deskthority

Hi

My new Model F from modelfkeyboards.com is behaving very strange.
When installing the keys I did as instructed and held the keyboard vertically (spacebar up), but when I plug it in (Windows and Linux) it "goes crazy", typing letters without me touching the keyboard.
It types mostly the characters S, L, 7 and 9, and I've tried reinstalling those keys several times (numpad as well), but the problem is still there.

Also: when I try to actually type something something else than the character I press coms up on the screen.

Is this something I can fix myself or is it a hardware defect?

A few things could cause that.

1) A grounding issue. I had that with an old IBM Model F. Fairly easy to fix.
2) Capacitive sensing thresholds being way off. Is the controller equipped with the auto-calibrating QMK firmware?
3. Something else

Is there any pattern to the keypresses? Some rows/columns represented more than others?

Thanks for the quick reply!

I'm hoping it's 2.

The keyboard was manufactured in May 2020, but I just recently got the keycaps, so I'm not sure what firmware it has.
I installed some Unicomp keycaps last year, but they didn't fit perfectly.
I was hoping that The Model F keycaps, which fit perfectly, would fix this, but sadly no.

It seems it's only characters on row 1 (numbers, 7, 9 etc.) and row 3 (letters S, L, etc).

But: it's hard to update the firmware when I can't control my PC when plugging in this "crazy" keyboard.
Maybe I can plug it in right before running the update?

May 2020 sounds like you could be on the old firmware. That's good news in a sense.

prefab wrote: ↑

09 Mar 2022, 01:49

But: it's hard to update the firmware when I can't control my PC when plugging in this "crazy" keyboard.
Maybe I can plug it in right before running the update?

I'm not sure what operating system you're using, but I think I know how I'd do it.
Open a program that just captures keypresses, like xev in Linux.
Also open the Model F xwhatsit utility, which has a button to send the keyboard into bootloader mode.
Have both xev and the xwhatsit utility visible on the screen when plugging in the keyboard, but make sure xev is the focused window.
Then you can click the "bootloader mode" button with the mouse while xev captures the keypresses. When in bootloader mode, the keyboard can't send keypresses (and you need to be in bootloader mode to flash the firmware anyway).

Alternatively, you can open up the keyboard and send it into bootloader mode by shorting two pins on the controller.

Yes I recommend updating to the new QMK Model F firmware as detailed in the manual on the project web site. Also I suggest that you skim through the recent replies on the main project thread by pandrew and others which detail how to fix various issues depending on what is shown in the Signal Level Monitor screen of the pandrew utility.