DAS revival

[gangaskan]

i'm trying to look at my options here guys


i have a DAS keyboard 2010 model i think, or so.  with the 1.5 pcb version 


basically what happened was i plugged something into the keyboard that what assumed to me was good and well, sparks and the magic smoke was let out of the PCB for the controller. 

i'm weighing my options and i wanted to get opinions from everyone. 


cut my losses, gut the board, and sell the remains or should i try to give it cpr with a teensy or something similar?   mind you, i'm not a complete novice, however, i'm not sure where to start nor what pins go where in terms of the board and the controller. 


i could care less about having USB devices on the board, so if i can use a teensy would be thrilled.        

[xavierblak]

I believe the DAS has a separate control board connected by a ribbon cable. So this would be one of the simpler boards to try and get working with a teensy. But you are still going to have to figure out the matrix and fabricate something to connect the teensy to the ribbon cable.

That could be done with a protoboard some pin headers and some solder. But if that's doable for you all depends on your level of experience.

[gangaskan]

I believe the DAS has a separate control board connected by a ribbon cable. So this would be one of the simpler boards to try and get working with a teensy. But you are still going to have to figure out the matrix and fabricate something to connect the teensy to the ribbon cable.

That could be done with a protoboard some pin headers and some solder. But if that's doable for you all depends on your level of experience.

yes it does, a 26 pin header. 


how would i go about figuring out the matrix? 

[xavierblak]

how would i go about figuring out the matrix?

Well at the most basic level, each key on your keyboard will cause two of those wires to be connected each time you press the key down. So if you have a multi-meter you can set it to continuity and poke around while pressing buttons to see which two are connected (the same could be done with an led and a battery if you don't have a multi-meter). It would be good to look at the pcb traces first so you can get some clues as to which wires connect to which buttons and then you can do from there.

Essentially what you are looking to create is a list of all the buttons and which two wires they connect. See this page as an example of some documented matrix(s). You'd basically be looking to collect the same info for your board that they've documented for some other boards.

[gangaskan]

how would i go about figuring out the matrix?

Well at the most basic level, each key on your keyboard will cause two of those wires to be connected each time you press the key down. So if you have a multi-meter you can set it to continuity and poke around while pressing buttons to see which two are connected (the same could be done with an led and a battery if you don't have a multi-meter). It would be good to look at the pcb traces first so you can get some clues as to which wires connect to which buttons and then you can do from there.

Essentially what you are looking to create is a list of all the buttons and which two wires they connect. See this page as an example of some documented matrix(s). You'd basically be looking to collect the same info for your board that they've documented for some other boards.

awesome, thanks! i will have to start on this when i'm done with college, but i do have a multimeter.   do i check for resistance? 

[Neebio]

how would i go about figuring out the matrix?

Well at the most basic level, each key on your keyboard will cause two of those wires to be connected each time you press the key down. So if you have a multi-meter you can set it to continuity and poke around while pressing buttons to see which two are connected (the same could be done with an led and a battery if you don't have a multi-meter). It would be good to look at the pcb traces first so you can get some clues as to which wires connect to which buttons and then you can do from there.

Essentially what you are looking to create is a list of all the buttons and which two wires they connect. See this page as an example of some documented matrix(s). You'd basically be looking to collect the same info for your board that they've documented for some other boards.

awesome, thanks! i will have to start on this when i'm done with college, but i do have a multimeter.   do i check for resistance?

You'll want to set it to continuity.  (That's the setting that makes the thing beep when you touch the two pokey thingers together)