Logitech MX Duo

racerx3165 · 10-20-2005, 09:06 AM

I have an old mx duo and was wondering if anyone knows of anyway to use it. I was personally thinking of using the [ rew-ff / volume +- / and play/pause stop buttons / media / mute ] and it also has a webcam button that i thought would be totally cool to hook-up to the back-up camera. This is a wirelesss keyboard mouse combo and has quite a large reciever because it also servers as the mouse charger. i was wondering if it is possible to just remove thoose buttons and make them into usb or serial or something? Or should i just rip it all apart and try and make them a bit smaller then try and use it that way?

racerx3165 · 10-21-2005, 06:13 AM

well i got it apart and now im wondering if anyone has any ideas of what to do with it

i think if yhis can work im going to make a new armrest and mold the buttons into that, since the carpc will be inside there i was thinking i really dont need the wireless so i was hoping there was a way to hardwire maybe USB or something.

racerx3165 · 10-21-2005, 10:20 PM

Is there anyone out there who knows if i can make this USB or serial? it normally works on 2 aa batteries and is wireless, but the reciever and transmitter are a bit bigger thatn i would like. what are the wires on the USB im sure there are power outputs and signal so it seems like there has to be a way.

Thanks

silverbackman · 03-05-2006, 07:43 PM

Too Cool. I'm planning on doing the same thing, however, I plan to keep the charging base as my carpc main use is for work (invoicing, estimates, job costing) so I'll need the mouse from time to time anyways.
The other way I was thinking of going is to hack up a corded keyboard with the same functions, then no issues with the base.

mushin · 03-05-2006, 09:06 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by racerx3165

Is there anyone out there who knows if i can make this USB or serial? it normally works on 2 aa batteries and is wireless, but the reciever and transmitter are a bit bigger thatn i would like. what are the wires on the USB im sure there are power outputs and signal so it seems like there has to be a way.

Yup. Serial is going to be simpler than USB, and parallel is going to be simpler yet. But the simplest by far is definately going to be to rip the controller out of the keyboard and use it as is. Is there a reason you don't want to do that? It does mean you have to keep the reciever, but you can wire in power directly to eliminate the battery issue.

If you're going to make your own controller, you're going to need logic to interpret the signal (most likely a matrix encoding) and send it to your PC. If you're lucky, you may be able to hook it directly to the parallel port and do everything in software, but it looks like there's more than 8 pins there so chances are that won't work. The simplest way in terms of hardware would be to use a microcontroller (which you can get with built in UART and even USB), though it might not be too bad with discrete logic + a UART or USB IC if you want to avoid programming a micro. In any case, you're also going to have to write/find software on the PC side to interface with your controller.