2018-09-15 (Sa) Emergency Rotary Keyboard EmerKeyB INCOMPLETE

This is the last posting for this project. It was not completed, and has been marked INCOMPLETE. All necessary files have been posted for anyone to get code, board layouts, schematics, and work the rest out for herself, hisself, or themselves. It kills me to leave a project incomplete but the consolation is that this project fell to the wayside to let cooler projects take the spotlight.

Enough background
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The schematics were reviewed to figure out why the encoder and button weren’t responding. When the board was designed, it was done by viewing the pin names from the bottom so the headers were installed backward. This mean the headers would have to be removed and soldered to back. Removing the female headers was done by prying off the plastic case, then desoldering each pin. After each pin was removed, a blast of air cleared the hole of solder.

First step to remove female headers

No female header pins were available, so the male pins from the encoder board were soldered directly to the Beetle board. This would make removing them difficult, but if the board worked, it shouldn’t be necessary. The fit was not good, but all the connections were made.

EmerKeyB soldered to Beetle

After the board was attached, it was tested on an Android phone, but there didn’t seem to be a good connection. It was tested on a PC, and it worked. The computer recognized it as a keyboard but the encoder would only register one direction, and it would not recognize the button presses. All it was able to do in this state was change a single letter sequentially through the programmed string.

Testing encoder

The poor fit between the board and the Beetle was due to incorrect spacing between the holes of each board. A second revision will have to be made where the holes align correctly otherwise the pins will need to be bent, or there will be a large gap between the boards. They could be attached with flexible wire but there is no need to add that kind of effort to the building process.

Measuring pin spacing on Beetle

Project Page

The rest of the posts for this project have been arranged by date

First time here?

Completed projects from year 1
Completed projects from year 2
Completed projects from year 3
Completed projects from year 4
Completed projects from year 5

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2018-03-03

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