Soldering and button help

[wooowman93]

first im having allot of trouble doing a keyboard hack i cant solder the damn keyboard things please help?



I have a button and the screw thing wont go on?

[SirPeale]

It takes practice to solder.  If you've never done it before, you do NOT want to start trying with a keyboard hack.

If you have some piece of electronics that doesn't work anymore, practice on that first.

As for the button nut, just keep at it; if you get it crooked you can't thread them properly.

[Ginsu Victim]

If you have any money you could use on a key encoder, buy one instead. Keyboard hacks are outdated to the point of being a last resort.

Buy an Ipac or KeyWiz instead.

[Ed_McCarron]

If its a newer keyboard PC board, with the compression connector strip?  Don't try to solder to it.  You'll need to scrape off the mask and solder directly to the traces.

Unless you just need to decode a few buttons, spring for the purpose built encoder of your choice.  You will be much happier.

[ghettodish]

You can learn how to solder here:

http://www.solder.net/technical/tips.asp

[HaRuMaN]

Don't do a keyboard hack...

You could buy an Ipac, Keywiz, or some other encoder.

Or, if you really want to hack something, use a PC gamepad.  Lots of games accept joystick input, and for those that don't, there is a program called joy-to-key that will take your joystick inputs and convert them to keyboard inputs.

[ghettodish]

Sidewinder gampad hack will save you a lot of headaches. I've done it a few times with gamepads I found for $1.50 each

http://arcadecontrols.com/arcade_staticx.shtml

[shardian]

Your button nut may not be working because it doesn't go with that button. Once upon a time, I had a giant lot of used buttons. There were 4-5 styles of button nuts too. Some of the button nuts were not compatible with certain styles of buttons. Others worked, but I could tell they weren't a true match.

[wooowman93]

Everyone thank you for your help i got it working i used a keyboard and game pad to prevent ghosting

and the nuts went on after ALOT of tries

[u_rebelscum]

and the nuts went on after ALOT of tries

Just for the future, one way to line up the threads on nuts is to put the nut on as if you were going to screw it on, but instead gently and slowly turn it as if you were unscrewing it.  When you feel it "click" or drop, start screwing it on.  This only helps if the problem is lining up the threads, and sometimes there are two clicks per rotation and only one of them is the starting point.

[CrazyKongFan]

I did a keyboard hack, but I'm cheap Got the keyboard at a local surplus store for $1. Haven't had any problems with ghosting that I'm aware of. It was an older Gateway keyboard. I pulled out the encoder, and soldered cat 5 wire to where the ribbon cable went into the board. Ran those to some terminal strips I had on hand, and ran the wires from the joystick and buttons to there. Then I used a volt meter to map out the keys I wanted to use in MAME on the mylar grid under the keys. Didn't take too long, and I find it fun to tinker with stuff like that.

[Jack Burton]

Just for posterity:

- Sony PS1 Dual shock series H controllers can be hacked without soldering.

-  PC controllers can be found on ebay and hacked for less than $5

-  Most older console controllers can be hacked and adapted for parallel or seriel port use.

- People will sell pre-hacked controllers for less than $20

- random keyboard encoder sell on ebay for less than $20 if you're too cheap for a keywiz, I-pac, cthulu, etc.