M0110A overhaul

[Drecker]

I have followed lowpoly's guide for this keyboards overhaul up to the new PCB. i had a broken arctosa laying about so i decided to connect the new wiring to that board and simply use the razer application to remap everthing. After discovering just how badly i solder i would appreciate some conceptual help to connect the two. Also my roomates managed to loose the space bar balancing rod thingy. I would appreciate a picture and, if your feeling technical, some measurements so i might fabricate one. Thanks!

[dorkvader]

It's going to be tough. I don't want to say "give up" though.

Few things:
1. you need to know the matrix layout of the razer. open a spleadsheet program and cross all the rows to all the columns to see which switch places are "active" and therefore remappable.
2. with this information, build a matrix for the apple KB that does not include a switch at any of the unused locations of the razer.
3. Solder it up according to lowpoly's guide. Diodes are not required since the controller is 2KRO. Just use wire.
4. solder the rows and columns to the controller. Fortunately there are solder points on the PCB for the pins of that connector or test points or something. I recommend desoldering that area and "replacing" the solder with better 63/37 lead solder to make the soldering wires to it easier.

As to the spacebar, if no-one has one handy, you can measure it yourself. The length is enough to be between the inserts on the spacebar, I'm not sure about the width but you can probably tell from how it fits together. I recommend making it "too long" and cutting off excess until it fits, You can make your own with a wire bender.

OK hope this helps! Let me know any further questions or concerns about this mod so I know what specifically I can write about.

[Findecanor]

If you go by your original idea and just wire the keys up to a matrix that is simple and then try to remap it, then you might end up with a matrix with keys on positions that the Arctosa might not support ... and you will most probably get problems with rollover on common key combinations.
That is because a 2KRO matrix usually have lots of holes in them to avoid ghost keys - that have be be blocked.

Soldering-wise, it would be easier to do what lowpoly did and use a Teensy 2.0 and wire your own matrix with diodes. That could also give you more features and n-key rollover. There are several firmware available for it. You could look at Soarer's firmware: it doesn't require knowledge of C programming: you define the matrix and layout in a configuration file.

Yet another option would be to not modify the keyboard at all but to make a Teensy 2.0 into an adapter using Hasu's firmware.