Subj : Re: Homebrew pi400 To : Daniel From : Theo Date : Fri Nov 22 2024 10:02:55 Daniel wrote: > This past summer was a good time to lower the power bill and overall > temperature of the den by transitioning to rpi's for my computing > needs. The main pc was replaced by a pi400. Lovely, silent, low > power. Lovely. > > Well, mostly so. I really don't like the keyboard and question why they > went with it. The full sized keyboard is something I miss, you know, > with the full row of function keys, dedicated number pad, full sized > arrows, the pageup.down,insert,delete cluster. The keys themselves suck > - where they often fail to register key presses and I have to fix > spelling quite often. I had hoped that the keys would wear in and solve > the problem, but it really just seems to be bad design. Hopes are it's > simply bad luck and a bad keyboard. > > The problem is easy to solve by plugging in a usb keyboard, but it > defeats the appeal and purpose of the all-in-one design. > > How hard would it be to rig the mobo into a full size keyboard shell? > Design a new lower shell of a chosen keyboard to accomodate the mobo and > port holes for 3d printing. A search online didn't yield evidence that > it has been done yet. But if this thing with it's massive heat sync can > fit in this small keyboard, it shouldn't have issues fitting in full > sized keybord. https://forum.diyperks.com/user-projects/raspberry-pi-400-x-mechanical-keyboard/ https://www.printables.com/model/318803-raspberry-pi-400-mechanical-keyboard-upgrade https://hackaday.io/project/175844-the-mechanical-pi-400 https://www.tomshardware.com/news/orthopi-raspberry-pi-400-ortholinear-mod are a few examples I found by searching 'rpi 400 mechanical keyboard'. There are no doubt others. > Found a teardown video and saw a custom ribbon cable utilized to connect > the keyboard to the mobo - so that's a complication. After a bit of > searching, they utilized one of the four usb ports in the hub for the > keyboard logic. The keyboard has a Holtek HT45R0072 (one time programmed) microcontroller to convert the matrix to USB. Your options are either to repurpose this microcontroller, at which point you need to match the keyboard matrix of the Pi400 (hard): https://www.40percent.club/2020/12/orthopi.html or just ignore it and use a USB port. Another alternative is to cut the traces to the Holtek (or unsolder it) and use its USB lines: https://www.40percent.club/2020/11/raspberry-pi-400-keyboard-controller.html Theo --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3) .