deskthority

Hello there, I just wanted to share a little weekend project of mine. This is a work in progress, but so far it's been fun.
I have been lucky to find these two: At my local recycling center, for few euros. The kb101a is very yellow, but i've already retrobrighted the keys, and the case is gonna go next, but that's not the focus of this post. The little "Techware" branded board (identical to wyse ascii, and made by the same company i believe Dih Shin CO. Luckily i've found out about soarer's wyseverter thanks to this forum, and that's the first thing i did in this board. It worked very well but the key remapping is a bit tedious, and since i had a blackpill board laying around, i thought why not go for it, especially that this helpful gentleman has already figured out the matrix and very neatly compiled everything for reference for folks like me: https://www.scottpaladin.com/home/2018/ ... -project-n, huge thanks.
I really love how sturdy and brick-like this little board is, and the layout with some tweaks is bearable, however the black cherries, even the smoother vintage ones don't do it for me, as i don't like to type harshly and need some kind of feedback... Sooo, i was on a lookout for a 5v relay that would fit in the case. Regular solenoid wouldn't really fit there. Trouble is most relays with coils rated for such a low voltage are usually "solid state" and they don't make a nice sound at all. Luckily i was spending the weekend at my good friend's place, and his dad is an oldschool electronic expert, and a bit of a hoarder at that, so he was kind to give me this beautiful 6-volt relay, made in poland It does run from 5 volts without a problem, however it had a tendency to stick a bit, which i have solved by bending the contacts a tiny bit, making it move less, now it works flawlessly. Relay is powered by a random transistor we had laying around, there's just a diode between the coil ends and that's about it... i've setup the relay to be toggled on by the "setup" button. I had to experimented with the dwell time setting in qmk a bit, and i keep it at 80 miliseconds. Default setting was too short for this relay to work. Here is a little demo of how it works: There is only a small problem: it's still to thick to fit in the case. about 3-4mm too thick. So, i was thinking, since i don't want to butcher the original case, and the top is a relatively simple piece, shape-wise... How about, a new top case, with a cutout for that beautiful translucent relay to peek through?

I like this project. The video is quite impressive: sounds a lot like clicky keys, even with a humble relay instead of a mighty solenoid. I used to play around with similar relays as a kid (just feed their inverted state back into the input and you have a wild, vibrating buzzer; I was pleased when I worked that one out!) so this brings back memories all right. How did I overlook the cool idea you've got here: relay = clicker.

How much vibration do you feel through the keys? I think the idea of solenoids is to provide Selectric-like audio and tactile feedback. I’ve not used a solenoid on a linear keyboard, however, “just” my beamspring. The whacking certainly shakes things up, but I prefer beamspring’s natural sound and feel so leave it off except for occasional shits and giggles.

Yet for smooth vintage blacks, this sounds much more compelling.

Muirium wrote: ↑

06 Nov 2023, 10:32

I like this project. The video is quite impressive: sounds a lot like clicky keys, even with a humble relay instead of a mighty solenoid. I used to play around with similar relays as a kid (just feed their inverted state back into the input and you have a wild, vibrating buzzer; I was pleased when I worked that one out!) so this brings back memories all right. How did I overlook the cool idea you've got here: relay = clicker.

How much vibration do you feel through the keys? I think the idea of solenoids is to provide Selectric-like audio and tactile feedback. I’ve not used a solenoid on a linear keyboard, however, “just” my beamspring. The whacking certainly shakes things up, but I prefer beamspring’s natural sound and feel so leave it off except for occasional shits and giggles.

Yet for smooth vintage blacks, this sounds much more compelling.

That is a quite big relay, so i would say sound-wise it's comparable with smaller solenoids. I can feel a tiiny bit of tingle from it, but to really have that kind of feedback, you would need a solenoid mounted in such a way it would slam against the switchplate (i was thinking about something like this, but not in this board as space is very limited to execute this.
Major advantage of this relay over a solenoid is that it doesnt require much current to toggle, so i only power it with a transistor switching the 5V. no buck-converter and anything like that is needed

Here is a little typing demo, also i have added a fun feature to the relay it was a tight fit, and some fiddling with very thin wire

A small update, i have prepared the factory cable, soldering usb connector to it, somebody has already cut it before i got the board so i wasn't feeling too bad about doing this. Fits the board much better than generic usb-c cable

work in progress, sheetmetal top for that board. It will be 1,5mm steel. I went with the original wyse design with the little rectangular cutouts at the top, but i extended them over the entire top of the board, and they play nicely with the cutout for the relay, which will be now in vertical position, sticking out to about height of the keycap

test fit of the new top case. I'm surprised it actually does fit like this first try
The F-key cutouts are a bit skewed to one side, but i will fix that. other than that, it's mostly correct the cutouts i designed to match the original design work quite well i think relay is nicely exposed as a showpiece the original cable which i had to make a small cutout for to hold it in place (just a bit misaligned, will fix that)

Oh, magnificent!

Metal is so metal

Muirium wrote: ↑

08 Nov 2023, 21:31

Oh, magnificent!

Metal is so metal

i feel much more comfortable around metals than plastics

Indeed. Making plastics is nasty business, and they’re so damn easy to scratch, snap and melt. I’ve inadvertently done all three while working with keyboards!

So, you’re handy with metal, eh? You could easily find a few firm friends around here.

That's some great sheet metal fab work; nice job! Wyse stuff has always been no-nonsense serious business gear. Full metal case really adds to the industrial aesthetic.

Relay as a clicker is a cool idea! Are you using a flyback diode? If not you should probably add one to prevent frying the transistor.

jsheradin wrote: ↑

09 Nov 2023, 14:55

That's some great sheet metal fab work; nice job! Wyse stuff has always been no-nonsense serious business gear. Full metal case really adds to the industrial aesthetic.

Relay as a clicker is a cool idea! Are you using a flyback diode? If not you should probably add one to prevent frying the transistor.

there is a diode between the coil terminals, just hard to see cause it's vertical. thanks for the tip. I just managed to find one guy who has 10 of those oldschool relays brand new, for good price, so i'm kind of thinking maybe make another board inspired by this, if i already made half of it... i like the layout a lot, with some adjustments it could be a nice board. Also, second try, i managed to fix all the misalignment with the F-keys, made the relay hole a bit smaller, so it fits tighter (this affected the sound greatly), small adjustment to the cable cutout, and i tig-welded all the corners and ground them to match the radius of the bends and the bottom case. Here's the result:

got some trouble with uploading files so sorry for double post
Now the hard part: which colour to paint it?

I'd leave it naked. Bare metal.

Or will it tarnish? Could a clear coating work? Or do you just want a more original beige aesthetic?

Muirium wrote: ↑

09 Nov 2023, 16:02

I'd leave it naked. Bare metal.

Or will it tarnish? Could a clear coating work? Or do you just want a more original beige aesthetic?

it will rust slowly, the palmrest area probably not because it's constantly polished a bit from use
i kinda wanted to get close to the original colour, but now that i think about it, some color that would work nicely with the amber backlight of the relay, and beige keycaps would be nice. Something maybe contrasting a bit

I went for hammerite hammered finish gray. This paint was way too thick for the 1,4mm nozzle that came with my HVLP gun, so i had to dilute it with xylene thinner (nasty stuff) for it to even come out of the gun. The finish would be looking better if i had a proper nozzle and diluted the paint less, i'm gonna buy that and try another time on a new board... But so far i'm quite happy with it!

Still sexeh. You done good. Just love those vents!

Muirium wrote: ↑

22 Nov 2023, 21:27

Still sexeh. You done good. Just love those vents!

Thank you i think it looks very like an industrial grade equipment (this is actually paint designed for painting iron machinery so...)