Using a generic RJ-11 foot switch with a Kinesis Advantage

[incrediblemath]

(Apologies in advance for the cross-post, but it looks like most of the Kinesis folks with foot switches hang out in this forum. If there is a mod I can contact to have threads moved instead of re-posted in the future, let me know)

I've been reading through a number of the Kinesis Contoured/Advantage threads here... quite the amazing resource!

So, long story short, I've been using a standard Advantage USB for over 6 years, best investment I've ever made. However, now that I'm learning how to program, I am pinky-reaching a lot more often for the Shift key and various symbols/brackets. I've already mapped some of them to the thumb keys, but I'd really like to get a foot switch for Shift, as well as easy access to the second logical keyboard layer.

I've seen a few posts here and elsewhere about people using run-of-the-mill RJ-11 foot switches, which are significantly cheaper than the triple-action Kinesis model (I'd rather save the money and put it toward that mysterious cherry/LF Advantage model). However, I've seen some examples where rewiring is required to get these 3rd-party switches to work. I don't want to accidentally break my trusty (and expensive) 6-year old keyboard, so I wanted to consult the knowledgeable hackers here first to get an idea of what might work or what might not.

The Dictaphone IN-765 and its generic equivalents seem to be the most widely-available option. Is this model wired so that I can just hook it into the RJ-11 port of the Kinesis and be off to the races, or will some rewiring be required?

Thanks for any insight you can provide!

[kps]

I remember seeing your previous post. I suspect no one here knows the pinout of a Dictaphone switch.

[incrediblemath]

Ah OK, thanks. I suppose then it would be a matter of taking it apart to see how it's wired on the inside? Or is there some tool I can grab at Radio Shack that will show which line gets activated by which switch?

[kps]

If you already have a switch, it's probably easiest to open it and see. It's unlikely to be the same by chance, though, so you should expect to have to rewire it.

[erw]

No need to take it apart -- I just used a multimeter to test my Kinesis FS007RJ11 (using continuity mode - it simply beeps when there's a connection between the two probes). The pedal connects the two middle pins. I suspect the triple pedal connects 1&2, 3&4, 5&6.

[sordna]

Ah OK, thanks. I suppose then it would be a matter of taking it apart to see how it's wired on the inside? Or is there some tool I can grab at Radio Shack that will show which line gets activated by which switch?

You need a continuity tester, or any simple multimeter, there's probably ones under $10 (you would use the resistance or Ohm measurement of a multimeter). Anyway, it's unlikely that a 3rd party switch will work as is. Most probably you will need to cut the end of the connector of the switch, and crimp on an RJ jack with the proper wire ordering for the Kinesis keyboard.

The good thing is, under no circumstances will you need to rewire or do anything destructive to the keyboard itself.

Another thing you can do (which I did for one of my footswitches) is get a cheap $2 female-to-female phone RJ adapter, open it up, and rewire which pins on one side of it go to what pins on the other side. This way you don't even have to modify the switch cable end. The adapter will go between the keyboard and the switch, since usually both will have male RJ jacks.

Here's the info you need, it comes up if you google for kinesis pinout:

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 37282[/ATTACH]

[Input Nirvana]

I've done this this with a RJ-11 female/female adapter. $2 and 2 minutes just swap wires.

I felt like such a hero too.

[incrediblemath]

Hi all... finally getting some time to think about this again.

First, thanks again to everyone for the tips and resources... they've been most helpful.

So, after looking at the generic foot switches out there and hearing some not-so-good reviews about the longevity of the official Kinesis pedals, I'm thinking about building my own set of switches. Essentially, it'll just be some toe-activated arcade buttons in a small platform that houses a breadboard with an RJ-11 port. I figure that this way I'll be able to place the buttons in positions that make ergonomic sense for my particular setup.

I used the the pinout information from earlier in the thread to do a mockup of how the breadboard would be wired. This is new territory for me, but it seems like a simple (and fun) enough thing to try, so I wanted to pass this by the more experienced folks here to see if I am missing out on some fundamental electronics concepts with how everything is wired.

[sordna]

I would revise the image since they use black (RJ11 pin 2) for common, red (RJ11 pin 3) for FS1, green (RJ11 pin 4) for FS2/keypad, yellow (RJ11 pin 5) for FS3.

[incrediblemath]

[strike]Ah, so black (pin 2) is common now? I was going off of the information from the picture you attached, but it looked like a old webpage anyway... I guess they've updated the pinout since then? My Advantage is a refurb from 2005 (serial 504xxx) if that makes any difference.[/strike] (disregard, see next post)

Also, thanks for mentioning which pin correlates to the keypad switch... I plan to make extensive use of the second layer .

Aside from updating the pin arrangement, the circuit makes sense, correct?

[sordna]

I deleted my post, sorry for the confusion. I was mistakenly going off the wire color inside the keyboard instead of in the RJ11 connector. On the connector, green (pin 4) is the common.

[incrediblemath]

Cool cool. Would pin 2 (black) be the special one that activates the keypad shift, then? I know a Kinesis single pedal defaults to keypad shift, but it's the second pedal on the triple-pedal model (at least according to the manual). I guess I can always rewire things in the coupler as needed though.

I'm going to order the breadboard and other parts this evening. Provided I end up with something worth sharing, I'll be sure to post a pic of the results.

[sordna]

Actually I think it's the red wire, pin 3, so pin 3+4 together (the middle pins) activate the keypad. The simple Kinesis footswitch  only has the middle 2 pins (3+4) wired, pretty much like a phone. You can try it with a little wire or diode to confirm.

[kps]

I'm going to order the breadboard and other parts this evening. Provided I end up with something worth sharing, I'll be sure to post a pic of the results.

You don't really need a breadboard. Just pick up a male-to-female phone extension cord at your local dollar store, cut the male end off, and connect the ends to your switches.

[incrediblemath]

You don't really need a breadboard. Just pick up a male-to-female phone extension cord at your local dollar store, cut the male end off, and connect the ends to your switches.

Excellent... I didn't even think of that! While a breadboard and clamps (for the buttons) might make future modifications easier, I think I'll save a few bucks and some hassle upfront just wiring everything directly.

Just to be clear, I'd link the common wire to the buttons like so?

[kps]

Yeah. Don't trust that the cord has the standard colours, though; I've seen ones that don't. Just touch the ends together before you wire up the switches to verify which is which. You won't hurt anything by touching two switch lines together; just nothing will happen.

[incrediblemath]

OK, time for a quick update:

- After testing the RJ-11 pigtail from my kinesis with a multimeter, it appears that Red is the common wire, at least on my unit. Red+Yellow activates the keypad shift, Red+Black activates a regular shift, and Red+Green seems to activate the keypad shift as well (but only sometimes; otherwise it doesn't appear to do anything). Any other combination fails to register a voltage or activate a modifier.

- I also did the same testing as above when I had the RJ-11 coupler attached and got the same successful results.

- However, after attaching the 14' RJ-11 cable that connects the foot switch to the coupler, no circuit was detected at the far end, regardless of which pins I activate. I assumed the cable was too long for the signal to propagate, so I cut it down to ~6' when I actually did the wiring of the foot switch. Alas, it still doesn't work.

- I tried wiring up just one button with the green and red wires, to test the possibility that Green could be the common wire after all: No go.

- I tried bridging the two plugs of the  button with the multimeter: Still no signal.

My current thought is to find some lower-gauge (or better insulated) wire to carry the signal from the keyboard to the foot switch. I guess I could try cutting down the length of the current wire further as well.

Any thoughts?

[sordna]

maybe your cable is just bad? i would try a different cable. You tested at the coupler, so up to there everything is fine. Next I would connect a cable to the coupler, with the other end of the cable stripped, so you can try the various combinations and verify they work.

[incrediblemath]

maybe your cable is just bad? i would try a different cable. You tested at the coupler, so up to there everything is fine. Next I would connect a cable to the coupler, with the other end of the cable stripped, so you can try the various combinations and verify they work.

I've tested the cable itself with the circuit tester feature of my multimeter and all 4 lines are good. Once I cut down the cable to 6', I tested the stripped end of the cable with the other end hooked into the coupler/kinesis, but it couldn't detect a circuit via any combination of colors. My guess is that the keyboard puts out a weaker signal than the circuit tester function of the multimeter.

Would it be possible to use 4 of the 8 strands from an ethernet cable, and wire them up to the keyboard end of the coupler? I've noticed that the copper in an ethernet cable is 24 AWG, compared to 26 AWG for the phone cable coming out of the keyboard.

[sordna]

I use a 6ft cable without issue. Anyway, you can try thicker wires, sure, but I'm wondering if there's a bad connector, or a short somewhere in your setup.
Make sure you try a couple of different cables, including a really short one, as part of your troubleshooting.

[Input Nirvana]

My first choice would be a poor connection, almost always an issue. As far as the gauge of the wire being a problem, it's possible but unlikely, so it's very last on the list. The current is virtually nothing, it's like static, that's why the wire gauge is so small. I use ethernet wire (24 AWG) and phone wire (26 AWG) all the time for keyboard stuff, which is way overkill. 30 AWG would suffice.

[incrediblemath]

Success!

I used some RJ-45/ethernet wire instead of RJ-13 and everything works fine now (the phone wire I was using didn't even carry a signal when cut down to a few inches, so something must have been up).

As promised, a few pics. I ended up using a clamp to hold the open end of an RJ-13 coupler to the RJ-45 cable:
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 50048[/ATTACH] [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 50049[/ATTACH] [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 50050[/ATTACH]

The left button is Shift, the middle button is Esc, and the right button activates the Keypad Shift. Here's what my keypad layer key assignment looks like:

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 50051[/ATTACH]

The blue keys are the resting home row fingers, and are placed so that I minimize movement to outer keys. I also moved the F-keys that I often use to the number row.

I've been using this setup for a few weeks. Still have to get used to memorizing some of the new key placements, but even just being able to delegate the Shift key to my foot has made a big ergonomic difference so far.

Thanks again to everyone here for helping me out!

[dorkvader]

Great work, incrediblemath. I especially like the use of the hose clamp: that's ingenuity. I think using ethernet wire might be the best option regardless, as it's pretty easy to find.