Posted by Brian on 21, 2000 at 2:25 PM:
In Reply to: keyboard hacking posted by Newbie on 21, 2000 at 7:45 AM:
Ok, so here's what i did for my panel. When I said I used a multimeter, what you do is set the multimeter on just continuity which means when the mylar paths complete the circuit of the multimeter, it beeps. When it does that, then you know that is the matrix combination for that key. I did all this on the mylar, and not the pcb. Your keyboard might be different in that it has a whole circuit board for the keys and not milar like mine. If it is like mine though, you don't need to use the pcb to check the key combinations. Anyway, for the LED's, I didn't need to check anything since the LED's were on the Pcb itself and I could just sloder wires where they were on the pcb and run the LED's up to my panel. The reason why you don't need to map out the LED's is because the program just triggers the caps lock button to flash and the num lock to flash so you don't even include them in your matrix, you just tap into where they are on the pcb itself. If you go back to my page in the stand alone controls and look at the picture of the keyboard pcb, you can see the LED's still on the pcb before I moved them to my panel. Well I hope this helps a little at least. Any other questions feel free to e-mail me and I'll try to help you out. Good luck.
Game on!! Brian
: Hopefully one of you veterans can help me:-)
: How do you SAFELY find which lines are the LEDs on the PCB. After going through all 110 cabinet projects and the 24 standalone controls, and checking various other links like PC Jamma,I thought I had enough information to hack the keyboard. Alot of the sites gave warning about the + 5 volts from the CAPS,NUM,SCROLL locks LED's, so I thought if I trace those three keys on the mylar, and then stay away from them I would be ok. WRONG!!! I got to checking the 8th contact on my PCB and my CPU went down. So much for my logic. Luckily it doesn't appear to be damaged.
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: In Brains stand alone project he makes reference to a site using a multimeter to make the connections fromm mylar to PCB. I've never used a multimeter so if anybody knows where this information is or can tell me more about the LEDs I would be very grateful!!!