YouTuber embarrasses big gaming mouse brands with 29 g ultralight mouse with no holes
With the current trend in ultra-light mice steadily taking over — with even Logitech seemingly jumping on the bandwagon — there have been a number of independent projects that have aimed to turn off-the-shelf mice into ultra-light gaming monstrosities. The latest such project isn't aiming to be the lightest. Instead, Vaidemi, a Russian YouTuber known for gaming mouse reviews, aims to create the lightest gaming mouse with a solid shell, thereby avoiding the durability and dust ingress issues often caused by mouse designs that reduce weight by adding holes to the plastic case.
Nimbus gaming mouse
The end result of Vaidemi's endeavour, which he thoroughly documents in a recent YouTube video, is the Nimbus, a 29 g gaming mouse with a unique symmetrical design and internals that appear to be from the Xyder Amalight 4K gaming mouse. The shell's design started with inspiration from the Maya Lamzu X (curr. $121.99 on Amazon) and the Endgame Gear OP1 (curr. $64.99 on Amazon).
Vaidemi's video documents the entire design process, from ideation to CAD, prototyping, and many iterations of the design — it's well worth the watch, even if you do need to enable closed captions, as the video is narrated in Russian. The final design ended up with a skeletal internal structure, which its creator dubbed the XSHELL, which contains the mounting points for things like the PCB, buttons, and the external shell. Numerous other concerns were addressed, like the location and easy actuation of things like the side buttons and consistent pre- and post-travel for the main clicks without compromising on weight.
In the end, the shell was 3D printed on an Anycubic Photon Mono 4 SLA printer (curr. $239.99 on Amazon), which ensured a consistent finish and should allow for greater detail without increasing weight too much, especially in complex geometry. For the final version of the mouse, a high-strength “industrial” resin was used, and it appears to have paid off, since the YouTuber shows he is able to put upwards of 30 kg of weight on the mouse without causing structural failure. The final version, which Vaidemi claims to be using as his daily driver for work and gaming, was painted in a metallic blue paint with a slight matte finish and comes in at 29 g, including the skates and the paint.
While Vaidemi says he'd like to see the production version of the mouse release soon, he has not yet announced any official plans to do so, although he has previously worked with Xyder on a superlight mouse.
Source(s)
