mouse won't move

Your problem is not unusual for the DU600 series Spectrophotometer as it was documented by Beckman a long time ago.  In all likelihood, it is NOT your mouse.  It is a problem with your main board assembly, specifically the RS232 mouse port.  I believe that if you search out the DU600 series database on LabWrench that you will find a fix that I posted relative to adding jumpers and cutting traces for that port on the main board.  There was a hardware fix incorporated on later revisions of the main board.  Also be aware that support for the DU600 series specs is now very limited within BCI so a lot of your best support will probably come through this website's contributors or some third party service groups.

Don

I've solved this problem on 2 units but the solutions were slightly different.  Basically, you need to short two of the wires going into the board from the mouse plug.  I cannot tell you the exact wires you need to solder together since they were different in two different models, so you'll have to use process of elimination; clip one wire, touch one of the other 9 move the mouse and see if the cursor moves.  Then move to the next wire and repeat.  Both of the fixes I found were between two of the bottom four wires, for what it's worth.

Thanks for the feedback guys - it was a huge help. With the right idea in mind it facilitated trying some new approaches (without too much fear of breaking things). The upshot is that the mouse pin outs have changed over time. So I ended up rebuilding the mouse cable and crossing various pinouts/ins. So the solution I came up with is a lot like a null modem cable, basically inverting the mouse. That, and it's mouse dependent. I had to find the right generation of mouse to do the inversion on. In the end though, it works - so thanks for the major insights.

You guys might have an interest in a mouse I use.  It is an optical serial mouse, but must use the supplied mouse pad with ref lines on it. For my Beckman it was just a plug it in and go (DB-9). I had one  go bad over time, so a spare is suggested.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/9-Pin-Serial-Optical-Mouse-Mouse-Pad-3-Button-for-Dos-Win-Legacy-Vintage-/251586043914?pt=Mice&hash=item3a93b2600a

Here's a little more information on the mouse situation with the DU 600 series spectrophotometer. The original mouse was a 3 button mouse where the middle button was used within the wavelength scan mode of operation to highlight parts of the scan for closer study. When 3 button mice pretty much went away, Beckman could no longer supply them which upset a small, but vocal minority of users. Unfortunately, all any of the field service force could do was do our best to keep the mice clean and operational to the best of our abilities. The real unfortunate part was the fact that many mice were trashed before the wiring issue on the motherboard was identified and as you can imagine, many of those mice were actually still good. So, if you find a working 3 button mouse in a drawer somewhere, hold on to it because you may need it in the future.

Don