Author Topic: Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)  (Read 121603 times)

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Offline p.s.

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Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« on: Tue, 13 March 2012, 23:14:52 »
I have started a mod on my mx-11800 a few weeks ago.

STEP 1
Firstly, I have made it into tenkeyless which involving cuting, gluing and soldering.
  [ Guests cannot view attachments ] 44015[/ATTACH]

STEP 2
Secondly, I turned the board from cherry brown switch into light black AKA ghetto red. Some black stem was used.
[ Guests cannot view attachments ] 44016[/ATTACH]


STEP3
After first 2 steps, the board works well with its orginal PS/2 cable.

I encountered the problem at my third step: convert it to USB.

The board originaly came with a long and heavy PS/2 cable with two male end, one for the board and another one for the on board trackball. I cut off the cable and find out that order of the pins (by wikipedia) as follow

Pin 1        white        +DATA
Pin 3        black         GND
Pin 4        green        VCC
Pin 5        yellow       +CLK
Pin 6                        Not connected

[ Guests cannot view attachments ] 44017[/ATTACH]

Also I cut out a USB cable and according to wiki
[ Guests cannot view attachments ] 44018[/ATTACH]

So I conected them as follow

PS/2 end                                                  USB end
BLACK (pin 3 GND)                                     BLACK (pin 4 ground)
GREEN (pin 4 VCC)                                     RED (pin 1 VBUS)
White (pin 1 +DATA)                                  Green (pin 3 Data +)
Yellow (pin 5 +CLK)                                    White (pin 2 Data-)

But now the keyboard does NOT work when I connected it to the computer and the error message is "Malfunctioned usb device not recognized "

I also tried the following and failed:

PS/2 end                                                  USB end
BLACK (pin 3 GND)                                     BLACK (pin 4 ground)
GREEN (pin 4 VCC)                                     RED (pin 1 VBUS)
Yellow (pin 5 +CLK)                                  Green (pin 3 Data +)
White (pin 1 +DATA)                                    White (pin 2 Data-)

Please help me to solve the problem! Many thanks to all of you reading the post or providing suggestions.

EDIT: This site http://technix.free-message-board.com/t49-ps-2-to-usb-wiring-diagram said I can connect them directly. But maybe I just need a converter.

Update 1: I riped out a converter chip from a ps/2 to usb converter and connected as follow:
Keyboard->converter->usb cable->computer

The 3 LEDs on the board flashed a second and my computer detected a USB keyboard but the board can not work.

I can confirm that the wiring order is correct. What should I do now?

Also, if I connect the converter directly to the computer through the USB cable without the keyboard hooked up with the it, my computer can still detect a USB keyboard, which means my computer recognize the converter chip as a keyboard. Am I right?

Update 2: On March 16th, 2012 I tried again to connect the board to computer through a ps/2 cable, it still cant work. Seems the chip is destroied somehow.
my vendor sub-forum for  selling all KBC, KBT, Vortex prodcuts: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=34366.0

Offline symphonic1985

  • Posts: 80
Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« Reply #1 on: Wed, 14 March 2012, 05:37:39 »
I sadly can't help you with the USB problem yet. But I want to do the same thing to my Compaq board so I'll catch up to you eventually. Can you send me a link for the best place to make the cut? How many traces did you need to resolder?

Offline Icarium

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Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« Reply #2 on: Wed, 14 March 2012, 06:23:09 »
You can't just wire up a ps/2 keyboard as usb it needs an active converter.
I had a sig once but it's gone. It used to display an icon of a Kinesis. Just imagine that.

Offline uberben

  • Posts: 62
Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« Reply #3 on: Wed, 14 March 2012, 09:35:00 »
It is my understanding that this can be done with some keyboards, but not all. Some keyboards are designed to work with a passive converter that functions basically the same as your mod, but that requires the keyboard to understand the USB protocol. I do not believe the PS/2 protocol is embedded in the USB protocol.

Offline p.s.

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Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« Reply #4 on: Wed, 14 March 2012, 09:43:59 »
1. You can see the upper case cutting in the picture. For the lower case, I basically cut out the part with the left stand. I can show you the pic later when I get back from work.

2. Only 3 trace required re-soldering. You can search for a post named "AT101W space saver", there are details about the soldering.

Quote from: symphonic1985;545575
I sadly can't help you with the USB problem yet. But I want to do the same thing to my Compaq board so I'll catch up to you eventually. Can you send me a link for the best place to make the cut? How many traces did you need to resolder?
my vendor sub-forum for  selling all KBC, KBT, Vortex prodcuts: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=34366.0

Offline p.s.

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  • Posts: 70
  • Location: Markham, Ontario, Canada
Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« Reply #5 on: Wed, 14 March 2012, 09:45:44 »
Thanks for your helps. Now I am going to try it with a converter.

Quote from: uberben;545676
It is my understanding that this can be done with some keyboards, but not all. Some keyboards are designed to work with a passive converter that functions basically the same as your mod, but that requires the keyboard to understand the USB protocol. I do not believe the PS/2 protocol is embedded in the USB protocol.
Quote from: Icarium;545586
You can't just wire up a ps/2 keyboard as usb it needs an active converter.
my vendor sub-forum for  selling all KBC, KBT, Vortex prodcuts: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=34366.0

Offline p.s.

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  • Posts: 70
  • Location: Markham, Ontario, Canada
Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« Reply #6 on: Thu, 15 March 2012, 06:19:15 »
I riped out a converter chip from a ps/2 to usb converter and connected as follow:
Keyboard->converter->usb cable->computer

The 3 LEDs on the board flashed a second and my computer detected a USB keyboard but the board can not work.

I can confirm that the wiring order is correct. What should I do now?

Also, if I connect the converter directly to the computer through the USB cable without the keyboard hooked up with the it, my computer can still detect a USB keyboard, which means my computer recognize the converter chip as a keyboard. Am I right?
my vendor sub-forum for  selling all KBC, KBT, Vortex prodcuts: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=34366.0

Offline huttala

  • Posts: 63
Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« Reply #7 on: Sun, 15 April 2012, 22:13:18 »
I'm sorry that I can't help you out with your problem.
But I do however have a question about the board and how you made it tenkeyless. Do you have any pics of how you did the cutting and wiring? I got the same board (but ISO) and would love to make it tenkeyless.
Cheers!

Offline robaq

  • Posts: 1
Compaq mx-11800 MOD (help needed)
« Reply #8 on: Thu, 26 April 2012, 16:19:24 »
I recently began modding my MX11800, and it's way easier than it seems to be. I just ripped away the numpad using a knife to cut the PCB, and then breaking it along the cut. After this i just took my soldering iron, manually searched for the traces which were cut off (in my case it were the G and H keys, as well as the arrow cluster) and resoldered them using some random wires which were lying around.