GrassValleyGroup VPE-331 Video Production Editor.

[rm-rf]

hello, a month ago i purchased a weird keyboard off ebay.
grass valley group VPE-331 video production editor.
they normally sell for a ridiculous amount.
but i got lucky and happened to find one for a lot less that the others out there.
it has cherry mx black switches, with a few grey switches for larger keys.
i believe this was made in 1994.
and ultimately a layout that i really want.

i wanted this to be a build log sort of thing, with a tear down before hand.
i plan to use the plate, and the jog wheel maybe.
and shrink the whole layout a bit, even though originally i wanted to use the same layout, i don't think i will.
so, here we go...



and it has double shot key caps. a bit bright though. but still kind of fun.




so, what i wanted to do, was rewire it from the ground up and bring it up to date a little bit.

first step, de-solder all of the switches, and get the plate off for a bit of clean up.



here is the plate, i wish there was an additional key to the right and left of the spacebar.
maybe i can alter it or something, not sure yet.


once i got all of the switches off of the board, i boxed them up for another project.
then i started to look at the pcb, i was thinking that i would use the enabler pcb's for this.
but now that im looking closer at the board, i may just be able to use it instead of the enablers.
because if you look at the lines...
its quite similar to the way you would wire up a custom keyboard from scratch, with a teensy controller.
so, in theory i could reverse engineer this pcb to make it work with teensy?

i might need some help with that.

[dorkvader]

On Mobil so I have to be concise
I recommend you re use the pcb since it already has nkro  I can help with figuring out the matrix.

You can cut a notch in the plate for extra switches near the spacebar. Then drill some holes in the pcb and glue the switch in place. You can wire up individual switch or add them to the matrix.

[rm-rf]

On Mobil so I have to be concise
I recommend you re use the pcb since it already has nkro  I can help with figuring out the matrix.

You can cut a notch in the plate for extra switches near the spacebar. Then drill some holes in the pcb and glue the switch in place. You can wire up individual switch or add them to the matrix.

i would be so happy if you could help me with that!
thank you!

[dorkvader]

OK so you desoldered it, so the rows and columns are very easy to see. PCB is DEF. a keep since it has NKRO

Matrix appears to be 18*5 and is very inefficient (more IO pins but very easy to wire: as you see its a simple PCB layout) This is good because adding spaces for the extra switches is very easy. They can go on the spacebar row and whatever column is nearby. Since it's 18*5 = 23 I think you might have to use a T++ or some shift registers of some sort.I think Soarers supports a mux'd strobe.

If you look at the columns you just have to solder a wire from each to a IO pin on the teensy. For the rows do the same but it has to be downstream of the diode. There's a few good locations for each. For example if you look at the bottom 3 rows they go off to a via, onto the "top" side of the PCB and to a chip that's not soldered. You can solder the wires there if you like. Re-using a hole that's already in use (like a diode) works also. it looks like the rest of the rows (actually all the rows) go out the "top" side of the PCB between the last 2 colums of the tenkey and go up to what looks like a resistor network and then a chip.

switch on teh very top right (with a LED?) appears to be wired separately. There is too much glare to see exactly what's going on there.

Make sure some other keys are wired, like the one above enter. it looks liek its attached but just take a close look and make sure.

Did you have to desolder the voltage regulator to take the PCB off?

OK let me know how you want to proceed and I can help.