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