Oh, and nice keycaps:

Wow, those are some thick double shots there!

Seems like complicated black alps

runeazn wrote:Seems like complicated black alps

In your dreams.

runeazn wrote:Seems like complicated black alps

Rofl!

Honeywell Micro Switch... Could they be Hall Effect switches?

Seems like complicated black alps

Is that your professional opinion?

What's interesting, if you look at the circuit board (which is single layer).

Each switch has 4 solder points. 1 pin looks like a drive, 1 looks like a ground (as these two, the thick lines, are interconnected between switches, and finally get a pin each). The other solder points have their own pins.

I do have a controller for this, but it's not for anything close to standard... I'd probably have more luck hacking together my own controller.

If I'm not so sick tomorrow, I'll drop into work to use the lab so I can get some more info.

can you make a pic showing the connector for the ribbon cable please? im wondering if it is the same as on an industrial numpad pcb I found the other day.

Like this?



The cable is made by 3M, the connectors are made by duPont. Looks sorta IDE/SCSI, but too lazy to count pins atm.

I have seen the exact same keycaps somewhere before, I just can't recall where.

A search with the part number alone returns a list of aeroplane parts.
http://www.wbparts.com/item1/page.cfm/6453

When you search again on that site with the part number, it shows that the item in question is a switch. I don't know if that helps much anyway, but at least we know now that these may have been on old aeroplane flight management computers.

And the plot thickens...

If you look closely at the top view of the switches, one row is oriented differently (doesn't change how you put the keycaps on). Initially, I had disregarded this to stupidity of the engineers.

But on closer inspection of the PCB, I found more solder joints on that particular row (4, 8, 12, 16). One of them is an extra ground/drive (haven't determined which yet), and the other, dunno.


Thanks, Julle, I was getting some Aerospace stuff on my searches as well.

Since I actually have 2 of these boards , I think it's time to desolder, and take apart some switches.

NEWS FLASH

These are confirmed Hall Effect Switches.

Pics, when I can figure out how to get the switch fully apart.

Awesome! How do they feel? The linear hall-effect ones I tried were absolutely awesome. Then again, some others that some people tried apparently were terrible.

If I remember correctly, MX Blacks (old ones) are your favourite switch. You'd like these.

They feel, just a bit lighter than MX Blacks, but smooth, holy shit smooth. No lubrication whatsoever.
From my testing, I could probably even set these up as pressure sensors, if I get a controller good enough (the current one doesn't even use all of the switches...).

Pics





Depressed:


Pressed (you can see part of the magnet in this picture):





Hall Effect Sensor:



Controller:






I tried to take the switch more apart but I couldn't find a way to get it apart (very well built), and there wasn't really a need, as the sensor just pulls out. And there's just the casing, slider, spring, and magnet left.

Bug: In Chromium (Linux Google Chrome), I keep getting page crashes, if I use the image tag button in the full editor and then press enter after inserting an image...

I get the same bug, I was thinking it was just random and not related to this site. I suppose not.

sixty wrote:I have seen the exact same keycaps somewhere before, I just can't recall where.

Early LISP boards had the same keycaps I believe.

As for the switch... I've searched, and searched... nothing. Honeywell's site shows the part number on the sticker is valid, and lists it as a sensor, but labels it inactive.

Perhaps a call, or email, to someone at Honeywell, would be more informative?

Bingo. It did look familiar.

I like how there's always a cute cat in your pictures (or at least parts of a cat).

The cats fake an interest in keyboards, just waiting for the right opportunity to take over the boxes.

Thanks for pointing that out. Now I finally know where I had seen the switch before. Also yeah, that cat is awesome. Whats its name?

Currently I'm stupid busy with work, but yeah, I can get into touch with Honeywell. I'm still trying to verifying the exact kind of output I should be expecting from the sensors.

Based upon the controller chip specs, the Vcc Bias across the switches is ideally 5 V. On switch actuation, I get an 8 mV potential difference from ground on one of the detection pins.
Now this difference slowly increases from around 0 mV when depressed, so it should be able to do pressure sensing.

I've gotten some colleagues interested (I work for a hardware engineering firm), so I'll be able to figure out some way to get a decent signal from this thing.


Interesting webwit, what kind of switches are in the symbolic? Probably linear, but do you know how they actuate?

They are linear, but I don't know how they actuate, you deconstructed it more than I have. There is of course this.

Cat's name is Shota.

webwit wrote:They are linear, but I don't know how they actuate, you deconstructed it more than I have. There is of course this.

Cat's name is Shota.

I hope that you will one day convert one of these to work with a modern PC. You have all the materials you need!

those keycaps would survive a nuclear holocaust.

Oh, my local library has these, they wont let me buy the board off of them though D:
nice keycaps btw

sixty wrote:

webwit wrote:They are linear, but I don't know how they actuate, you deconstructed it more than I have. There is of course this.

Cat's name is Shota.

I hope that you will one day convert one of these to work with a modern PC. You have all the materials you need!

Tried to convert it, but the cat refuses to interface.

webwit wrote:

sixty wrote:

webwit wrote:Cat's name is Shota.

I hope that you will one day convert one of these to work with a modern PC. You have all the materials you need!

Tried to convert it, but the cat refuses to interface.

Dude, you need one of these!

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that.

oh man those key caps are build like a tank somehow i wish filco made theirs something like that

webwit wrote:The cats fake an interest in keyboards, just waiting for the right opportunity to take over the boxes.

boxcat.jpg

Wow, what a really cute cat!