deskthority

digital_matthew wrote: ↑Hey there. I recently bought a Focus 2001 from a recycling center. I was using it on my computer via a Soarer's Converter. It was working fine, but sometimes it would take a while to power up. While using it one day I could no longer type and a string of ds (ddddddddddddddddd) came up, and then it died, no lock lights or anything. The converter is fine, as I still use it with my Model F. I'm suspecting the cable, but I'm no expert on these things. Is there a reasonably easy fix for this? Or should I scrap it? I'd rather not throw it out as I like the white Alps switches, and the key caps are great. Not to mention that snazzy dust cover. Thanks!

digital_matthew wrote: ↑Thank you for the replies. I'll re-watch your video on maintaining Alps switches and seeing if that's the problem. If not I may check the caps, but I don't have any diagnostic equipment (or know-how for that matter). I may just change them all.

digital_matthew wrote: ↑Hey so I've decided to try to open this thing and repair it. The trouble is I don't know how to open it. I see those plastic clamps on the back, but I even though I can move them I don't see a way to do it simultaneously. Also are those the only fasteners? Or are there more underneath the rubber feet on the front? Thanks for your help.

Chyros wrote: ↑The lock lights look like they're all on. That's indicative of an error of some kind. I'm sure there are people here that know more about it .

digital_matthew wrote: ↑Thanks, Polecat! I was able to wrest the top of the case off, and it was way more difficult than it was meant to be. Anyway I found some kind of (spider?) nest under the Tab key which I quickly swabbed out. Thankfully it was abandoned, and the rest of the interior is really clean. So I plugged it in to see what's what, and all the lock lights work; I can turn them off with their respective keys. However none of the keys register. I'm thinking it's a capacitor, but I'm not sure which ones to replace. I attached a pic. Thanks for looking!

digital_matthew wrote: ↑snip

The blue capacitor upper right would be the one to replace, and any others that look like it. But first have you checked that the AT/XT switch is in the correct position? Also try moving that switch back and forth a few times--the contacts can oxidize with age and fiddling with the switch will sometimes get things working.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑if nothing else, the keycaps look to be in excellent condition!

digital_matthew wrote: ↑UPDATE! I know you've all been waiting with baited breath, so here's the conclusion. Okay so I cleaned off the gunk, but that didn't really help, weirdly. So I went ahead and replaced the electrolytic capacitor. And voila! I'm typing away on my Focus 2001. It works pretty well, but the lock lights take a long time to warm up, and F7 doesn't work. I guess that I'll have to replace the switch. Maybe with a blue Alps so I at least have one to play with. Since I use that key pretty much never it will not be on my immediate to-do list. I'm a true blue IBM mech fan, but I can see why people appreciate these switches. Now I just have to find me a pristine blue Alps board at an affordable price. Yeah right. Well thanks for the help, everyone!

Polecat wrote: ↑

digital_matthew wrote: ↑UPDATE! I know you've all been waiting with baited breath, so here's the conclusion. Okay so I cleaned off the gunk, but that didn't really help, weirdly. So I went ahead and replaced the electrolytic capacitor. And voila! I'm typing away on my Focus 2001. It works pretty well, but the lock lights take a long time to warm up, and F7 doesn't work. I guess that I'll have to replace the switch. Maybe with a blue Alps so I at least have one to play with. Since I use that key pretty much never it will not be on my immediate to-do list. I'm a true blue IBM mech fan, but I can see why people appreciate these switches. Now I just have to find me a pristine blue Alps board at an affordable price. Yeah right. Well thanks for the help, everyone!

Well that's good news, but the LEDs being slow to "warm up" is still troubling. Is the polarity of the cap correct? If not it will let you know before long. (...an electrolytic cap connected backwards is electrically similar to a bad one...)

• Flicking the AT/XT switch multiple times, as suggested before

• Enable wakeup by PS2 kb in BIOS

• unplugging and replugging after booting

• Spamming locklight-keys in startup-mode, then rebooting (only when issues already occured)

TNT wrote: ↑

27 Aug 2020, 12:46

I know this thread is ancient and kinda dead, but I was wondering what ever happened to this situation with the FK 2001 because I have the same problems you had and maybe you fixed it.

When I forst got my 2002 it worked with no issues for about 3 days. Then, after an evening of extensive use it suddenly gave up on me and I immediately replaced the electrolytic capacitor. It worked almost fine after that. Almost, because I have the same lock-light-problems you experience. On startup they work fine, but as soon as Windows actually boots, sometimes it hangs itself up.

Either all of the locklights light up and stay on no matter what, or all of them turn off and wont turn on no matter what. Even when it does work, sometimes the NumLock Light turns on or off on it's own when I log into my account

After some unplugging and rebooting and so on I've even had the situation where the lights don't turn on or off but the keyboard does work. When I reboot in this state the keyboard will work normal afterwards.

I've noticed that this problem seems to occur on rebooting after the board has been used for an extended period of time (g.e. PC was turned on for 6 h and the board was used for 4 h without shutdown).

Solutions I've tried so far and which kinda worked:

• Flicking the AT/XT switch multiple times, as suggested before

• Enable wakeup by PS2 kb in BIOS

• unplugging and replugging after booting

• Spamming locklight-keys in startup-mode, then rebooting (only when issues already occured)

Call me crazy, but the last one seems to fix the problem most of the time (warmup much?) If you spam it a couple of times, all three lights will begin to flicker, supposedly the board detects a defect of some sort. After a first reboot, I get the "no lights but board works" situation. Simply one more reboot and everything works. But if I can avoid it, I don't touch the board while the PC boots.


Has anyone ever tried to replace the AT/XT-switch? The BIOS thing sounds weird, but it seemed to be more reliable after that...

The weirdest thing is, when I changed the capacitor (again, so for the second time, because I suspected the first replacement to be causing the problems) and booted, there was a weird and quite loud popping sound coming straight from the cap. WTF

I more and more get the impression, that the electronics on this board were done shoddily, as it seems to be tradition with Focus...
Hell, using this board on a modern PC seems like starting an old car with a crank handle

I've ordered a PS2 to USB converter just to test wether my PS2 port is the culprit here, since the board works perfectly normal and with no issues when I'm using it with my Soarer's converter...

Regarding the weird "spidernest" you found beneath your tab key: I have that too and I think it's some kind of adhesive component rather than smudge. It seemed to be somehow connected to the outer layers of the PCB and was quite resilient, so I basically just left it in there. Didn't like the tearing sounds it made when I tried to remove it.

gipetto wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 17:15

I wouldn't bother replacing ic's i'd just fit in a teensy 2.0++ and have all the modern features.

Scarpia wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 19:35

You can wire the matrix directly to the Teensy, the old controller is not needed at all. It’s really not too difficult, I did it when I had no experience soldering at all.

gipetto wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 23:45

> I know that you can map out an entire matrix, then wire it directly to a different controller, but that looks like it's a real pain to do.
it's as painful as you make it for yourself. some refuse to cut pcb traces in order to keep the pcb original , but if you don't mind then you can have a standard handwiring circuit by having all the rows horizontal and the cols vertical.

TNT wrote: ↑

28 Aug 2020, 11:47

Thanks for the advice!

I've checked all my solder joints and electronic components when I first got the board and they all looked ok to me. My cheap old multimeter cannot measure capacitance unfortunately, therefore I have no "professional" way to test the caps, but at least visually they all seemed fine to me back then and still do now. I was originally planning to replace all the simpler components but settled down with just the one electrolytic cap. I figured it would be kind of a waste of material since those ceramic caps rarely go bad with just age.

I guess one kinda gets the impression after reading my post that the board is unusable in its state. Thing is, the issues I described don't even occur that often. Yeah sure, it's annoying when it happens but it's not too bad. Most of the time it just works (that's a good company motto, I'm going to trademark that) and I guess I'll have to use the board some more to get used to it. Maybe I'll have to replace everything on there on the long run tho... Any chance of getting replacement components for those two IC's (if necessary that is)?

However, one more issue I immediately noticed is, that the sliders of my keyswitches are not blue, but a white-ish color. That's really annoying and I notice it everytime I touch the board. How do I fix that?

Willy4876 wrote: ↑

29 Aug 2020, 05:11

Assuming that your board is the same as the pic posted earlier in the thread the two ICs are the controller and a chip which has 6 flip flops (the SN74LS174N). The 74LS174 is a generic part and readily available. As for the controller you would likely have to do as others in this thread mentioned and replace it with something like a Teensy.