I have tried my optical mouse on every surface I can find including slick coated paper and 'clear' plastic. It works flawlessly on all except a mirror (although I haven't tried on steel). So if the surface finish is not too fine it should work.
In the worst case, you might be able to get away with a piece of paper (or other suitably textured stuff) around the shaft or disk.
But a bigger problem I see is getting just the pulses out of the mouse. By design the beasts encode x motion, y motion, and the switch closures into a serial data stream.
robotic regards,
Tom |