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Author Topic: Transplant A500 keyb to an A2000 ?  (Read 4094 times)

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Offline Jope

Re: Transplant A500 keyb to an A2000 ?
« on: May 08, 2010, 08:30:06 PM »
Yes, only minor modifications needed.

Have fun replacing all the metal springs with rubber cup springs.
 

Offline Jope

Re: Transplant A500 keyb to an A2000 ?
« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2010, 08:55:54 PM »
What has gluing got to do with this?

If your A500 keyboard is still intact (ie, no-one's broken the plastic in any keycaps or stems), the keycaps just snap on to the stems. It's not difficult to replace the springs with rubber cups, just tedious.

And if you don't care either way, don't even replace the springs. It makes no difference to the functionality of the keyboard. :-)
 

Offline Jope

Re: Transplant A500 keyb to an A2000 ?
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2010, 09:16:13 AM »
Quote from: Nostalgiac;557223
sounds better - migth be just me who was confused :)  my A2000 keyb has rubber cups.  The break was the caps breaking in two... top part + a small part staying stuck in the stems. The gluing problem I had/have is to get the caps back on without messing up the cups or any other bits (I have big fingers... so slightly clumsy)

Yep, as you noticed, using glue to repair these is an excercise in futility.. No amount of finger dexterity will help here. :-)

If you end up having to remove a keycap and want to be able to attach it again, it must be pulled directly upwards from the keyboard.. No twisting, no bending. The plastic stem in the middle can't handle much abuse.

Reassembly is just fitting the rubber cup or metal spring to the keyboard base and snapping the keycap back into the white or black stem that's in the keyboard mechanism.

Quote from: ral-clan;557237
I seem to remember a few years ago I looked into this and there are text files on Aminet or elsewhere explaining the differences you need to take into account with the connectors.

Best forget electricity and focus on swapping the black plastic that holds the mechanism instead.

One thing I didn't mention before is, that the keyboards must both have the same shape return key and left shift. Else the contacts won't line up.

Quote from: gertsy;557267
I've removed broken key stems before by drilling into the centre of the stem (no more than 2 mm) with a fine drill bit, 1mm, in a low speed rechargable drill, and then screwing a fine screw into the hole.

Or just take a small jeweller's screwdriver (phillips head), insert it from beneath and push the piece of plastic out.

Naturally you need to dismantle the keyboard for this, but in my experience, this is much less frustration in the long run.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2010, 09:21:58 AM by Jope »
 

Offline Jope

Re: Transplant A500 keyb to an A2000 ?
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2010, 06:49:25 PM »
The biggest differences here are that the A500 keys are shiny and the A2000 keys are matte. Also the metal spring vs. rubber cup difference is quite evident.

Make sure to keep the keycap and plastic plunger as a pair when swapping them. If the plunger was black, the keycap won't fit in a white plunger. The keyboard base will take any colour plunger, but the key caps will not sit flush if you have the wrong combination.
 

Offline Jope

Re: Transplant A500 keyb to an A2000 ?
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2010, 07:52:15 AM »
Quote from: MelbourneBen;557463
I was also thinking of using a PC keyboard but I understand a converter is required as the signals are different? does anyone know if its possible to easily make a converter?


Either buy one (Lyra) or build one (http://aminet.net/docs/hard/ATkeyboard.lha)