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geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: joesventek on Wed, 27 May 2015, 14:41:28

Title: TMK firmware on the Poker 2
Post by: joesventek on Wed, 27 May 2015, 14:41:28

tl;dr: I accidently damaged my Pokers PCB and repaired it by hand wiring the switches and putting a teensy inside.

Pics (https://imgur.com/a/Q2d8C#0)

I was never really satisfied with the programmability of my Poker 2. Initially I had hoped that replacing the firmware should be possible somehow. But after some (http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/replacing-a-poker-s-microcontroller-t2659.html) research (https://github.com/erichkeane/poker2firmwarehacking) I quickly realized this was not as easy as I thought and I finally gave up on the task...

...Until a few weeks ago, when I accidently damaged my Pokers PCB. At first I thought I could repair it but thanks to my soldering skills damaged it even more.

So I started putting a teensy in it.

Steps to reproduce:

• Cut all traces connecting the switches from the PCB. I've done this with a box cutter but in hindsight I should've used a dremel.
• Remove a chunk of the PCB right under the spacebar. This is where the Teensy will go.
• Solder the switches to the PCB.
• Now handwire everything. Matrices and stuff.
• Add a teensy and put TMK (https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard) on it.

I kept the PCB because I feel like the combination of the plate and the PCB in the Poker make it feel extremely solid. Also, since the case is attached to the PCB, this made things a lot easier.

To my surprise this actually works quite well. I only wish I had used a dremel to cut the traces on the PCB. Because putting pressure on the box cutter cut traces tends to reconnect them. I had to do a lot of "recutting" and since the traces are on both sides of the PCB this can not only be a real pain but also quite difficult.

Also wiring the original USB port to the Teensy was a real pain.

Title: Re: TMK firmware on the Poker 2
Post by: Spopepro on Wed, 27 May 2015, 16:05:56

Welcome. This is quite the first post!  Nice work.

Any reason you completely redid the wiring rather than use the matrix that was in the PCB?

Title: Re: TMK firmware on the Poker 2
Post by: gosinger on Thu, 28 May 2015, 06:36:00

Great idea, I just purchased a Poker 2 but I'm afraid I'll miss some programability - this might be a simple solution  :thumb:

+1 regarding the question on the PCB matrix, any particular reason?

Title: Re: TMK firmware on the Poker 2
Post by: joesventek on Thu, 28 May 2015, 07:42:08

I redid the wiring because the traces in the PCB are part of what I destroyed accidently. Repairing those and figuring out the original matrix would've been a lot more work than doing my own wiring :-[