Help!! Ergodox Thumb Keys Aren't Working!

[wuqe]

Glad to hear it! Thanks for reporting back; I was worried.

[daerid]

At this point it sounds like either a faulty teensy or defective PCB. If you've replaced pretty much every other component in question, I don't see what else it could be, aside from a cold solder joint somewhere.

[AKmalamute]

At this point it sounds like either a faulty teensy or defective PCB. If you've replaced pretty much every other component in question, I don't see what else it could be, aside from a cold solder joint somewhere.

Cold solder joints shouldn't fix themselves by trying harder.

Probably some sort of bad PCB where the wires that facilitate the intermal pullup resistor go. Maybe.

It's working, no need to fix it. Hopefully.

I've got my teensy soldered onto my board, and it has problems ... switch 3:_x_ doesn't register in aquakeys ... so, reflow whichever pin that is, right? Well, I broke my solder iron preparing to do that. So, can't fix anything just yet. :-(

[clickclack123]

At this point it sounds like either a faulty teensy or defective PCB. If you've replaced pretty much every other component in question, I don't see what else it could be, aside from a cold solder joint somewhere.

Cold solder joints shouldn't fix themselves by trying harder.

Probably some sort of bad PCB where the wires that facilitate the intermal pullup resistor go. Maybe.

It's working, no need to fix it. Hopefully.

I've got my teensy soldered onto my board, and it has problems ... switch 3:_x_ doesn't register in aquakeys ... so, reflow whichever pin that is, right? Well, I broke my solder iron preparing to do that. So, can't fix anything just yet. :-(

As I understand it, the internal pullup resistors are activated by setting software registers, not by anything in external hardware. That's why the whole thing is really extra weird. Also I don't think it can be the teensy because everything on the teensy side works perfectly. I'd think it has to be some kind of semiconductor problem because it is fixed with the jumpstarting. Jumpstarting it wouldn't fix a short for a period of time.

I'm getting an oscilloscope very soon, so one of my first projects will be to have a look at what's going on on that thumb row pin of the IO Expander. Perhaps that may shed some light on the issue. I might even disconnect my magic resistor  to look at it without my kludge fix.

Re: your problem, one thing that I'd want to make 100% sure of before starting with the soldering is that I haven't messed up the layout somehow, making the key not do anything. For example setting that key to be some kind of layer switch, transparent, or even "NO". After that I'd try shorting out those pins on the Teensy or IO Expander manually, just to check that it can work.

[clickclack123]

(Attachment Link)

I added a 10kΩ between pin 8 of the IO Expander and the 5V pin from the unused USB port on the left hand.

I have no idea why my Ergodox needs this resistor, the mcp23018 is meant to have a built-in pullup resistor. Remember this is the second IO Expander that I've put in there, both had the same problem. Maybe my tmk firmware is disabling the pullup on that column for some crazy reason?? Actually it was doing the same thing with the configurator fw as well.

The best thing I've done in terms of dealing with the thumbs not working was to set up a layer that has the left thumbs deactivated that is actually activated by one of the thumb keys. I made it light the led on the Teensy when it switches to that layer, so I know immediately if the thumbs have a seizure, when the seizure is over, and an added bonus is that it no longer crashes my Win7 machine because the thumbs are no longer sending lots of keystrokes to the pc.

Thought I'd give another update, if only for my own memory of what's happening. I was getting annoyed with having to use one of the thumbkeys just to tell when it's having a siezure, so I started thinking... Well I realized that there is an unused spot on the matrix "row" that connects to the thumbkeys. In the matrix debug, it is here:



Cyan is the key that is not connected, red is the left-hand thumbkeys that are connected. (edit: oops, the red box is one spot too long)

So after a bit of research, I discovered that I had to edit the "matrix.c" file to tell it that there was a key connected to that spot.



So after editing that, and adding the extra key to every layout, I was able to activate my "invisikey" to switch the layout, and I can now use all the keys on my Ergodox again!

In the process of all this investigation of the board, I realized that I'd done something very stupid! My magic resistor was connected to the wrong pin! It was connected to the row next to the thumbkeys! So I did a bit of testing and ended up putting a 2.2kOhm magic resistor, this time to the correct spot! Anyway, it has been working perfectly all night tonight, so my fingers are once again crossed that this thing will finally be fixed!

[wuqe]

That is a very crafty response to the issue you've been having; I'm impressed by your software equivalent of baling wire. Thanks for sharing.

[clickclack123]

That is a very crafty response to the issue you've been having; I'm impressed by your software equivalent of baling wire. Thanks for sharing.

Haha yes, with the magic resistor and now the invisible key firmware, it has become a fairly unique keyboard...     As if an Ergodox using dvorak with a Plover layout as well wasn't unique enough!

I feel that I have a better understanding of how the Ergodox hardware and TMK firmware works than when I started though, so that's good.

A large part of the reason that I decided on an Ergodox was so I could play around with Plover for stenography, and that doesn't work when the thumbkeys don't work. 

Also, when I'm typing normally, the left thumbs are for Delete and Backspace. I was getting sick and tired of having to use shift-leftarrow to select the last letter, then type over it instead of having a backspace key like everyone else!! 

I'll just be stoked if it all stays working now.

[clickclack123]

OK, so although it did seem better, it was still freaking out every now and then which was annoying me a lot because I'm trying to do more stenography with Plover and I need those thumbkeys to work...

And, I now officially have the weirdest keyboard around...

Two days ago, I installed a MOSFET (basically a transistor - an electrically-controlled switch) which is controlled by the pin that controls left led 1 from the MCP23018, so when my invisible key is "pressed", it will auto-jumpstart itself by lighting the led, and shorting that line to 5V.





I had to do a bit of research to learn how MOSFET's worked, but they're exactly what I needed for this to work. Originally I was planning to use a relay but wanted to have a solution that has no moving parts, lol!

Also the fact that it's about the size of a grain of rice is good as well.



The mosfet that I used was 18c (I had to buy a minimum of 10 though, which really raised the budget). So far it seems to be working perfectly. I'll give it a more permanent, nicer looking installation once I'm sure everything is good. I've got it set to put a message out to hid_listen when it switches layers and auto-jumpstarts itself, and of course it hasn't had a siezure in the two days since I did the install, but I'm confident it will work.