone have experience this problem?

 

I only briefly had mine plugged into the computer before disassembling it in preparation for adding weight.

My tungsten putty arrives this evening, after which I will reassemble it and let you know.

My general philosophy is that if you receive a new product and some aspect of it isn't working, it is probably defective and to RMA it. It happens sometimes even to the best of companies, especially with a new launch.

 

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. I'll do more testing. Keep us posted how you modded yours.

 

Alrighty.

My weighted tungsten putty arrived. Time to make this mouse heavy

First I piled all the parts of the mouse on a food scale (all I had handy) to do a baseline.




How about that. 101g, just as advertised.


Here are the individual lumps of tungsten putty. 3oz is ~85g, so that's as advertised too. This stuff is really quite dense. About twice as dense as lead.





And it's time to stick it all in there. I attempted to spread mine out around the mouse to distribute the weight as much as possible. Before starting I tested the putty with my multimeter to make sure it was non-conductive (it was) so I am not scared of putting it too close to any traces on any boards.













Alright. All the putty is in there. Time to button it up!



And there we go. A 185g MX518




Feels nice, solid and sturdy compared to my lightweight 148g G502 (with all the weights added)




Though I do have to admit, it is a little heavier than I remember my maxed out G5 and G500 being. This is 6 g lighter than the 191g a maxed out G5/G500 should be though. Maybe my hand is just a little tired from the gym the other day.

I'm going to test drive it for a couple of days and see if I like the weight, before I decide if I make another adjustment.

 

So, it's modded and plugged back in.

I don't know how this Hero sensor compares to the one in my G502, but the pointer movement does feel a little different. Maybe I am just imagining it.

My forward and backwards buttons seem to work perfectly. No issues at all I'm guessing you might have gotten a quality escape

I am a little disappointed with the scroll wheel. It does feel like a step down from my G502. Everything else is an improvement though!

 

nice mod. Although my max weight on mouse probably around 110-125g. I'm testing my back button and I need more testing on other games. Maybe it was just me and i hope it's just me. I actually used the mouse for over 2hrs last night and seems the back button works just fine when browsing, but rapid execution in game seems a little off.

 

Ah,

I never tested those buttons in game. Only while browsing. I tend to not use the side buttons for game binds as I find it results in unacceptable sideways mouse movement when I do.

Actually I tend to not use them in browsing either, because I forget they are there