manterola Posted July 16, 2019 Share Posted July 16, 2019 Hi all, I got an old, ugly, rusty and dirty 800XL which came with the XC11 cassette drive I was interested in. So I cleaned, got rid of the rust and changed the RAM ICs (and since I got 41256 which were cheaper it is now 256KB) which were the reason why the computer was not starting. I also added the line for the chroma to the monitor output connector and it worked!... except for the keyboard. Long story short: After several attempts (conductive pen, cleaning, etc ) I fixed the keyboard by cutting the end of the mylar connector in several trials until it worked.. but the mylar was too short, and on top of that some of the pins of the edge 24 contacts connector in the motherboard started to fail. I got rid of the connector and added a row of pin headers in the motherboard and tried to find the connector. I couldn't. (I have found a couple of part numbers for 24pin 2.54 pitch non-zip connectors, but nobody sell them) My idea was to build a keyboard extension, with a new edge FPC connector in one side (to connect to the keyboard mylar) and female pin headers in the other (to connect to the new pin headers in the motherboard). I built the extension anyway using the old original connector, but now I have more keys failing and also in the keyboard self test I got the top "4" key (F4 1200xl key?) activated intermittently (this is a 800XL so no F4). I don't know how to proceed after my failure with this. I can always use this computer for parts or get another one to complete this one, but the whole point was to "save" this poor 800XL from the junk graveyard and I don't even wanted it, but it actually looks great now (all clean, nice exterior, great svideo output and also 256KB ram) Do you know any source of the keyboard connector? for type 4 mylar stackpole version? Does someone plan to produce new mylars for this XL type 4 keyboards? What about creating a special PCB with an paths like a edge connector (like cartridges) with 24 contacts and 2.54 pitch, and mechanically fix this to the mylar? I have seen these type of solutions before but I don't know which kind of finishing is done to the edge contacts so it can work (make good reliable contact) with the "paths" of the mylar. Any other creative idea on how to replace this .... connector? do you think is there any hope going in to the special PCB route? Thanks in advance for your comments! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted July 16, 2019 Share Posted July 16, 2019 Did you open the keyboard and actually clean the mylar? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 Yes, I did clean the mylar which was nasty. I guess in this point the main problem is how to connect (reliably) to keyboard mylar without using the original FPC connector. The connector-less solution looks the most promising, as long as we know what is the coating applied to the PCB contact points. Something like the image attached. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted July 19, 2019 Author Share Posted July 19, 2019 BTW, best computer supposedly has the XL/XE keyboard connector... Just sayin' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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