Author Topic: Dell AT101 Space Saver (Read 84643 times)

eunjea · « **on:** Wed, 14 April 2010, 21:24:19 »

This is what I did sometime ago and this board is still one of my favorite.

messy soldering job. Not accurate but it's (just) work!

another mistake here. The LOGO is gone. :-(

Now with 2 shot keycap from nExT.
And yes, it's not 101 anymore. :-)

I did "poor man's white alps" mod too.

didjamatic · « **Reply #1 on:** Wed, 14 April 2010, 21:33:44 »

Fantastic! I might just have to try that. Well done!

wellington1869 · « **Reply #2 on:** Wed, 14 April 2010, 21:49:21 »

sweet, i've never seen an alps space saver.

ricercar · « **Reply #3 on:** Wed, 14 April 2010, 22:23:13 »

Been considering the Hacksaw PCB Mod with a Cherry brown POS. Glad to see I'm not the only one so daft, glad to see you're successful.

elbowglue · « **Reply #4 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 00:16:51 »

Wow. Inspiring.

If one were to hack off a part of a G80-3000, how do you figure out where to solder connections so the remainder of the keys work? For arguments sake that is.

eunjea · « **Reply #5 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 00:56:00 »

Quote from: elbowglue;172337

Wow. Inspiring.

If one were to hack off a part of a G80-3000, how do you figure out where to solder connections so the remainder of the keys work? For arguments sake that is.

That's why I took the photo of pcb before cut out. :-)

BTW. I have another(at101w) mod still in progress.
Molex connector for LED.

elbowglue · « **Reply #6 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 01:25:01 »

Someone did this with a dome board too - it looks real easy

I am intimidated by the soldering and re-connecting the cut pathways

http://tlb.org/keyboardchop.html

ricercar · « **Reply #7 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 01:30:35 »

Quote from: elbowglue;172337

how do you figure out where to solder connections so the remainder of the keys work?

You eyeball the PC board traces at the cut. You can do this (a) pre-emptively to ensure all connections are made, or (b) reactively if you prefer to be surprised as you type a paper due for class, and/or are hoping the need for jumpers is minimal. A picture of the intact PCB is priceless to either path.

This project would be prohibitively complex if keyboards used multi-layer PCBs (and therefore had invisible connections to cut) Fortunately they don't.

itlnstln · « **Reply #8 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 08:22:44 »

Quote from: wellington1869;172294

sweet, i've never seen an alps space saver.

SIIG Minitouch. If fake ALPS count, Filco Zero. Hey, wait...

didjamatic · « **Reply #9 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 08:37:07 »

I really like the look of this mod, the deep footprint of the bigfoot make this space saver look more squarish and I really like it. I think I might actually go for it. Did you just epoxy the case together?

Minitouch and Ortek ALPS space savers are nice, but this mod has a much better layout.

keyb_gr · « **Reply #10 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 09:59:18 »

Boards like the Dell with the controller chip at the top make for good tenkeyless modding objects. A G80-3000 (old-style case in particular) would be a major mess.

platon · « **Reply #11 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 10:34:36 »

Quote from: ripster;172429

Eyeballing the pics of my ALPS keyboards the SGI makes a poor candidate because of controller placement. The Apple mini uses OLD ALPS that makes switch swaps near impossible. The Focus 2001 is the best candidate but you'd lose the best feature, the dust cover.
Show Image

I might pop this one open someday and look at it again. Void that lifetime warranty. :biggrin1:
Show Image

In the meantime my NeXT keys sit lonely and unloved.

Ripster, if you are seriously considering of cutting that good looking retro-brightened sgi, please, let me make you an offer for it first.

eunjea · « **Reply #12 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 17:26:45 »

Quote from: didjamatic;172399

I really like the look of this mod, the deep footprint of the bigfoot make this space saver look more squarish and I really like it. I think I might actually go for it. Did you just epoxy the case together?

Minitouch and Ortek ALPS space savers are nice, but this mod has a much better layout.

Yes, epoxy the case and car spray paint.

Another mod(s) by kbdmania member.
http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/1224606
http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/111988

elbowglue · « **Reply #13 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 22:28:01 »

You've inspired me to cut the numpad off of one of my compax MX11800's. I've started doing it, I cut the contacts to the numpad with a drill so far and the remainder of the board works with 3 simple solder connections. I suck at soldering so this is sorta iffy, but I will post pictures later. It's really simple actually. I'll post pics later

eunjea · « **Reply #14 on:** Thu, 15 April 2010, 22:59:54 »

Quote from: elbowglue;172632

You've inspired me to cut the numpad off of one of my compax MX11800's. I've started doing it, I cut the contacts to the numpad with a drill so far and the remainder of the board works with 3 simple solder connections. I suck at soldering so this is sorta iffy, but I will post pictures later. It's really simple actually. I'll post pics later

Wow, Can't wait your photo.
BTW, trackball will be still there?

elbowglue · « **Reply #15 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 04:42:51 »

Heres my Compaq MX11800 mod and pictures:

Notes:
There are 3 connections that need to be soldered

1) 2-> 2'
2) 3-> 8
3) 4-> 9

After this you can crack the board where I did and it works fine still.

As we speak I am typing on my tenkeyless Compaq MX11800. It is missing the trackball and the numpad but everything else works 100% fine. At some point I will cut the case, but for now I have done that hard part which is demonstrating it works. This works just fine, you need to make 3 connections. Hopefully my pictures will help you to see the 3 connections you need to make. Soldering is a ***** as I have never done it before, I hope this board dosen't suddenly stop functioning because of my ****ty solder job.

I did not take pictures of taking the case apart / removing the controller board / removing the trackball. You should be able to figure this part out without difficulty.

Whats funnier about this is that now I have completed this mod, my MX11800 has less keyboard flex.

Rajagra · « **Reply #16 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 05:54:31 »

Hmm. I have a stack of those Compaqs, I might cut the numpad off one. I was planning to make a split keyboard from one, but that would take much more time.

kriminal · « **Reply #17 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 10:42:31 »

if it wasnt for the arrow keys you could've made a easy cut of the housing... how are you going to this now, lots of epoxy?

ch_123 · « **Reply #18 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 10:46:31 »

Brown Alps?! What are they?

itlnstln · « **Reply #19 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 10:48:43 »

The ****ty ones.

elbowglue · « **Reply #20 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 11:26:36 »

I haven't thought too carefully about how I am going to saw it - I think essentially I'm going to make a straight cut up and down removing the trackball section..

I can tell you what it's gonna look funny when it's finished but it's gonna be small small small.

I sort of enjoy making things totally ghetto, and I can't see how this is going to end up a polished product.

elbowglue · « **Reply #21 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 18:04:17 »

Behold, I presents to you the Compaq MX 84u

Spacesaving tenkeyless design for your desk space needs, allows for great midline mouse placement.

Measures 13.1 inches across.

platon · « **Reply #22 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 18:12:23 »

i really like it !

ricercar · « **Reply #23 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 19:32:50 »

Well done. Just the incentive to do an "elbowglue tenkeyless" mod to my MX 11900 (Cherry black) this weekend.

elbowglue · « **Reply #24 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 19:52:37 »

Hmmm I'm trying to decide if I'll cut down the upper right edge, or if I'm going to try to shape the cut off end to make an end cap. Or leave it ghetto style like it is so nobody dares to take it.

Most likely I will leave it ghetto style. If I do that I may even cut the left rim off too. Although distance from the midpoint(F-G) of the keyboard to the right edge is more important than distance from F-G to the left edge, since I use the mouse right handed.

ricercar · « **Reply #25 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 19:58:24 »

I was considering a column to the right, essentially in-line with the right arrow

Home
PageUp
PageDn
End

I also require a Delete, but haven't decided where that will go.

elbowglue · « **Reply #26 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 20:02:36 »

Now that would be a really tricky mod. I can't even begin to think how you would do that..

For my next stunt I am going to put extra keys on the top of my ricercar SPOS. You know the top ridge which seems to have an extra piece of plastic on it, you can probably crack that off and solder a whole new row of keys up there. There are empty slots for more MX switches up there, the PCB is already wired for it..

eunjea · « **Reply #27 on:** Fri, 16 April 2010, 21:51:46 »

Nice mod elbowglue.
BTW, double shot keycap from MY-1900?
http://kbdholic.net/xe/kbd/1246
looks familiar. :-)

elbowglue · « **Reply #28 on:** Sat, 17 April 2010, 05:34:48 »

Yep the same keycaps (MY 1900) - I got them about 2 months ago, double shot but very very yellowed.

This keyboard is great. The 13 inch width of it is really nice. I rarely use the navigation keys and insert and delete so it's ok that it's up higher, and it's narrower than a filco tenkeyless, and the arrow keys are useable. I could use a HHKB autohotkey script and have a HHKB lite layout with PCB mounted cherry browns... that would be fun too.

Man this is quite a sweet (if not totally ugly) board. Man this board is so yellowed too, super fugly.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #29 on:** Sun, 18 April 2010, 22:01:08 »

You put the bracket keys in the wrong order: "] [" instead of "[ ]".

eunjea · « **Reply #30 on:** Sun, 18 April 2010, 22:16:17 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;173363

Show Image

You put the bracket keys in the wrong order: "] [" instead of "[ ]".

and NumLock too. ;-)

ricercar · « **Reply #31 on:** Thu, 22 April 2010, 13:51:15 »

This is the plan for my elbowglue mod this weekend.

The column of keys will have to be handled in software. By the PCB traces it will be

NumLock
7
4
1
0

With a big Oh Oh on the double-wide 0. Or maybe ditch the column and fill with Bond-O. You never knO.

didjamatic · « **Reply #32 on:** Thu, 22 April 2010, 13:56:49 »

Quote from: ricercar;174610

This is the plan for my elbowglue mod this weekend.
Show Image

The column of keys will have to be handled in software. By the PCB traces it will be

NumLock
7
4
1
0

With a big Oh Oh on the double-wide 0. Or maybe ditch the column and fill with Bond-O. You never knO.

That's a layout I could live with, be sure to post how it works out.

Rajagra · « **Reply #33 on:** Thu, 22 April 2010, 14:27:23 »

If I was going that far, I'd make the extra effort to hardwire the 5 keys. I suppose it can be done later on though, if you change your mind.

elbowglue · « **Reply #34 on:** Thu, 22 April 2010, 14:31:13 »

Looks interesting.. The trackball housing will not be cut at the low point unless you make the cut have a turn.. I cut mine straight down where the trackball housing rises up.

Nonmouse · « **Reply #35 on:** Thu, 22 April 2010, 14:50:06 »

Why the doubling up on home/end/delete, etc. keys?

ricercar · « **Reply #36 on:** Thu, 22 April 2010, 20:07:03 »

I like to have the page navigation keys available to my right hand with the heel of my right hand planted on the desk, or edge of the keyboard. In other words, I want home/end, pageup/dn on the right-most edge so I can find them in the dark.

(X "_____") · « **Reply #37 on:** Sat, 01 May 2010, 16:56:35 »

Did a spacesaving mod and thought that this thread was as good a place as any to post it. It's effectively just a much lower quality copy of lowpoly's wonderful looking miniguru, sans the trackpoint, programmable layouts, removable cable, nice case etc.

I took a G80-3000, UK layout, noted what cuts connected to where, and removed the alphanumeric part by scoring and snapping the pcb, which worked much better than expected. Then I soldered a few wires onto the board and connected them up to the controller. My soldering is so terrible that I'm quite surprised that everything works, this is the first time I've so much as looked at a soldering iron in about 3 or 4 years.

The case was made out of two halves of a floppy disk drive which holds the pcb in place, and a metal plate from a dell rubber dome that I cut and bent into shape. Very ugly and cheap, but fairly effective, and gives the keyboard a surprising amount of weight and heftiness.

The bottom has one of those non-slip mats attached to it which prevents the keyboard from sliding around even with a pretty significant amount of force applied to the side of it. It's covered in electrical tape to try to cover up the protruding metal bits and make it look a bit better (which it doesn't).

Anyway, to pictures. Sorry about the quality, phone camera.

Dimensions are 29.5x11.0x1.7cm for the base alone, and the key switches+caps add around 2cm to that height. Fits on my netbook nicely and still allows me to use the trackpad, which was half the reason for doing the mod, so I'm pleased. As I wrote before, it's quite heavy for it's size, which gives it a fairly solid feel in spite of the poor build quality. Haven't weighed it yet, might do so tomorrow.

It's also quite a lot quieter than the original keyboard, with less pingy resonance than in the plastic casing of the G80-3000. Key feel is pretty much the same, or at least I can't detect much of a difference.

Anyway, fairly happy overall. Left win key is assigned to Mode_switch, and couples up with hjkl to do arrow keys, and np and bf to do pgdown and pgup and home and end respectively, whilst the right win key (swapped with menu key so it falls under the palm easier) is a normal mod4 key which handles volume and brightness. All of this is done in software with xmodmap and xbindkeys.

ch_123 · « **Reply #38 on:** Sat, 01 May 2010, 17:00:38 »

Nice mod!

(X "_____") · « **Reply #39 on:** Sat, 01 May 2010, 17:10:57 »

Quote from: ripster;177910

Wow, that did come out nice. Can't make a Filco that small because the controller is right above the Arrow cluster (at least on a tenkeyless).

Are they Cherry Blacks?

And Welcome To Geekhack!

Thanks. They're blues, and thankfully the controller in the G80-3000 was completely separate from the main pcb, above the number pad. Because it was above the number pad I ended up needing to use quite a lot of wires to connect everything up, I cut 36 connections on the pcb, and needed something like 25-30 wires to actually get everything working.

elbowglue · « **Reply #40 on:** Sat, 01 May 2010, 17:19:47 »

This my second mod.

By the way, disregard the red wire. Someone had already played with this keyboard before I got to it. it is connecting something that is already connected. (you don't need to do the red wire)

This actually a very fast mod once I have learned how to solder and have done it once or twice.

(X "_____") · « **Reply #41 on:** Sat, 01 May 2010, 17:24:48 »

Quote from: ripster;177922

OOooo... Cherry Blues. Even better.

This mod gets a Geekgirl. She's kinda little because of the electrical tape. Awesome first post though.
Show Image

I feel so honoured :) Might do something about the electrical tape at a later date, but I'm just pleased to have it working for now.

elbowglue · « **Reply #42 on:** Sat, 01 May 2010, 17:54:04 »

Oh by the way ricercar - I have looked at the matrix at more detail. You will most likely be able to make the cut as you had described on your post, without doing *any* solders, and I predict it will work without *any* soldering. You'll still need to remap using autohotkey though.

Can I get a tiny weensy geek girl if this works as I predict?

By the way awesome mod X "____"
It's like a HHKB but with cherry switches. Better IHMO than topre switches.

ricercar · « **Reply #43 on:** Sat, 01 May 2010, 20:50:01 »

Exquisite ambition, ballsy, successful. Kudos.

elbowglue · « **Reply #44 on:** Tue, 04 May 2010, 11:23:43 »

Just a quick update. I put a whole bunch of foamy tape onto the inside of the case of my MX-11800, and onto the parts of the PCB which contact the plastic. This makes a *huge* difference in feel of the MX11800. All of a sudden I have gone from a cheap feeling so-so keyboard with a little bit of PCB flex to an awesome stable PCB mounted cherry brown board of the quality of the ricercar SPOS.

Oh yeah, if you cut the end off your MX 11800, you need to put some thick tape or foam tape into the base so it sits totally level.

For all of you PCB mounted cherry brown fans out there, you need to do this mod. This makes a huge difference in the feel of the board, it is much more solid now, feels great.

If you guys need pics let me know and I'll crack open my keyboard again to take some pics for you guys.

Here is a pic of the tape I used:

It's thick, stretchy and spongy tape. One brand is 3M microfoam.

(X "_____") · « **Reply #45 on:** Tue, 04 May 2010, 11:54:28 »

Roughly how much of that stuff did you use? Is it along the lines of filling the thing up, or coating the casing, or less than that? Sounds like it would be worth doing.

Also, I want to fill pretty much all the free space in the case because there's some flex at the moment under the 90- area if I apply a lot of pressure, and flexing pcbs are something I want to avoid. Any suggestions?

Nonmouse · « **Reply #46 on:** Tue, 04 May 2010, 12:20:04 »

I'm still thinking Great Stuff would work. :madgrin: Maybe I'll try it out on my semi-DOA MX-8100 or one of my MY boards...

(X "_____") · « **Reply #47 on:** Tue, 04 May 2010, 12:27:36 »

Quote from: Nonmouse;178863

I'm still thinking Great Stuff would work. :madgrin: Maybe I'll try it out on my semi-DOA MX-8100 or one of my MY boards...

Yeah, I was thinking along the lines of that. I think I'd probably avoid lead since it's quite a bit of hassle to use, though I wouldn't mind adding some more weight to it either. Haven't weighed it properly yet, but I think it's hovering close to the 1kg mark at the moment.

elbowglue · « **Reply #48 on:** Tue, 04 May 2010, 14:18:57 »

Quote from: (X "_____");178851

Roughly how much of that stuff did you use? Is it along the lines of filling the thing up, or coating the casing, or less than that? Sounds like it would be worth doing.

Also, I want to fill pretty much all the free space in the case because there's some flex at the moment under the 90- area if I apply a lot of pressure, and flexing pcbs are something I want to avoid. Any suggestions?

I took apart the case bottom, PCB, case top. I applied a layer of tape to the case bottom with sticky side down touching the case bottom. Then I applied a small piece of tape adherent to the bottom and the top part of the PCB where the case bottom and top have "teeth" that poke into the PCB. Then I poked a small hole in these latter pieces of tape to allow the screws to get through. Then I tightened the screws pretty tight, then applied some to the very bottom of the case as "feet".

Now I look at this kind of tape on amazon, it looks quite expensive.. Probably a similar sort of tape would suffice, as long is it is foamy.

Having grippy rubberized feet is just as good as having heavy weight in my opinion for a keyboard.

(X "_____") · « **Reply #49 on:** Tue, 04 May 2010, 14:30:37 »

Thanks, that's less than I was thinking. I might get some of that tape at a later date. Fixed the flexing problem by excessive use of bubble wrap and duct tape, now I can't get the keyboard to flex even a little bit under even heavy force, which is good enough for me.

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Author Topic: Dell AT101 Space Saver (Read 84643 times)