Hello everyone,
I apologize if I'm asking for help in my first post, but I've been lurking for a while when I was trying to choose which keyboard and switches to buy and figured this would be the best place to ask. Well anyway, I bought an AK33 keyboard off Taobao and a batch of Gateron brown switches planning to swap the Zorro black ones with these; the first time I plugged the keyboard in (untouched with the original switches) it started freaking out and pressing keys at random, I restarted my PC and all keys worked except for one row, so I unplugged the mini usb cable, plugged it back in and everything started working fine for about 3 days.
I know, this probably should've been a red flag and I should've asked for a refund right away, but I just ignored it as it seemed to be just a temporary thing.
Yesterday I decided to get started with the switch swapping business, desoldered all LEDs and switches, then soldered the Gateron brown switches in; the desoldering/soldering was a bit rough but I don't believe I damaged anything on the PCB. Then I plugged the keyboard in to test it and, again, the same row as the first time is now not working, or rather it either types on its own or doesn't do anything at all.
I tried unplugging the USB cable and restarting my PC endless times to no avail. I did some research since at first the keys that were not working seemed kinda random (full row from "caps" to " ' ", but backspace, delete, page down and end were not working either) and thanks to a thread here (
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=85947.msg2306328#msg2306328) I found out that all the keys which are not working are connected to the same row in the matrix. I marked the row which is not working on kk22047235's image:
Here is what I tested so far:
- I thoroughly cleaned the PCB with alcohol to remove any soldering/desoldering traces.
- I checked all the switches for continuity with a multimeter and they are all working properly (i.e. they only actuate when they are actually pressed).
- I checked all the upper contacts of the switches and they are indeed all connected to the other upper contacts in the same (non working) row.
- All the upper contacts of the switches in the non working row are connected to the same pin on the microcontroller.
My next step will probably be testing the diodes (which are those little brown/black things if I'm not mistaken) and desoldering the switches of the non working row (even though I doubt that will have any impact).
Another thing, the LEDs are still not in the keyboard since I'm having issues with the keys, I'm assuming this has nothing to do with the issue though.
As a last resort sacrificing some keys for this row (e.g. the F keys), jumper wiring the switches' contacts and remapping the keys from my OS would work, right? Or would there be any better alternative solution?
I really appreciate any help in troubleshooting and/or determining what is causing the problem!
EDIT: Okay, I did some further testing and I think I might be on to something. All the upper pins in the non working row seem to be directly connected to ground on the mini usb connector while in all the other rows they are connected to ground through (I believe) a diode, since the multimeter shows a value of about .585 when I test those with the continuity/diode check mode and it only works one way. Here is a slightly better picture of the PCB:
All the red dots are directly connected with each other (which I believe it normal, since it happens in all rows), but they are also directly connected to ground (the bigger red dot on the mini usb connector), which doesn't seem normal since it only happens in the keys of the non working row.
