Custom Controller from old keyboard

pablo1970 · 02-16-2007, 06:15 AM

I don’t know if anybody has done this before but here’s how I found out to make a custom controller using an old PS2 keyboard.

Firstly take the keyboard apart and remove the PCB inside.
Throw keyboard away as it is now useless.
The keyboard PCB consists of some electronics some LED’s and loads of contacts.
Now if you get a piece of wire and play around shorting these contacts you can get keystrokes. See the attached pics for examples

Then simply wire each of the contacts up to a bank of momentary switches with some common grounds to reduce the amount of wires.

Test by plugging in keyboard and pressing buttons in a document or use a keycode.exe.

Then map your buttons to your software and away you go !

My controller sits snugly under my handbrake and I can feel for the switches,
You can wire as many switches as you like if you have enough patience and I’m pretty sure you could re-wire the whole keyboard.
Find Caps lock, (which isn’t too hard) and you have a mode change button to double up all your buttons.

Jahntassa · 02-16-2007, 07:46 AM

I did something like this to use as a 'sleep' trigger (using the sleep button on a usb keyboard) when I had my AT power system. No soft switch on it, so I used the sleep button. It worked pretty well, though on occasion it would spit out random keypresses.

pablo1970 · 02-16-2007, 09:17 AM

This has been pretty reliable so far, the only thing that is a bit funny is when i press next a few times with the whole playlist loaded it justs keep on skipping through the playlist, this only happens when not in shuffle mode !!!!

Derwood · 02-16-2007, 09:45 AM

I might finally have a use for the small army of old keyboards I've been knicking from work....

DodgeCummins · 02-16-2007, 06:34 PM

I did this a number of years ago...then while homebrewing I shorted 5v to the wrong wire and blew a fuse on my mobo...lucky for me it was (reletively) easy to fix.

Touchscreen is very nice...but I love using my HU to control the mp3 player.

scotty562 · 02-17-2007, 11:09 PM

Is there an easier way to find what the different combinations for the buttons are? Someone somewhere has to have a list O.o .

You've inspired me though

if my laptop had a ps2 port I'd be attempting this as we speak.

pablo1970 · 02-18-2007, 05:14 AM

I have tried this with an AT keyboard and it works, i would guess it will work with a USB keyboard, as for the mapping, i havent had time to work out all of them, although i have mapped enough to see a pattern, i will post what i have found when i find the list i made.

durwood · 02-19-2007, 07:30 AM

You might have random keyboard button presses because the controller might not be able to filter out button debounces with the new buttons. Cool idea though. It might come in handy for my project.

Borisw37 · 02-19-2007, 06:07 PM

Pablo1970,
What software do you use to map keyboard buttons to actions in different software?

pablo1970 · 02-20-2007, 04:11 AM

Borisw37,
I mapped my controller direct to my frontend (RoadRunners keytbl.ini.) The buttons include cursor control so i can navigate the skin buttons.

TornadoTDi · 02-28-2007, 02:33 PM

Why don't you rip apart a USB gamepad with loads of buttons, then do the same trick and map the joystick buttons to keyboard shortcuts with joystick 2 mouse: http://www.imgpresents.com/joy2mse/j2m.htm

moahdib · 03-15-2007, 02:07 AM

http://www.instructables.com/id/ERQH...874LM?ALLSTEPS

USB keyboard hack with very nice pics and instructions =) Yay to hacking.

GoHybrid · 03-19-2007, 06:14 PM

just reading in this thread, i think this is half of the solution i need for using my steering wheel controls. Do you think I could operate the keyboard controller with the digital outputs from a phidget 8/8/8? Can that type of phidget even operate independent of a computer?

I'm not quite sure how that would work. i'm wondering if maybe the digital outputs should trigger a solid state relay instead of trying to operate the keyboard directly from the phidget. any thoughts on this?

RMerritts · 03-22-2007, 08:37 PM

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

Could probly use that somehow, some of us gamers use a program called joytokey to set buttons from joysticks to keyboard functions, also since you can wire up a potentiometer to the board, volume controls would be easier to make.