Wey banking keyboard

[redeye]

Hi all, I just purchased a wey banking keyboard from ebay and i was just wondering if anyone has any experience with them? I dont have the module that enables the lcd and other functions just the board it-self. I've done some searches but there is very little info about the devices.

any help would be appreciated.

[IvanIvanovich]

Basically, you will be looking at harvesting it for parts. The KVM module it needs to function is hard to find and very expensive. As far as I know no one has been successful at reverse engineering to make it work without it either.

[Photekq]

You paid £80 + £15 postage. If you want to get it back then open the board up, desolder all the switches and take all the caps off. Sell the switches and sell the caps. If you spend the time to do this you should make your £95 back with a little extra. Like lysol said it can't be used so unless you want to use it as a paperweight or as a decoration it's pretty much useless.

[kishy]

It would be a waste of an awesome keyboard to part it out. If it were me, I'd hang onto it as-is until someone figures out how to interface with it (unless of course you wish to take a stab at figuring out how it speaks to its host system).

There are hobbyists in this community (perhaps less than there used to be?) who may feel interested in attempting to make it work, but would not be inclined to pay for one themselves...so loaning it to someone with the know-how to adapt it might be a viable option.

[Luke]

I was looking at the same one as well I think

They do look awesome , but if you are going to part it out I would definitely be interested in some of the windowed keys

[redeye]

Thanks for the info guys. Ok Luke I will keep that in mind

[IvanIvanovich]

I had one, and of course wished to make it work... though I am far from one of the genius guys that knows about things. But from what I remembered it was nothing much like other keyboard PCB I have seen. It was complicated and had lots and lots of extra chips, more than some old motherboards do! The traces for the switches were pretty convoluted too, broken into several sections of 12 if I recall.
It would probably be more feasible to have someone design a new PCB that would fit inside the casebody with the same physical layout.

[rootwyrm]

I had one, and of course wished to make it work... though I am far from one of the genius guys that knows about things. But from what I remembered it was nothing much like other keyboard PCB I have seen. It was complicated and had lots and lots of extra chips, more than some old motherboards do! The traces for the switches were pretty convoluted too, broken into several sections of 12 if I recall.
It would probably be more feasible to have someone design a new PCB that would fit inside the casebody with the same physical layout.

Is it this one?
http://www.weytec.com/en/products/wey-keyboards/mk06/highlights/

Chances are it's not quite as complex as it seems. What you're looking at is a KVM+System-in-a-keyboard rather than a keyboard-with-a-KVM. So a lot of the silicon involved is most likely not keyboard related but rather system/KVM/display related. The soft programmable keys make it a real problem, but the base keyboard can probably be tapped (sans F-keys.)

[IvanIvanovich]

No I had an older model without the fancy color lcd screens. I think it was an EK series.

[rootwyrm]

No I had an older model without the fancy color lcd screens. I think it was an EK series.

I'd love to have one of these and a lot of time to take it apart.. though honestly I could probably convince them to at least provide some sort of documentation WRT the interface/host side. Screw the Logitech G15/G19 - full color LCDs in front of me with MX Greens? Yes please.

[IvanIvanovich]

Even though I am pretty friendly with my GMK rep now, they still are not too ready to dish out info on some things they make like this or the SkiData board. Understandable I suppose.

[rootwyrm]

Even though I am pretty friendly with my GMK rep now, they still are not too ready to dish out info on some things they make like this or the SkiData board. Understandable I suppose.

Well, as I said, interface/host side. I can exert a bit of leverage there for legitimate need (herro, I do on occasion write device drivers!) but yeah, the internals and certain aspects - more specifically, charging to develop the software - are probably far more profitable than the keyboards themselves.