XL keyboard technical drawings

[flemingt]

No problem. It's not perfect, but it's good enough. I can't wait to see how yours turns out.

[ivop]

Looks good! Did you use 3D printed stems or adapters?

 

[+scorpio_ny]

Hi @flemingt,

 

Have you posted the latest files? I think I only saw revision B posted. Also, who did you use to produce the boards?

 

Thanks!

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by scorpio_ny
Added sentence

[flemingt]

22 hours ago, ivop said:

Looks good! Did you use 3D printed stems or adapters?

 

Adapters, they work fine.

[flemingt]

14 minutes ago, scorpio_ny said:

Hi @flemingt,

 

Have you posted the latest files? I think I only saw revision B posted. Also, who did you use to produce the boards?

 

Thanks!

 

yeah, the latest versions and some pictures are located here: flemingt/project-helena: Atari XL keyboard replacement (github.com)

 

I used AllPCB, quality was good, price reasonable. 

Edited May 23, 2022 by flemingt
added fab details

[+scorpio_ny]

Hi @flemingt,

I am trying to get the boards made and I have a couple of questions:

1. What thickness did you use to make the keyboard PCB?

2. I was looking for the files for the interface board at your site, but I could not find them. Were those files posted yet?

 

Thanks!

 

[flemingt]

Hi @scorpio_ny,

 

1. keyboard PCB is 1.6mm thick

2. interface board is 0.8mm thick - it's located in the kicad / Helena Aux folder. When ordering this part, don't request any silkscreen be applied.

 

Can't wait to see how yours turns out.

[+scorpio_ny]

I just placed the order with a fabrication house that I had used before. Prices were not bad for the manufacturing, but the shipping is so high now! Cannot wait to get the items!

 

Thanks again!

[ivop]

Looking forward to your build, too!

 

Did shipping from China also increased in price, or did you order locally?

 

Thinking about Rev E at the moment. I'd like to reintroduce the option for a three switch spacebar, which I think could fit alongside the holes for a stabilizer spacebar. The large shift does not use a stabalizer on the three switch spacebar PCBs. It uses rubber pads instead.

 

Another revision I'm thinking about is one that can not easily be combined with the current design, and that's a board for 5U spacebars, and add F1, F2 to the left, and F3, F4 to the right of the bar. This could be useful if you use blank Cherry caps with decals.

 

Edit: I can confirm that gluing the adapter to the switch reduces the amount of wobble. Best is to glue it before soldering the switch and have it dry out upside down to avoid glue leaking inside the switch.

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by ivop

[+scorpio_ny]

9 hours ago, ivop said:

Looking forward to your build, too!

 

Did shipping from China also increased in price, or did you order locally?

Looking forward to it too!! It was shipping from China to the USA. The shipping was almost 50% of the order because I chose to use a a carrier which I felt was more reliable. I could have opted to use a carrier that handed it off to the domestic postal service, but I had have some past bad experiences of the post office losing my international deliveries.

 

9 hours ago, ivop said:

Another revision I'm thinking about is one that can not easily be combined with the current design, and that's a board for 5U spacebars, and add F1, F2 to the left, and F3, F4 to the right of the bar. This could be useful if you use blank Cherry caps with decals.

I guess that the XL series still supports the function keys as a holdover from the Atar. 1200XL?

 

9 hours ago, ivop said:

Edit: I can confirm that gluing the adapter to the switch reduces the amount of wobble. Best is to glue it before soldering the switch and have it dry out upside down to avoid glue leaking inside the switch.

Thanks for the info! I have not had an opportunity to try out the new switch adapters. I want to see how well they work in relation to the printed switch stems.

 

One question: Would it be feasible to create a switch plate? It could be created using the same design as the keyboard PCB. This would add more rigidly and provide more support for the switches. It could be made as a 3D print of produced the same way as the PCB using the same material. The plate could also provide a spot for attaching stabilizers for the keys.

[+scorpio_ny]

Look at what just arrived:

 

 

I am looking forward of of putting it together! I have a couple of questions on the build:

1. When you seperated the part of the function keys from the rest of the board, which process did you use to cut it? Did you score it and snap it off? Did you use a Dremel? Maybe in your next revision, you can put in a a row holes on the board so one can easily snap right off.

 

2. When wiring the main PCB to the the option keys PCB, is the wiring one to one as they are numbered?

 

I had to redo the PCB connector because 0.8 mm was too thick for the connector in my 800XL. I am having them done at 0.6mm

 

Pretty excited to work on it! All I need is to find time to do it between my work and my chores. ?

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by scorpio_ny
Remove excess image

[ivop]

I used a hacksaw A boxcutter will probably work, too.

[+mytek]

14 hours ago, scorpio_ny said:

Maybe in your next revision, you can put in a a row holes on the board so one can easily snap right off.

I found out the hard way that doing this flags the manufacturer that you are putting two designs in one PCB and they'll charge you extra for it. If you look at the PCB quoting system you'll see that there is a box to check for two or more designs being incorporated. Now perhaps this is already the case, so adding a bunch of small holes to act as perforations to make it easier to break them apart would be a good addition.

 

Depending upon the extra cost, it might be best to have each aspect be it's own separate PCB, each with its own set of gerbers.

 

[ivop]

25 minutes ago, mytek said:

I found out the hard way that doing this flags the manufacturer that you are putting two designs in one PCB and they'll charge you extra for it.

Yes, that's exactly why I designed it the way it is. It's a bit more work when the PCBs arrive, but I was not charged extra for panelization.

[+scorpio_ny]

Thank you @mytek and @ivop for the explanations. If that is the case, maybe an option for two separate gerbers for when things are fully finalized as a separate option? I just cut mine using a dremel and it came out ok. Going to download the STL's to do some printing.

 

[flemingt]

Hi all,

 

Forgive the delayed response. I've been away.

Let me go back and answer some questions...

@ivop good tip on gluing the adaptors, it wasn't necessary for me as they're on pretty solid. Anyone is free to fork my fork and add in other features, but for now it suits my purposes.

@scorpio_ny a switch plate would be possible using a fabbed PCB, it would increase rigidity though it would require a rethink of the mounting mechanism.

Your PCBs look great, it's the same revision I used. Though now he design is several revs ahead.

Yes, the option keys are wired 1-1 across the cut mark, there are no crossovers.

Interesting that 0.8mm was too thick, I rechecked my order and I definitely had them made at 0.8mm. It's a tight fit, but the friction helps. I'll update the Github to reflect that 0.6mm may be necessary for the 800XL.

To separate the board, I just used a hacksaw - it works fine, slow and steady.

As per @mytek and @ivop this avoids panelisation.

 

It'll be interesting to see what you come up with to stiffen the board. I figure the distance between the cartridge slot and the keyboard pcb is different on the 600xl vs the 800xl.

 

[ivop]

About the 0.8mm. I used to be under the impression that the single wiper slots were just half of the normal dual wiper 1.6mm edge connector and hence needed half the board thickness. I was told that is not the case. These single wiper connectors are meant for flat cables. Not for PCB boards. 0.6mm is what tf_hh used, too, for his keyboard tester.

Edited June 17, 2022 by ivop

[+scorpio_ny]

58 minutes ago, ivop said:

About the 0.8mm. I used to be under the impression that the single wiper slots were just half of the normal dual wiper 1.6mm edge connector and hence needed half the board thickness. I was told that is not the case. These single wiper connectors are meant for flat cables. Not for PCB boards. 0.6mm is what tf_hh used, too, for his keyboard tester.

I also happen to have a 600XL on to see if there is a difference in the keyboard connector. I can confirm that both connectors on the 600XL(the one on the mother board and the small circuit board with the resistors) accept the 0.8 mm thick connectors without an issue. The keyboard connectors on my 800XL has less room for a PCB type connector. I tested the connecting with a 0.6 mm board ( I have a connector from another keyboard project here on the Atari forums for the 130XE) and it does fit. Even with 0.6mm, it was a bit snug. If I use the connectors for this project, I may have some difficulty removing the connector since I would have to pull from the wiring if I solder the wires directly. I was actually thinking of using connector pins with it anyway so I can use a DuPont connector or ribbon cable to connect to it. With the pins, I should be able to remove it more easily. As soon as I get the new batch of connectors, I will do some testing and report back.

 

Interesting question: When connecting the new keyboard to the 600XL, does it matter if one connects to with the resistor PCB or not?

[flemingt]

My 600xl never had a resistor board so I'm unsure.

[+scorpio_ny]

On 6/16/2022 at 2:54 PM, flemingt said:

 

@scorpio_ny a switch plate would be possible using a fabbed PCB, it would increase rigidity though it would require a rethink of the mounting mechanism.

Your PCBs look great, it's the same revision I used. Though now he design is several revs ahead.

Welcome back! Did I miss a more recent PCB design at your GitHub? I was looking at the keyboardsfor a couple of my Atari computes and I saw that they achieved rigidity via either the keyboard sitting on a metal a plate or using metal boards on the top and bottom of the PCB. So I may rethink using switch plate especially since it may need to rework the existing designs.  I have a couple of ideas to try out with as a get more accustomed to using Tinkercad. One interesting thing is that I have noticed that I have three of the keyboard variants in my computer collection. I have a type 1 made by Alps, a type 2 made by AWC (which uses a really thin and brittle PCB!) and the Type 4 which this project used as a temple. It is intriguing that it may be possible to make this a more universal solution just by producing different adapters for each keyboard type to accommodate differences of the keycaps

[flemingt]

Thanks.

 

Yeah, it looks like you have. I'm up to rev D here:

https://github.com/flemingt/project-helena

A plate would be the way to go, but I've no easy way to cut sheet metal so I went with 3DP supports since that's what I'm most familiar with.

Adaptors would increase universality, I think I read another project somewhere that was working on that approach.

[flemingt]

1 hour ago, scorpio_ny said:

Interesting question: When connecting the new keyboard to the 600XL, does it matter if one connects to with the resistor PCB or not?

I was also thinking, if resistors are recommended (or necessary) it wouldn't be too hard to modify the keyboard PCB design to incorporate them.

[+scorpio_ny]

31 minutes ago, flemingt said:

Thanks.

 

Yeah, it looks like you have. I'm up to rev D here:

https://github.com/flemingt/project-helena

A plate would be the way to go, but I've no easy way to cut sheet metal so I went with 3DP supports since that's what I'm most familiar with.

Adaptors would increase universality, I think I read another project somewhere that was working on that approach.

Hey @flemingt,

 

I just went to the site. I usually upload the zip files for processing and all I can find was revision B of the zip file. Was I supposed to get it from the loos files in the directory?

 

[flemingt]

let me check that out...

 

So I deleted the gerbers folder and reuploaded, it may have been a sync issue with my client, but who knows. Can you redownload and see if there's a change on your end?

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by flemingt
clarifications

[+scorpio_ny]

22 minutes ago, flemingt said:

let me check that out...

 

So I deleted the gerbers folder and reuploaded, it may have been a sync issue with my client, but who knows. Can you redownload and see if there's a change on your end?

 

Thanks for checking it out! This is what I see when I go to the gerbers directory: