Electrical Tape – The Cheapest DIY Mouse Grip Tape Option
In my quest for the cheapest most practical peripheral mods, there is no way I could skip the grip tape category. Applying grip tape to your mouse is one of the simplest but effective ways to improve your performance. Grip tape however can become quite expensive with most options selling for 10$ for one set and losing their feel in 2-3 weeks.
Different types of common household tapes are already used in different DIY mods (keyboard, mouse) and luckily there is also an option you can use instead of conventional grip tape.
Grip Tape
Electrical tape is a common tape made out of plastics or vinyl that is used for insulation and is an extremely common household item. Using electrical tape as grip tape is not something I came up with since this DIY mod has been around for ages, but I tested it for myself and would like to emphasize why it makes a lot of sense.
Surface Properties
While electrical tape will not be able to match conventional grip tape used for mouse modding since it does not provide the same level of stickiness, it still improves how grippy the surface of the plastic shell would be otherwise.
From my testing, the electrical tape is quite grippy from the get-go but once your fingers warm up a little it becomes increasingly more grippy. I also do not like grip tape that is insanely sticky since I do like micro-adjusting the position of my fingers on the mouse while aiming. This would be impossible if my fingers were glued in place making the electrical tape and its surface properties perfect for my use case.
Thickness
One aspect of using grip tape for mice that ruins the experience for me is the fact that you change the shape of the mouse by adding width to it. Adding grips to my HSK Pro 4K ruins the side groves that are extremely comfortable when you fingertip grip forcing me to use grip tape only on the clicks.
Even the clicks however have a slight curvature that is instantly gone the moment you apply grip tape. Electrical tape is thin and contours the shape of the mouse shell nicely making it a sensible choice for me.
Adhesive
Electrical tape uses a very weak adhesive that is perfect for applications such as using it as grip tape. You can apply it without worrying about residue, and you can reposition the cut you have made multiple times without being afraid of the adhesive keeping your piece in place.
While wea, it does seem like the adhesive is strong enough to survive being ripped off about 10+ times in my case but your mileage may vary. Even if you do have to replace your pieces, doing so is extremely easy since the adhesive is weak so it does not get in the way of you cutting your grips to shape.
Pricing & Availability
The biggest and most compelling argument for using electrical tape as grip tape is how cheap and widely available it is. You can purchase a roll for 1-2$ and that would be enough to cover your needs for years. If the adhesive is too weak or if the surface is too grimy you can swap them with a fresh cut without worries of having to spend 10$ on a new set.
You can also find this kind of tape almost anywhere, and you most likely have a roll sitting in some drawer already.
TL;DR
While using electrical tape might sound like another meme mod, the advantages of doing so are quite obvious – increased grip compared to bare plastic mouse shell, is thin and does not warp mouse shape, has a weak adhesive which is safe and leaves no residue, and the extremely cheap price for a mod that you will have to change no matter what (even the best of grips lose their feel in 2-3 weeks meaning this is a recurring investment).