22 g 3D printed gaming mouse gets significantly enhanced durability from updated materials
Optimum, a tech YouTube personality best known for his in-depth reviews of Hall effect gaming keyboards and wireless gaming mice, has been on a mission to create the lightest gaming mouse possible without sacrificing too much when it comes to strength and durability. The first few revisions of the design were simply a hobby project in order to create the ideal gaming mouse for his personal use, however, from that project, the Zer0mouse was born. The Zer0mouse Blade is 3D-printed mod for a Finalmouse Falcon Module that uses a minimalistic skeletal structure instead of a solid shell, resulting in a wireless gaming mouse that weight in at just 22 g. In a recent video posted to YouTube, Optimum explains how a combination of a handful of choice design tweaks and a material change have resulted in a mouse that weighs the same but is significantly more rigid.
According to the video, the new Zer0mouse revision is made using Formlabs's Tough 2000 resin V2, which is a new proprietary resin from the 3D printing giant that is designed to have similar characteristics to injection-moulded ABS. Optimum says that the new resin and design changes make the new version of the Zer0mouse Blade more resistant to both forces applied to the mouse during use and potential drops, the latter of which is demonstrated in the video with a few slow-motion clips of the mouse being dropped on a concrete floor. The new version of the mouse still relies on the Finalmouse Falcon Module, but there is also a new feature to cover up the battery compartment. Part of the added rigidity and toughness of the new design comes from the fact that it is all printed in one piece, instead of two pieces that are assembled after the fact.
Optimum has also optimised the design of the trigger mechanisms for fingertip grip, orienting the hinge and trigger location in such a way that the switch is at its lightest further back on buttons, where it would be heaviest on a regular mass-produced gaming mouse. The idea is that the Zer0mouse should be optimised for a specific niche use case rather than for mass-appeal.
One of the closest comparable commercially available gaming mice to the Zer0mouse Blade is the new Corsair Sabre V2 (curr. $99.99 on Amazon), which weighs in at 36 g — still more lightweight than a lot of gaming mice, like the Keychron M7 8K we recently reviewed, but a whole 71% heavier than the Zer0mouse Blade. Of course, there are downsides to the Zer0mouse Blade, not the least of which is the fact that it costs $179.99, and the fact that it only includes the left and right click buttons and the scroll wheel, with no option for customisable side buttons. The Blade is also slightly heavier than the G-Wolves Fenrir mouse, which is another publicly available ultra-light fingertip mouse that weighs in at an astonishing 20.4 g (without skates).
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